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FRANCE
Director: Bruno Dumont Cast: Léa Seydoux, Blanche Gardin, Benjamin Biolay, Emanuele Arioli, Juliane Köhler, Gaëtan Amiel, Jawd Zemmar, Marc Bettinelli, Lucile Roche, Noura Benbahlouli, Abdellah Chahouat MPAA
Rating: Running Time: 2:13 Release Date: 12/10/21 (limited) |
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Review by Mark Dujsik | December 9, 2021 France de Meurs (Léa Seydoux) is more a television star than a journalist, even though the latter is her official title. She's the main character in France, writer/director Bruno Dumont's broad and punch-pulling satire about the sad state of the news media. It's a confused piece of critique, which wants us to be both dismayed at and sympathetic toward the ethically challenged but internally tormented protagonist. This approach, at least, gives Seydoux a lot with which to work. Her performance, as a woman who knows something about herself and her life and her career is wrong but can't quite determine what that issue actually is, maintains a grounded sense of this character—even as it becomes clearer that Dumont isn't entirely certain what he wants to say or do with her. Basically, the story follows France in her regular routine—participating in and stealing the spotlight at a presidential press conference, presenting her own stories and debates on air, shooting those stories (in a war zone for the most part here) with some dishonest tactics and a lot of footage of herself. Everyone knows and mostly loves her for her work, but at home, she has a distant relationship with her husband Fred (Benjamin Biolay) and son Joseph (Gaëtan Amiel). Distracted on the phone while driving, France hits a man named Baptiste (Jawad Zemmar), resulting in a personal and professional crisis of uncertainty. When she quits on air and tries to find some peace at a remote clinic, there's no fulfillment in any of that, either. Some scandals erupt. France believes the emptiness of her new life has to do with her absence from work. A lot changes, as France is stalked by another ethically questionable journalist and the relationship with Fred goes from stalemate to arguments, but fundamentally, nothing changes about how France does her job, how people ignore or forget the questions they might have her techniques, and how she feels about her life in general. Dumont makes some pointed, if patently obvious, observations about the state of the news media, especially when it comes to the perception of certain journalists as celebrities and the way that false sense of worth creates a cycle of continued corruption. It's a sad state of affairs for France, the country, and beyond, but France becomes too caught up in the sadness of France, the character. Copyright © 2021 by Mark Dujsik. All rights reserved. |
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