[critical] A BEAUTIFUL FINISH

Critique of’ A BEAUTIFUL END (STILL LIFE in English, as we prefer it to be sure !) written following the meeting of producer Uberto Pasolini, during the premiere of his film. The idea of writing the film came to him after he read an interview with a councillor’s funeral. Pasolini says that he has followed for several months, two of these workers, “visiting” the houses left empty by deceased persons. We also find several scenes in the film that the filmmaker has actually experienced during his research.

J

ohn May (Eddie Marsan) is a consultant to the funeral. When it does not investigate to find a hypothetical family to prevent a death, it assists, sometimes alone, to the funeral of a(e) inconnu(e). When its investigation fails, he takes to his personal collection of photos found in the remains of the deceased, in the middle of objects, sometimes funny sometimes sad to cry. John the look at then in family albums, ” his ” family. After the coldness of the first scenes, it is undermined by the interest of John to ” his ” dead, which then appear as beings the most important for him. It is their last link with the world of the living. The day he learns of his dismissal, he nevertheless decides to do everything to “solve” his last case. It will then be brought out of her daily life, set up as a music paper. The meeting with Kelly (Joanne Froggatt) will be decisive, overwhelming, and begins in him a change may be life-saving.

  

Just as the character of Wiesler in The Lives of others (F. Henckel von Donnersmarck, 2007) John May lives in a routine padlocked and neurotic, which he accepts, much to our amazement, without suffering apparent. The camera fixed its repetitive movements so rhythmic, unchanging, and anchor the habits, and the loneliness at the center of the life of John. Alone in the street, surrounded by buildings and overwhelming, only in the hallways and in his office, only when he eats tirelessly his can of tuna for dinner. The staging, thanks to the framing and an intelligent composition of plans always fixed, plays with delicacy. No big strings but the notes of humor that instill a lightness welcome, and soothing, highlighted by an excellent soundtrack. The strings of the celtic harp hopping and we will take home with John to the hope of another life. Human and empathic, in contrast with his colleagues, bureaucrats and indifferent, it touches us deeply and manages to make us forget the changing times a little expected of the scenario.

A BEAUTIFUL END “is a film that mark by its rhythm, its interpretation and its about, treated with tenderness and finesse.”

Totally against the use of his previous roles (Be Happy by Mike Leigh, the series Ray Donovan), Eddie Marsan, omnipresent on the screen, is of great intensity. He doesn’t play. He is John May. Uberto Pasolini admits to having looked for an actor capable of embodying his character, ” without dialogue, just by his presence.” This is the first major role movie – Marsan. He managed perfectly the race and has a sweetness hitherto unknown troubles us. He makes his character’s tender and endearing. Intriguing even, as it sails peacefully between the solitude and the dead, constantly identified on the screen by the plans symmetrical. His face, far from rubbing shoulders with the cannons of beauty, however, is magnetic. When he sketches a smile, you can feel the release approaching, other prospects open up. Joanne Froggatt, always solar, accompanies this opening, by contrast, physical that she creates with her partner, almost mutique, and frozen.

Uberto Pasolini explains be fascinated by the work of Yasujiro Ozu, a huge film-maker who has managed to sublimate the everyday life by capturing the extraordinary in the ordinary life of japan, with a sobriety and an amazing depth. Without claim to play in the same court, the Italian film director has managed to make A BEAUTIFUL END to a film that mark by its rhythm, its interpretation and its about, treated with tenderness and finesse. The film has received awards at the last Venice film Festival (Best Director in the section Orizzonti) as well as to the festivals of Edinburgh (Best actor), Abu Dhabi and Reykjavic.

The other outputs of the April 15, 2015

TAXI TO TEHRAN, EN ROUTE!, ROBIN hood, IN EQUILIBRIUM, A NICE ENDING, GORILLAS, CHILD 44, etc
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