Thursday, May 15, 2003
Thursday, May 15, 2003 |
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By Gautaman Bhaskaran
Krawczyk's, Fanfan La Tulipe, — change the actors and the French lingo, this Gallic work could pass off for a sizzling potboiler from Bollywood! Vincent Perez, who plays the 18th century French adventurer-cum-admirer, might well have been our own Amitabh Bachchan or Salmaan Khan wooing damsels in distress and sword-fighting literally dozens of men. To boot, there is the pretty Penelope Cruz as the lying gypsy who palm-reads Perez into dreaming that he would marry a daughter of King Louis XV. But Perez is smitten by Cruz in the coarse of his swashbuckling-horse-riding-fencing games, and despite an evil spy and murderously mad lover of Cruz, Fanfan... ends on a ``they-lived-happily- ever-note''. The movie is a remake of Christian-Jaque's 1952 version, starring Gerard Philipe and Gina Lollobrigida, and it had won the Best Dirctor's Palm at Cannes. One cannot say whether Cruz matches Lollobrigida in either acting or oomph, but Krywczyk sure took a chance when he signed Penelope, who does not even speak French. ``I learnt my lines phonetically,'' she told a crowded press conference here soon after the film was screened. We know it is possible. We have seen Nandita Das do Malayalam and Tamil movies with interesting results. Although the crowds at the press meet had come primarily to see Europe's current heartthrob, Cruz (know better know as Tom Cruise's girlfriend), not many there thought much about the film itself. One critic called it a ``piece of garbage''. But why was Fanfan.. chosen at all? The Festival's artistic director, Thierry Fremaux, had said that it was a movie that would make us all feel good. Did it? Luc Besson, who wrote the screenplay and the dialogues as well as produced Fanfan... has not had good press at Cannes. In 1989, his directorial venture, Le Grand Bleu opened the Cannes Festival, and was torn apart by critics. Subsequently, he returned to the French Riviera with his The Fifth Element, also as the opening night shot. It, however, won better reception. Besson was understandably hesitant when Cannes asked him for the work. It was to have been released on April 9, and although Besson told reporters that he felt honoured to have been invited to kick-start the festival, one now wonders whether he is cursing his luck for taking what can be a bad decision. Cruz, who shot into fame with one of Pedro Almodovar's early films, said that she found it extremely nice doing this kind of genre. ``This is the first time I am attempting something like this,'' the Spanish actress spoke in English. Perez found his on-screen fighting and fencing akin to music, poetry and dancing! With India's Bollywood actress, Aishwarya Rai, on Cannes' main international jury (along with actress Meg Ryan, helmer Steven Soderbergh and others) and an Indian entry in the official section, Murali's Nair's Malayalam A Story that begins in the End, Fanfan... appears to have injected yet another dose of `desi' spirit, albeit in a French form, to Cannes, which had featured Devdas last year.
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