I saw another good French movie on Friday, Tete de Turc. Set in one of the poorer suburbs of Paris, a teenage boy of Turkish decent gets involved in local riots and ends up throwing a Molotov cocktail. It lands under the car of a doctor there to help a resident. The boy panics but manages to pull the doctor from the burning car. The authorities don’t realise that he is the one who threw the bomb and is later declared a hero. The doctor’s brother is the policeman on the case to find who was responsible and even though no one is talking, he slowly figures out what happened.

I’m not a huge fan of police thrillers but this is worth seeing, at least to get an idea of what life is like in the banlieue.

Movie #: 18

Finally a movie worth seeing. Julie Gayet plays a woman without a proper job (and little chance of getting a job) who is months behind on her rent and is about to be evicted from her apartment. She can’t afford to look after her son so only sees him every other weekend, if that. She struggles in job interviews and can’t even get a basic job at a supermarket. She befriends a guy in her building who is pretty much in the same situation.

What this movie really shows is how easy it is to end up alone and living on the street with nothing. If you live month to month with your paycheck, as so many people seem to do, it just takes a run of bad luck to end up with nothing.

I’m always surprised at how so many people don’t know how to manage their money and invest for the future. These people are just asking for trouble.

Movie #: 17

I’m way behind on my goal of seeing 100 movies in a year, mainly because I’ve been on holiday for the last 6 weeks. I’m going to have to start seeing 3 movies a week to catch up. Hmm, not sure I can find the time.

I saw La Rafle with Leesa at Bercy earlier this week. I don’t know why but I found this movie to be such a snore. The story behind the film is interesting enough, it tells the true story of 13,000 Jews in Paris in 1942 who were rounded up by the French police and deported to concentration camps and obviously to their deaths. It was interesting how the French collaborated and negotiated with the Germans to get rid of these people and how the French police went along with deporting their fellow citizens without question.

You would think an interesting story would make for a great movie but it didn’t. The acting seemed really poor and lacking in any emotion. Gad Elmaleh should stick to playing in comedies, I don’t know why he thinks he can be a real actor. Plus his character was really weak and pathetic. Jean Reno wasn’t much better, playing the Jewish doctor who didn’t really connect with the other characters or provoke any emotion. It was like they were just reading their lines and not really feeling anything.

It wasn’t all bad though, Melanie Laurant was great in her role as the nurse. I’ve always quite liked her anyway.

Movie #: 14