Female Film Critics 24/375
It feels like a precious gift, the latest film from French director Alice Winocour, a delicately constructed journey through trauma and recovery that cuts like a knife and soothes like a hug, somehow, miraculously, managing both bundles of feeling at the same time.
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Starring Virginie Efira as Mia, a Parisian woman who survives a deadly terrorist attack in a crowded bistro, Alice Winocour’s haunting drama Revoir Paris explores the lingering impact of devastating trauma. As Mia struggles to remember the details of what happened to her and the other victims that fateful night, she must come to terms with the fact that her life now has distinct “before” and “after” portions — and decide what that means for her future.
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Alice Winocour’s beautifully rendered Revoir Paris is a compelling drama centering on Mia (Virginie Efira), a woman who is trying to process a calamity and recover from the trauma of having witnessed and survived a terrorist attack in a popular — hence crowded– Paris bistro. The film is a fascinating study of grief that focuses on how to recover from trauma and move on. Director Alice Winocour, who co-wrote the script, and the wonderful Virginie Efire, who plays Mia, do a brilliant job of engaging viewers in timely contemplation about the shattering consequences of terrorism — on those who survive.
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Alice Winocour is entirely grounded in all senses of the word: the mundanity of the rigor of the astronaut training is on the same par with the tedium of the sexism Sarah faces, especially from Mike Shannon (Matt Dillon), the American commander of the international mission. But just because it’s all routine doesn’t mean it’s not engrossing in its own quiet way.
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Alice Winocour’s drama Proxima may be about a woman who’s getting ready to head to space, but it’s the very earthly ties that bind us to this planet — and to each other — that are at the heart of this thoughtful film. Starring Eva Green as French astronaut Sarah Loreau, Proxima explores the intersection of professional ambition and motherhood in a way that will ring true for anyone who’s ever had to balance personal and professional demands.
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Eva Green gives an absolutely stellar performance in Alice Winocour’s exceptional film. Both Green and Winocour wear Proxima‘s feminist credentials lightly, however. Neither screenplay nor performance act as soapbox; they don’t need to. The message is woven into the fabric of the film, which benefits from some beautiful, textural cinematography from Georges Lechaptois whose camera often rests on intimate moments. That the film’s power lies in these small interactions is indicative of a writer/director at the top of her game.
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The French sci-fi drama Proxima, is among the several notable space-travel features that have blasted off in this decade. But this is the first to have a female in the director’s chair. Namely, Alice Winocour, who uses down to earth human emotion and family issues for the film’s rocket fuel.
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Work-life balance for parents, and the ebbs and flows of maternal ties specifically, aren’t a new topic — in general or in cinema. But films primarily about female astronauts, rather than just embedding a woman as part of a larger team, are still noticeably rare. So are movies that examine the professional and personal minutiae complicating a woman and mother’s trip beyond the earth.
Read moreTop pick for this week is Florence Foster Jenkins, starring Meryl Streep as the self-styled diva whose voice could shatter
Read moreCannes has announced that Emmanuelle Bercot’s Standing Tall (La Tête Haute), will open this year’s festival on May 13. To
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