6 nov 09 3 dec 09 3 cinemas cafe bar - Filmhouse Cinema Edinburgh

22 French Film Festival UK (continued)/FFF UK: Totally Tati
CRIME IS OUR BUSINESS
Crime is Our Business
Le crime est notre affaire
Wed 2 Dec at 8.45pm
Pascal Thomas • France 2008 • 1h49m • 35mm
French with English subtitles • 15
Cast: Catherine Frot, André Dussollier, Claude Rich, Chiara
Mastroianni, Melvil Poupaud.
Pascal Thomas’ third Agatha Christie adaptation in three
years resurrects the adorable, culprit-seeking Beresfords
– Prudence (Catherine Frot) and Bélisaire (André Dussollier)
– who this time try to nab the killer among a clan of wicked
siblings visiting their family’s snow-filled chateau for
Christmas. With Bélisaire now retired from the secret service,
bored Prudence is just dying for a new crime to solve. Her
wish is soon granted when visiting Auntie Babette arrives on
a train, on which she claims to have witnessed a murder...
Eldorado
Thu 3 Dec at 8.45pm
Bouli Lanners • Belgium/France 2008 • 1h25m • 35mm
French with English subtitles • 15
Cast: Bouli Lanners, Fabrice Adde, Phillipe Nahon, Didier Toupy.
Stroppy Belgian car dealer Yvan (Bouli Lanners) comes
home one night to find scrawny Elie (Fabrice Adde)
robbing him. Instead of calling the cops, Yvan becomes
oddly protective of the pathetic felon and offers to
drive him to his parents’ house near the French border.
The voyage provides both lovely shots of low-country
landscapes – which suggest not the starker palette of
Dardenne Brothers’ territory, but magic-hour prairie
heartland – and genuinely funny encounters with various
characters they encounter along the way.
PLUS SHORT: Vanille Mark Sloss, UK 2009, 17 min, Beta SP
ELDORADO
Totally Tati
The French Film Festival UK’s special tribute
celebrates the genius of one of cinema’s most
celebrated comedians and influential icons,
Jacques Tati (1907-1982) who worked as actor,
writer and director.
With the participation of: La Fondation Groupama Gan pour le
Cinéma, la Fondation Thomson pour le Patrimoine du Cinéma et de
la Télévision, les Films de Mon Oncle, la Cinémathèque française,
the British Film Institute and TV5Monde.
Traffic Trafic
Sun 15 Nov at 3.30pm
Jacques Tati • France/Italy 1971 • 1h36m • 35mm
French, Dutch and English with English subtitles • U
Cast: Jacques Tati, Marcel Fraval, Honoré Bostel, François
Maisongrosse, Tony Knepper.
Traffic rivals Playtime in terms of being both beautifully
designed and wildly funny. Monsieur Hulot is a car
designer whose company sends his latest creation, a
camper car decked out with all manner of ridiculous
gadgetry, in a convoy from Paris to the Amsterdam
Motor Show. Pursued by the company’s brash American
publicist, Hulot heads north into an endless series of
hilarious accidents and misfortunes. Though Tati intends
the automobile to signify the impersonality of modern
life, he is obviously transfixed by the dream-like stream of
traffic on the highway, or by a gleaming acre of chrome on
a parking lot.
TRAFFIC
Playtime
Wed 25 Nov at 8.45pm
Jacques Tati • France 1967 • 2h4m • 70mm • U
Cast: Jacques Tati, Barbara Dennek, Jacqueline Lecomte.
Tati’s spectacular cinematic art reached its peak in the
gargantuan achievement of this film. Playtime takes as its
subject modern technology and its sometimes disastrous
and always hilarious effects on the people living within
it. As in most Tati films, a minimal plot (the parallel paths
of Monsieur Hulot and a group of American tourists) is
held together by a seamless ballet of visual, aural, and
conceptual gags. Tati constructed an enormous set, Tativille,
rendering a high modern contemporary Paris decked
in chrome, mirrors, and glass within which the surreal
slapstick of Playtime unfolds. Objects, people and sounds
vie for the viewer’s attention and all exert equal fascination
and comedic power in the circus of Tati’s modern life. From
the airport to the high rise to the nightclub, Hulot weaves in
and out of view, leaving a trail of bumped heads, offended
sensibilities and curious glances in his wake.
Please note that this is a special screening from a restored
70mm print. It has no subtitles, but the film has a minimal
amount of dialogue and can be easily understood without
them.
TICKETDEALS
See any three (or more) films in this season and get 15% off
See any six (or more) films in this season and get 25% off
See any nine (or more) films in this season and get 35% off
These packages are available online, in person and on the
phone, on both full price and concession price tickets. They
include the main FFF UK programme and the Tati and Eustache
retrospectives. Tickets must all be bought at the same time.