Jamie passion and passionfruit!

Depardieu, Deneuve and Techiné.  A winning combination twenty years ago but now?

This film, set in Tangiers about a construction engineer and a faded radio announcer who meet again after 30 years.  Deneuve is in a stale marriage with a bisexual son (Malek Zidi) who doesn’t know which way to jump and seems welded to Nadia, a slightly crazy solo mother with whom he lives in Paris.  Both are visiting Tangiers, the former to see an old boyfriend, the latter to see her devout Muslim sister who is improbably working in MacDonalds.  All this mish-mash and other scenes of real Tangerine life such as the refugees waiting to cross the channel to Gibraltar and the sacrifice of sheep on the working site with some witchcraft thrown in makes for an interesting but rather unconvincing film, heightened by a completely fairytale denouement of the not so happy type at the end.  That said, there are one or two good scenes and some very interesting themes raised in the film in its portrayal of people finding their way in a less than ideal world.  Another feature in the director’s favour is his treatment of the stars – no frills here and it is a credit to the two leads that they act appropriately.  Other features; the rather obvious rain, a strange abstract section in the middle, biting dogs and other rather over dominant symbols do rather detract but in the end we are left with a film that has its interest and characters that we might like to see more of.

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