François Ozon is an extremely funny, clever and smart French filmmaker who can expertly blend seriousness with humor. Here he crafts a novel situation that would make Agatha Christie herself proud; can you profit from a crime you didn’t commit? What happens when the real perpetrator shows up and becomes jealous of the fame she gained from her crime? It constantly spirals with humor and deft execution, never shying away from seriousness when required – Ozon; ever a prolific director – is able to expertly balance the demands of craft and environment.
Everything went well in the summer of 1985 Proving that Ozon can do comedy as well as serious stuff – and his queer remake of Petra Van Kant, Peter von Kantshows he has his finger on the pulse of Ozon’s work as a filmmaker. Adapted from the 1934 French stage comedy by Georges Berr and Louis Verneuil, Ozon features a cast that only includes Carole Lombard and Betty Hoops Betty Hutton. Here we follow Nadia Tereskiewicz, an aspiring star actress unable to make it in her life, who is paired up with equally aspiring lawyer Pauline (Rebecca Malfoy). De) lives in an apartment with rent arrears; as eccentric as Peter von Kant’s characters. After returning home from a meeting with a wealthy film producer, Pauline hatches a plan to make Nadia famous; claiming she is dead but it was a self-defense killing against a disgusting rapist. Both the jury and the prosecutor were men, but their odds of success were slim. This is France in 1935, after all.
The confidence Ozon can show His crime is mine It feels necessary to demonstrate the current state of Hollywood and the #MeToo movement, much like it did in France in the 1930s. It’s disappointed because it needs to be French – and it’s very French, look how they run A few years ago it dealt with similar themes in a faux-Agatha Christie setting and did it in a very British, campy way. midsummer murders about it. It feels like a French counterpart; one naturally assumes what French movies are about. It revels in its charm, the chemistry between its protagonists Treskiwicz and Mader, and the meta-narrative in which Isabelle Harbert plays a French veteran. The period romp feels just the right amount of extravagant and appropriately chameleon-like, able to expertly shift tone between serious and comedic events – such is the nature of Ozon’s whimsical approach.
It may not be an adventure, but crime is mine It feels like a cult of the pre-war jazz era; Ozon is playing in his sandbox with the comfort zone of a very skilled director; Frenchman Steven Soderbergh. Its feminist approach doesn’t feel as revolutionary as it should. I’m interested to see what Coralie Fargeat can do with this script, as she showed a bolder, more provocative and daring attitude in “Material” which covered similar themes. It almost feels a little quaint, with Ozon showing his love for old Hollywood and having Manuel Dacos bring a richness to a bygone era.
