My hero
| Movie | |
|---|---|
| German title | My hero |
| Original title | L'ennui |
| Country of production |
France Portugal |
| original language | French |
| Publishing year | 1998 |
| length | 122 minutes |
| Age rating | FSK 16 |
| Rod | |
| Director | Cédric Kahn |
| script | Cédric Kahn Laurence Ferreira Barbosa |
| production | Paulo Branco |
| camera | Pascal Marti |
| cut | Yann Dedet |
| occupation | |
| |
My heroine , TV title Love, Sex and Passion , is a French-Portuguese drama directed by Cédric Kahn from 1998. It is based on the novel La noia by Alberto Moravia .
action
Philosopher Martin is in a crisis. He and his wife, Sophie, separated six months ago, even if they both kept in contact. He wants to finish a book, but hasn't even started writing. He leaves a party at Sophie's prematurely because he cannot talk to her as planned. He drives aimlessly through the city and observes couples. He follows a couple, with the woman leaving the man. He follows the man into a bar, where he cannot pay the bill. The man - painter Leopold Meyers - is threatened by the doorman, but Martin steps in and pays his bill: Meyers gives him a picture as a pledge, which he carries with him. The painting shows a naked woman's body.
Martin went to see Meyers three days later, but the landlady informed him that he had died the day before. She blames the painter's young friend for death, saying that the relationship between the two was unhealthy. Martin meets the young woman in Meyers' apartment. Her name is Cécilia and she is only 17 years old. Through interrogation-like questions, which Cécilia unsuspectingly answers, Martin learns that she has been with Meyers for two years, who over time fell into love. She not only modeled him, but also slept with him - initially several times a week, in the end several times a day. Meyers was aware that his passion would kill him, but he accepted it. In fact, he had a seizure while making love and passed away shortly afterwards. Cécilia is sure that Meyers loved her, so he even proposed marriage to her, but she was bored with him after the first time.
Cécilia offers herself to Martin, who refuses a relationship, but still prevents her from leaving. He begins a purely physical relationship with Cécilia. In front of Sophie, he admits not to love Cécilia because she is emotionless and simple. Their relationship is purely sexual in nature. Nevertheless, he stays with her, treats her cruelly, but also gives her presents. When one day she does not appear as discussed, he tries in vain to contact her. The next day she made it clear to him that because of her parents she could only come to him twice a week. Only at his urging does she keep the daily meetings.
Martin falls for her more and more over time, sleeps with her several times a day and obsessively watches over her private life. When she begins to meet with the actor Momo, who allegedly wants to bring her to the film, he reacts madly jealous, pursues Cécilia and calls her constantly. He checks the details of where she was and what she did; the feeling of losing Cécilia and no longer being able to cope with reality leads to delusional behavior that, in the end, even the patient Sophie can no longer stand. Cécilia finally confesses to Martin that she and Momo are together. She wants to part with Martin, which he doesn't want. Your next act of love is like rape; Martin then gives her money. A meeting follows in which both only talk to each other. Martin proposes to her, which she refuses because she not only loves him, but also Momo. She tells him that she will be going to Corsica with Momo for two weeks . He offers her a lot of money that she stays, but she refuses. She still receives the money for the vacation when she asks for it. When she's gone, he tries one last time to get in touch with her. From her mother he learns that Cécilia has already left, even though her sick father is dying. Martin gets a prostitute into his car and causes a car accident. In the hospital he writes a letter to Sophie in which he admits his suicidal thoughts; However, he recognized that one has to live from despair, indeed has to live at all costs.
production
My heroine is loosely based on Alberto Moravia's novel La noia , which Damiano Damiani had previously filmed in 1963 under the title The Naked . The film was shot mainly in Paris . Françoise Clavel created the costumes and François Abelanet created the film . It was Sophie Guillemin's screen debut .
My heroine had its premiere on November 14, 1998 at the Thessaloniki International Film Festival . The film opened in French cinemas on December 16, 1998 and was also released in German cinemas on June 17, 1999. Under the title Love, Sex and Passion , 3sat first showed the film on German television on September 26, 2003.
criticism
The film service wrote that Meine Heldin “ philosophizes with the help of an ' amour fou ' parable about egoism and the inability to communicate between social classes. [...] many scenes seem irritating and drive the plot into unexpected twists and turns and dead ends. A film that is as intelligent as it is mysterious. ”“ A desperate 'Odyssey d'Amour' […], very erotic and wonderfully neurotic, ”said Cinema . Director Cédric Kahn succeeds in capturing “this incomparable mixture of melancholy and indifference, of longing for death and thirst for life, of flashing lust and consuming jealousy,” wrote Focus on the occasion of the German theatrical release. His staging style has an "almost documentary-looking poetry".
The Berliner Morgenpost regretted that the film was told from a male perspective and that the “clichéd Lolita plot” remained visible throughout the film. The performance of the two main actors was positively highlighted.
“Instead of giving form to boredom, the 'ennui', the film bores because it misses the existential dimension of its subject,” wrote the Frankfurter Rundschau . The film surrenders "to voyeurism instead of questioning the audience's gaze." Kahn had "no more than a dirty old man's fantasy distilled from the novel," criticized the Stuttgarter Zeitung . "The film level fluctuates relentlessly between ' 9½ weeks ' and ' schoolgirl report '", stated the Hamburger Morgenpost , and gave the film a grade of 5.
The Frankfurter Neue Presse stated that my heroine was “heavy-handed and lengthy,” and rated the film as “expendable”. "For a full two hours the viewer has to endure a pesky question-and-answer game, only interrupted by the occasional bed wrangling," criticized the Hamburger Abendblatt . "Martin's immense eloquence is sometimes very exhausting, but we owe the beautiful dialogues between him and Cecilia to her," said Der Tagesspiegel .
Awards
Cédric Kahn won the 1998 Louis Delluc Prize for Meine Heldin . The film was nominated for the Grand Prix of the Americas at the Montréal World Film Festival that same year .
In 1999, the film was nominated for three Césars : in the categories of Best Actor (Charles Berling), Best Supporting Actress (Arielle Dombasle) and Best Young Actress (Sophie Guillemin).
Web links
- My heroine in the Internet Movie Database (English)
- My heroine in the German dubbing file
Individual evidence
- ↑ TV preview: love, sex and passion . In: Der Spiegel , September 22, 2003, p. 91.
- ↑ My heroine. In: Lexicon of International Films . Film service , accessed March 2, 2017 .
- ↑ Love, sex and passion on cinema.de
- ↑ Anke Sterneborg: Lethal attraction . In: Focus , June 14, 1999, p. 110.
- ↑ Marc Hairapetian: Lolita sends his regards. The very last tango in Paris: “My heroine” by Cédric Kahn . In: Berliner Morgenpost , June 17, 1999, p. 4.
- ↑ Veronika Rall: Swap sex for language . In: Frankfurter Rundschau , June 18, 1999, p. 11.
- ↑ "My heroine" - The professor as a sex maniac . In: Stuttgarter Zeitung , June 19, 1999, p. 43.
- ^ Corinne Schmid: The fantasies of the old men. Grade 5 - weak: Cedric Kahn's 'Meine Heldin' . In: Hamburger Morgenpost , June 17, 1999, extra sheet.
- ↑ Thilo Wydra: Boring love makes way too many words . In: Frankfurter Neue Presse , No. 6, 1999, p. 1.
- ↑ Michael Ranze: Empty talk and boring bed wrangling . In: Hamburger Abendblatt , June 17, 1999, p. 6.
- ↑ Kerstin Decker: In bed with Cecilia . In: Der Tagesspiegel , June 17, 1999, p. 33.