Aimer, boire et chanter

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Movie
Original title Aimer, boire et chanter
Country of production France
original language French
Publishing year 2014
length 108 minutes
Rod
Director Alain Resnais
script Laurent Herbiet
Alain Resnais
Jean-Marie Besset
production Jean-Louis Livi
music Mark Snow
camera Dominique Bouilleret
cut Hervé de Luze
occupation

Aimer, boire et chanter is a 2014 French drama directed by Alain Resnais based on the play Life of Riley by Alan Ayckbourn . Outside of France, the film was also called Life of Riley .

action

One day in May: Kathryn, her husband Colin and her friend Tamara are rehearsing a four-person play as amateur actors when they learn that Tamara's stage partner has dropped out of rehearsals. Colin, in turn, indirectly reports to his wife that her good friend George Riley is terminally ill with cancer and probably only has six months to live. Kathryn tells Tamara's husband Jack about it, who has been good friends with George since school. George's still-wife Monica, who left him some time ago for the older farmer Simeon, also learns of George's fate. Kathryn, Colin and Tamara decide to include George as the fourth man in their play and thus distract him from his illness.

In the play Tamara and George play lovers and Jack soon believes that his wife and George are in a relationship. In fact, Tamara feels drawn to the much younger George. Kathryn is also rediscovering her feelings for George, having been with him before her relationship with Colin. She was even expecting a child from George, but she had an abortion. Jack, in turn, wants to reunite Monica with George, even if it's only for the pretense of the remaining months of his life. Monica refuses because she has found the man of her life in Simeon, but in the end she lets herself be softened and at times moves in with George. She interrupts the bickering of Kathryn and Tamara, who are both fighting over George. The starting point is George's offer to fly to Tenerife for a short vacation with the other woman after the play is over in September . Tamara refused the trip, but Kathryn accepted it. Now they both learn that George probably asked Monica first. Monica, in turn, only knows after Jack's notification that Kathryn wants to go on vacation with George. As George's still wife, she insists on going on vacation, just like the other two women insist on the trip. Tamara cancels the trip in the end, however, because she hopes to bind her husband closer to her, who is having an extramarital affair. At Colin's pleading, Kathryn also gives up the trip. Monica is undecided, but she suspects that she could lose Simeon if she leaves. Surprisingly, George drives to Tenerife with Tamaras and Jack's 16-year-old daughter Tilly. The parents are horrified. George dies in a diving accident on Tenerife. In the end, the three couples gather at George's coffin; Tilly comes later alone.

production

Aimer, boire et chanter (t: love, drink and sing or wine, women and song) was the third film adaptation of a play by Alan Ayckbourn by Alain Resnais after Smoking / No Smoking and Hearts . In the play, the performers rehearse another Ayckbourn piece entitled Relatively Speaking . George, about whom the film is centered, never appears in the film. Resnais cast his wife Sabine Azéma here for the tenth time in one of his films.

Jackie Budin created the costumes, Jacques Saulnier created the film . The scenery was deliberately kept artificial, so the locations - Simeon's house, Kathryn's and Colin's front garden, Tamara's and Jack's terrace and George's garden in front of the house - are reminiscent of theater stages. Individual scenes are separated by tracking shots through deserted British villages or by drawings by the comic author Blutch , who also created the movie poster.

The film celebrated its world premiere on February 10, 2014 as part of the 2014 Berlinale . For health reasons, director Alain Resnais was unable to attend the premiere; he died on March 1, 2014, shortly before the French theatrical release on March 26, 2014. The film was seen in French cinemas by around 313,000 viewers.

criticism

The Neue Zürcher Zeitung found that Aimer, boire et chanter “once again testifies to the ironic elegance of the French old master”. The film is “a tricky game with the naturalism of the cinematic illusion, to which Resnais is allergic”, stated the Frankfurter Rundschau : “This avant-garde is getting on in years, but it is still avant-garde, even if it is no longer forward moved, but sideways, into the bushes of film art. "

For the daily newspaper , the film was “theater with cinematic means”, but “more of an average piece” that Resnais connoisseurs did not offer anything new. The Berliner Morgenpost described the film as clothes, with the actors "playing over" their roles "grotesque. Resnais satirizes with great pleasure the fuss that has always annoyed you at the theater. ”For the Süddeutsche Zeitung , Aimer, boire et chanter “ was a relatively bizarre experience: really not very good boulevard theater, knitted around a mildly original idea. "

Awards

Aimer, boire et chanter ran at the 2014 Berlinale in the competition for the Golden Bear . The film won the Alfred Bauer Prize as a feature film that opens up new perspectives and a FIPRESCI Prize (competition).

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Aimer, boire et chanter on berlinale.de
  2. ↑ a b c Ekkehard Knörer: Everyone is talking about George . taz.de, February 10, 2014.
  3. ↑ Secrets tournage - Un couple de cinéma . allocine.fr
  4. ↑ a b Patrick Straumann: George in the blind spot . nzz.ch, August 6, 2014.
  5. ↑ Aimer, boire et chanter on allocine.fr
  6. ↑ Harald Jähner: In the bushes of the avant-garde . In: Frankfurter Rundschau , February 11, 2014, p. 26.
  7. ↑ Matthias Wulff: Alain Resnais can also do clothes . In: Berliner Morgenpost , February 11, 2014, p. 18.
  8. ↑ Tobias Kniebe: The seagull share . In: Süddeutsche Zeitung , February 11, 2014, p. 12.
  9. ↑ Bears & Prizes . In: Der Tagesspiegel , February 16, 2014, p. 25.