The spectacular satellite city of Cergy-Pontoise, designed by the Argentine architect Ricardo Bofill, is the unbilled co-star of "L'Ami de Mon Amie" ("My Girlfriend's Boyfriend"), Mr. Rohmer's small, perfectly achieved new addition to the series of films he calls "Comedies and Proverbs". The film will be shown at the New York Film Festival tonight at 6:15 and tomorrow at 9 P.M.From what Mr. Rohmer shows us, Cergy-Pontoise is a kind of under-populated, modernist amalgam of Bath, a French co-op city and a Disneyworld. The old world - Paris -hovers on the horizon. Mr. Rohmer, as much as the intense, well-meaning, sometimes seriously muddled lovers in the film itself, is fascinated and rather charmed by this bold architectural attempt to create, at one blow, a perfect environment: office and apartment buildings of glass, steel and reinforced concrete, separated by strategically located plazas and parks, along with shopping areas, 15 television channels, three legitimate theaters, restaurants, a couple of manmade lakes and other recreational facilities. Mr. Rohmer remains resolutely unhorrified by it all. He appreciates this particular example of urban planning, while sometimes finding it as exotic as an Eskimo village and as funny as a miniature golf course.
Cergy-Pontoise was designed for community. "It's like a village," Fabien says to Blanche about Cergy-Pontoise, after running into Blanche near a shopping center several times within the same afternoon. Fabien is the lover of Lea, Blanche's best friend. Fabien and Blanche, who scarcely know each other, feel guilty as well as pleased at these chance encounters, dictated not by fate but by the satellite-city's layout. In addition, Blanche is more than a little troubled because Lea has confided that she's tired of Fabien, and wishes she could leave him "in easy stages". Lea thinks that Blanche and Fabien would make a fine match. Blanche, however, thinks she's in love with Alexandre, an engineer with the local power-and-light company, a man so handsome and self-assured that women chase him. In the course of one idyllic summer in this architectural paradise, Blanche, Fabien, Lea and Alexandre scheme to achieve their own ends without damaging friendships. That they will succeed is no surprise. The fun of "L'Ami de Mon Amie" is watching how close they come to the edge of failure, and the manner in which Cergy-Pontoise reveals character and rules choices. The solemn Blanche, played by Emmanuelle Chaulet, an extremely pretty new actress making her film debut, loves the arid newness of Cergy-Pontoise. She's lonely but, most of the time, she's as confident that she'll find the ideal man as she is that grass will eventually be planted in the satellite city's unfinished plazas. Fabien (Eric Viellard), who considers himself an all-around sportsman, courts Blanche by taking her wind-surfing on a small manmade lake where the winds seldom get up to eight miles an hour. Wind-surfing here is mostly a matter of being able to stand up on utterly placid water... (N.Y. Times)
http://rapidshare.com/files/323098541/ercrhmrlamidtnamie87.7z.001
http://rapidshare.com/files/323110699/ercrhmrlamidtnamie87.7z.002
http://rapidshare.com/files/323110704/ercrhmrlamidtnamie87.7z.003
http://rapidshare.com/files/323145781/ercrhmrlamidtnamie87.7z.004
http://rapidshare.com/files/323145786/ercrhmrlamidtnamie87.7z.005
http://rapidshare.com/files/323159156/ercrhmrlamidtnamie87.7z.006
http://rapidshare.com/files/323159159/ercrhmrlamidtnamie87.7z.007
http://rapidshare.com/files/323172313/ercrhmrlamidtnamie87.7z.008
http://rapidshare.com/files/323172314/ercrhmrlamidtnamie87.7z.009
http://rapidshare.com/files/323185777/ercrhmrlamidtnamie87.7z.010
http://rapidshare.com/files/323185780/ercrhmrlamidtnamie87.7z.011
http://rapidshare.com/files/323201089/ercrhmrlamidtnamie87.7z.012
http://rapidshare.com/files/323201091/ercrhmrlamidtnamie87.7z.013
French audio track
+ English - Russian - Brazilian Portuguese subs in 3 optional srt files
No Pass
0 comments:
Post a Comment