Nadege Beausson-Diagne Movies

One of cinema's greatest provocateurs, Jean-Luc Godard, presents another barbed but thoughtful meditation on culture, politics and cinema in this experimental drama. Shot using high-definition video equipment and a consumer-grade cell phone, with the crisp images of the former playing off the grain and distortion of the latter, Film Socialisme is divided into three segments. The first takes place on a luxury liner cruising the Mediterranean, as tourists from different lands attempt to communicate in their different languages. In the second, a French family calls a private tribunal, as the children challenge their parents on the issues of Liberty, Equality, and Fraternity while the media watches from outside. And, finally, Godard and his crew visit six different places -- Barcelona, Egypt, Naples, Odessa, Palestine, and "Hellas" (the latter could be Greece or France) -- as he confronts issues of truth versus myth and where the global community is headed. While Film Socialisme features dialogue in a number of different languages, the English-language subtitles which appear in the film deliberately confuse matters by being made up of statements which bear no relation to what is being said onscreen, and usually have a provocative political undercurrent. Film Socialisme received its world premiere at the 2010 Cannes Film Festival; to the displeasure of some distributors, it was made available though Video on Demand the day after its debut screening. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi

With a conceit that suggests a contemporary, female-centered reprise of Melvin Van Peebles's offbeat Watermelon Man, the satirical fantasy Agathe Clery stars French comedienne Valerie Lemercier as the title character, a severely bigoted, obnoxious cosmetics employee. The lily-white Agathe particularly loathes blacks, which makes it that much more ironic when, on the eve of the launch of her new line of beauty products for fair complexions ("Scandinavia"), her own skin suddenly takes on a much darker tone - making her the object of scorn, derision and prejudice for dozens of others around her and effectively giving her a taste of her own medicine. The experience quickly strong-arms Agathe into a reconsideration of her warped values and standards, but also robs the downtrodden woman of her job and prized beau. ~ Nathan Southern, Rovi