Capital Celluloid 2012 - Day 289: Tue Oct 16

In The House (Ozon, 2012): Odeon West End 2, 3pm

This film also screens at Odeon West End 2 2 on Oct 14 at 3.15pm and at Cine Lumiere on Oct 21 at 6.30pm. Details here. 

56th LONDON FILM FESTIVAL (10-21 October 2012) DAY 7 
Every day (from October 10 to October 21) I will be selecting the London Film Festival choices you have a chance to get tickets for and the movies you are unlikely to see in London very soon unless you go to see them at the Festival. Here is the LFF's main website for the general information you need. Don't worry if some of the recommended films are sold out by the time you read this as there are always some tickets on offer which go on sale 30 minutes before each screening. Here is the information you need to get those standby tickets

If, like me, you are a fan of director Francoise Ozon's work you will be ensuring you catch his latest movie, which has, as yet, no British release scheduled.

Time Out review:

'The prolific François Ozon follows unabashed crowdpleaser ‘Potiche’ with a social satire that’s no less fun, but delivers rather more substance in its sardonic portraiture and pointed self-awareness.

Germain (the ever-waspish Fabrice Luchini) is an old-fashioned teacher at a trendy secondary school who discovers a renewed purpose in the intriguing prose delivered by student Claude (effortlessly poised newcomer Ernst Umhauer). 

This mischievous outsider turns his fascination with a classmate’s seemingly ideal bourgeois household – and in particular Emmanuelle Seigner’s yummy maman – into a series of weekly writing exercises. Germain seizes upon the pages, but what does his eagerness to sharpen up the writing tell us about his own stalled creativity, his petty prejudices, and even his arid marriage to art gallery manager Jeanne (an impeccable Kristin Scott Thomas)?

Adapting a play by Juan Mayorga, Ozon treats Claude’s serial misadventures as a sort of suave Buñuelian soap opera, yet while we see the interloper’s increasingly daring incursions play out, we’re also treated to teacher’s ‘improved’ versions of events, and it’s soon a real tease distinguishing fact from fiction…if any of it’s ‘fact’ at all.

There’s fun to be had from the pomposity and pretensions of Luchini and Scott-Thomas, yet the surrounding frolics also hint at the hidden agendas behind the stories which fascinate us, and indeed how those stories play up to a distanced, even unhealthy curiosity about the lives of others. Plenty to ponder then, but you can also simply enjoy its gossipy fizz. A witty, naughty, insight-packed provocation which never takes it seriousness too seriously. '

Trevor Johnston

Here is the trailer.

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