Film
Movie theaters, reviews and showtimes in Chicago, plus articles, trailers and more
- Home
- Box Office
- Listings
- Trailers
- Features
Bookmark this page- Edition:
Ma Vraie Vie à Rouen (2002)
Director: Olivier Ducastel, Jacques Martineau
Movie review
From Time Out Film Guide
The video diary is possibly the easiest form of DIY film-making, but it's a demanding format to fake - or watch. Asking actors to pretend to be 'unnatural' in front of the camera smacks of bad faith. Ascaride, familiar from her films with Robert Guédiguian, is sent into paroxysms of giggles as Caroline, whenever teenage son Etienne (Tavares) turns on his new camera, and it rings very false. In one sense, this is a very naked style: Ma Vraie Vie may be a fake, but edited in camera, in effect, it can't hide its fakery behind the artifice of conventional cinema, behind mise-en-scène, music or montage. The story sneaks in while you're drifting. Etienne is 16, an ice skater and a virgin. This will be 'the year of love', he tells his best friend. Meanwhile, his voyeuristic hobby is becoming an obsession, much to the irritation of those around him. It's a film about gazing: about why we film what we film; what we yearn to express but cannot put into words. The longer you give the movie, the better it works - but you do have to meet it more than halfway. At the very least, it's another adventurous departure for Ducastel and Martineau, whose first film was a musical about AIDS, and whose second was the road movie Drôle de Félix.Author: TCh
Cast & crew
Director: Olivier Ducastel, Jacques Martineau
Producer: Nicolas Blanc
Cast: Ariane Ascaride, Jonathan Zaccaœ, Hélène Surgère, Lucas Bonnifait, Frédéric Gorny, Jimmy Tavares, Nicolas Pontois, Frédéric Sendon full cast
Duration: 105 mins
Features
Gray's anatomy
James Gray wants to push buttons—again.
The next big thing?
Gigantic Releasing tries to rethink indie distribution…without movie theaters.
Red Diva: Lyubov Orlova, First Lady of Soviet Cinema
So you think you can dance, comrade?
Puppet master
Coraline director Henry Selick takes stop-motion animation into 3-D.
Socratic method
Laurent Cantet's approach on the set matches the message of his film.
Wander woman
Kelly Reichardt's Wendy and Lucy puts a Bush-era spin on the road movie.
Oscars
Read our interviews with the nominees, our reviews of the nominated films and more.
What do you think?
Post your review now