Tag: Architecture

Notre Dame

Posted on by Redmond Bacon

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The old cliché that no publicity is bad publicity certainly rings true with Notre Dame, the latest breezy comedy from French auteur Valérie Donzelli. She could’ve had no idea while making the film that ancient church’s roof would set ablaze on April 15, making her latest work something of an accidental bittersweet lament for the France’s most enduring symbol.

The burning down of the French cathedral was immediately seized upon as a symbol of the deterioration of France; another debilitating sign, along with Islamist terrorist attacks, the rise of far-right nationalism, the Church sex abuse scandals and the Gillet Jeunes protests, that this is a country slowly losing its way. And Notre Dame eerily captures this downbeat spirit, displaying a capital city and country uncertain of itself, paranoid and on edge. The French Open has been inexplicably cancelled, Lake Annecy has dried up, people randomly slap each other in metro stations, refugees sleep on the streets, and Paris is endlessly drenched by torrential rain. To rally spirits once again, the mayor calls for a “Grand competition for the Grand dame”, putting out an open call for a new esplanade design.

Our unlikely hero Maud Crayon (Valérie Donzelli herself) — built in the mode of Woody Allen’s early comic nebbishes — may be an architect but has little intention of entering the contest herself. She’s too busy paying off her debts, battling with her boss, trying to get her kids to school and finally kicking her ex-husband (although they haven’t signed the divorce papers) out of her flat. Then in a moment of sheer, unexplained magic, her design for a playground mysteriously floats out of her flat window all the way to the mayor’s office. The bold design is picked as a new way forward for the city and she’s instantly put in charge of the most important project in all of France.

Notre Dame

Given that the Notre-Dame itself took one hundred years to build, this premise would be enough conflict for an entire TV series, let alone a zippy ninety minute movie. But Maud’s travails don’t stop there. Firstly her ex-boyfriend (Pierre Deladonchamps) comes back as the journalist covering her story, secondly she finds out she’s pregnant, and thirdly she must contend with her ex-husband trying to win her back. Underscoring this theme, her daughter acutely asks her: “Why do women have to do everything?” To make matters worse, it turns out her design looks kinda like a phallus (the jokes aren’t subtle here), sparking outrage across the nation, and calls for construction to be indefinitely postponed.

France has a fine tradition of protesting its finest symbols. The construction of the Eiffel Tower was once petitioned against by writers as influential as Maupassant and Dumas. Likewise Mitterand’s Grands Projets was looked upon at the time as a sign of grandiosity. Yet now it would be hard to imagine the Paris skyline without the Eiffel Tower or the Louvre without its pyramid. The sheer absurdity of Crayon’s design is the point: showing through satire how even the most outlandish designs should be encouraged due to the way they can help establish and reinforce a city’s unique identity.

Yet if anyone is expecting a serious inquiry into the nature of architecture, they will be sorely displeased. Donzelli’s work is gleefully self-centred, neurotic and strange, casting herself in goofy, off-the-wall tales that make Amelie’s escapades look normal and well adjusted. Notre Dame has a childlike yet bawdy spirit, throwing in the entire kitchen sink, including musical interludes, silent movie homages, quick verbal barbs and politically incorrect sex jokes. Thankfully the movie, flawed as it may be, is inherently enjoyable, Donzelli’s bizarro charm proving infectious and her style strong enough to overcome any imperfections.

At the end of the day, its not really about the Notre-Dame at all, but a woman coming to terms with the chaos of her life, the power of great responsibility, and figuring out what’s actually important. It’s just ironic that Valérie Donzelli will be suddenly thrown into the spotlight due to an event completely out of her control. Talk about life imitating art!

International Sales are handled by Playtime. The film is scheduled for release in France only so far, on 18 December 2019.

Last Night I Saw You Smiling (Yub menh bong keunh oun nho nhim)

Posted on by Redmond Bacon

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The White Building, built in 1963 by the Cambodian government in collaboration with the French-Russian architect Vladimir Bodiansky, was once a true example of proper low-cost housing and New Khmer architecture. In 1975, the building was abandoned when the brutal Khmer Rouge cleared the capital city of Phnom Penh, only for it to become a hub for artists and civil servants after 1978. Afterwards the once grand building fell into disrepair, lined with prostitutes and drug addicts. Documentary Last Night I Saw You Smiling shows us the final days of the building after it’s bought by a Japanese company with help from the Cambodian government and all 493 families are slowly cleared out.

Like in Hotel Jugoslavija (Nicolas Wagnières, 2017), this single building is used to explore the state of a nation; both as it exists in reality and as it existed in the people’s popular imagination. Old ladies show us pictures of the building as it used to be, their warm nostalgia aptly complemented by sentimental songs playing over the radio.

Last Night I Saw You Smiling

Cambodian resident Kavich Neang may have a personal stake in the matter — his own father is a resident of the building — but he takes an inclusive approach to depicting its residents. Spanning from young, seemingly oblivious, kids running up and down the hallways to old ladies complaining that they have nowhere else to go, Last Night I Saw You Smiling paints a panoramic and melodic picture of a place slowly fading from view, doubling up as commentary on a world that ultimately favours capitalist over socialist values.

For inhabitants who have strong memories of the brutal Khmer Rouge regime, these developments are doubly-painful. It’s as if the government hasn’t learned any lessons from its past. As one inhabitant says, it feels like the same thing, only this time they have trucks, have to clear out the rooms themselves, and are getting paid for their troubles. While the government may use the money payout as justification for the redevelopment, it’s evident that the cheques aren’t big enough. Some even arrive too late for some residents who cannot afford to move any of their things. Additionally, while the disused nature of the building may have justified its redevelopment, the fact that these residents are given little say in the matter leaves a sour taste in the mouth.

Using boxy, static frames, Kavich Neang allows his subjects to speak for themselves, even when they’re not saying anything at all. Whether its watching TV, listening to the radio, bickering amongst themselves, or cleaning up, we get a true sense of an authentic lived-in place. By slowly accumulating these images on top of each other, the failures of government policy are quietly laid bare. Now construction has begun on a new 21-storey building, totalling $80 million. The film doesn’t directly state whether any of these former residents will be able to afford one of these fancy new apartments. Yet it doesn’t need to. It speaks entirely for itself.