London Flm Festival: Copcabana Review

This would be the second Isabelle Huppert film I have seen at the London Film Festival thus far and Copacabana is a far superior film to the disappointing Special Treatment . Babou (Huppert) is an initially very annoying Frenchwoman who has flitted from place to place in her life, enjoyed her travels and perceived rebellion against bourgeois society, yet failed to put down roots and now finds herself unemployed. She has a daughter, Esme (played by Huppert’s real life daughter Lolita Chammah), who is much more strait-laced than her mother and is marrying a boring executive. The final straw comes when Esme tells her mother not to attend her wedding, partly to save her from paying for any of it but mostly because Esme is embarrassed by her. Distraught, Babou finds work as selling time share apartments on the Belgian coast, where she starts to rebuild her life.

Babou soon begins to compel rather than irritate and Huppert’s performance is laudable. Though the film is a little on the long side as the plot meanders its way towards conclusion, it was genuinely heart warming and even cathartic to see Babou find limited success in her new role, in spite of competition and jealousy from her unfriendly colleagues. Babou finds the time to adopt a homeless couple, which provides an interesting parallel to her daughter and her partner – would Babou really prefer her own child to be destitute rather than bourgeois?

The film is not flawless and two instances are somewhat unbelievable – firstly her driving three hundred kilometres in a single evening to France and back to repair her daughter and son in law’s relationship behind the scenes and the clumsy deus ex machina that ends Babou’s problems. However, the film is an unpretentious and enjoyable light comedy that will provide relief from some of the festival’s more heavy-going films – and I mean that in the most complimentary way possible.

London Flm Festival: Special Treatment and Hands Up Reviews

Special Treatment (Sans Queue Ni Tête)
In this French ‘comedy’, Jeanne Labrune directs Isabelle Huppert as a high class prostitute who crosses paths with psychoanalyst Bouli Lanners. Both are seeking redemption and attempt to help each other out in their professional capacities.

The film provided no laughs whatsoever – what it tried to pass off as funny was generally grotesque and what it tried to pass off as wit was slight. The characters were unlikable and unsympathetic. Beyond its initial hypothesis – that prostitution and psychiatry share more than a little common ground, which is made clear within ten minutes then repeated for the film’s duration – the film has little more to say, other than ‘prostitution isn’t fun’, a conclusion I had already reached on my own.

The film struggled to maintain my attention and went down several unnecessary tangents. I was bored rigid. Nil points.

Hands Up (Les Mains en L’air)
In present day France, undocumented immigrant children and their families live with the fear of deportation at any minute and without warning. Eleven year old Chechen Milana is one such alien and, after the abduction of one of her classmates, is taken in by her best friend’s family for her protection.

The film is narrated by an adult Milana many years in the future, but aside from the elegant opening soliloquy, this interesting device is not implemented effectively. No matter; the film is nevertheless an excellent and enthralling political drama that also proves to be a poignant paean to childhood, growing up and lost innocence.

The child cast are truly brilliant and Valeria Bruni-Tedeschi excels as the valiant, progressive mother who takes in Milana. Highly recommended.