With December’s DVDs exploding mainstream — from Terminator mayhem to museum monkey business — cinephiles need intelligent counter-programming. No problem! Two excellent foreign films debuted this week to tantalize those with more refined tastes.
One is French: Anne Fontaine’s effervescent sexual thriller, The Girl from Monaco (La Fille de Monaco). It spins on a sensational break-out performance from a seductive blond, Louise Bourgoin.
As the title character, she makes an emotional mess out of a neurotic French lawyer, who is played with addled charm by Fabrice Luchini.
The other is Danish: Christian Madsen’s brilliantly orchestrated WWII thriller, Flame & Citron. It boasts two Oscar-worthy performances from Mads Mikkelsen and Thure Lindhardt. They play Danish resistance fighters who revel in killing Nazi collaborators, but soon find themselves sucked into moral quicksand.
If you want upbeat, go French.
As a film experience, The Girl from Monaco is as giddy, gorgeous and sexy as Bourgoin herself. Fontaine skilfully plays with genre conventions — Luchini is mired in a high-profile murder case — but she delights in mucking about with personal lives.
On DVD, The Girl from Monaco plays in French, with optional subtitles. Key extras are French-only. I understand why Fontaine’s commentary must be, but it seems silly not to offer subtitles on Bourgoin’s interview. Or she could have done an English version (I remember her handling the language at the Toronto filmfest).
Meanwhile, if you want downbeat, go Danish. Flame & Citron is not just a thriller, it is poetic in its approach to this ugly chapter in the war.
On DVD, the film plays in Danish and German, with optional subtitles. There is also a French dub. Alas, there are no extras. An historical reference on the real Holger Dankse resistance movement would have been useful.
