Banlieue 13 (District B13) (2004)

"This is actually the best part of my day so far."

In the near future, violence has skyrocketed in the impoverished outskirts of Paris, which are now ruled by sadistic drug lords and their private armies. The French government has either responded to this phenomenon or caused it by walling off the most dangerous "districts," like the eponymous B13. Leïto (David Belle) lives inside B13. He is a vigilante (?) and landlord (??) who has stolen a lot of heroin, in a public service kind of way. When enforcers come to recover the drugs, Leïto destroys the stash and leads them on a merry chase across the rooftops. B13's kingpin, Taha (Bibi Naceri), retaliates by kidnapping Leïto's little sister, Lola (Dany Verissimo). Leïto almost rescues her, but the cops double-cross him, he goes to jail, and Lola is enslaved by Taha. (We'll come back to that.)

Meanwhile, in a more respectable part of Paris, we meet Capt. Damien Tomasso (Cyril Raffaelli), a cop who's infiltrated a criminal Spanish roulette operation? I don't know; something like that. Something gambling-related. Damien arrests the head Spaniard and, um, kills like twenty guys? Because that is a correct end to an undercover operation. Once Damien's bad-ass cred is established, the movie partners him with Leïto; the two of them are sent to B13 to disarm a bomb that Taha has stolen from the French government.

This movie is not that great. The plot is generally thin and yet still sometimes confusing. The characters and stakes are established in ways that ensured I would not care about them. The acting ranges from workmanlike to atrocious (I'm looking at you, Marc Andréoni). But--and this is a big "but"--there is PARKOUR. If, somehow, in this day and age, you do not know what parkour is, look it up on YouTube. You're welcome. Also, cancel all your plans; you will be watching parkour videos for the next week or so.

Raffaelli's stuntwork as Damien is good, and I enjoyed the set piece that introduces his character, but the real star of the action (and thus of the movie) is Belle. His chase scene at the beginning of the movie is so great. Sorry to wimp out on describing it, but if I say, "He leaps out a high-rise window onto a rope," it is not nearly as cool as when you see him leaping out a high-rise window onto a rope. I wish B13 were all parkour chase scenes, strung together with the bare minimum of dialogue. Parkour porn, in short.

But it is not that. Instead, it tries to be a real movie with, among other things, a real lady storyline. Bad decision. Listen: you cannot have your one and only female character spend the majority of the film being drugged and raped. I don't mean the only female character of note. I mean, truly, the only female non-extra onscreen. This movie is very much like Tennessee Williams, in that it hates women and is totally gay. Leïto and Damien spend their acquaintance 1) fighting in order to form an emotional bond, 2) handcuffing each other to things, and 3) basically doing it. I approve of all of that, but I wish action movies could be super gay without driving women into the cave of rape and irrelevance. If you will it, Luc Besson, it is no dream.

While we're on the subject of "me complaining about this movie's problems," B13 also has a slight case of Iron Man-itis. I've said it before, and I'll say it again: I do not want action movies preaching to me about nonviolence or the democratic process. It draws me out of the world of flying people and whizzing bullets and back into the world where high body counts are horrifying, not entertaining. The scene in which Damien speechifies at the defense minister is B13's equivalent of the press conference where Tony Stark declares he has "more to offer this world than just making things that blow up." First of all, no, you don't. Second, shut up. Don't burden me with an excursus on your highly selective morality; it ruins the amoral fun of the movie.

My "liked it" rating may be confusing in light of the preceding paragraphs, but, in the wise words of my roommate Mary, "Parkour always deserves seven stars."

- 3 stars

Tirez sur le pianiste (Shoot the Piano Player) (1960)

This was the first French New Wave movie I've ever seen (sorry, mom!), and it left me intrigued but unsatisfied. I'm gonna watch more Nouvelle Vague, but if this was what Truffaut was up to, I'm not sure what all the fuss is about (sorry again, mom!).

Tirez sur le pianiste is about a piano player named Charlie (Charles Aznavour). He works in a dive bar/club and wants to stay out of trouble--but just when he thought he was out, they pull him back in! Or whatever. His older brothers are fuck-ups and criminals, and when Charlie helps one of them evade two thuggish pursuers, he attracts the thugs' attention. Charlie accidentally gets his co-worker Léna (Marie Dubois) involved in his troubles, too. (Ironically, the bad guys decide she's associated with him because she asks him to walk her home at night. Because she doesn't feel safe. I thought that was a nice touch.) Turns out things aren't what they seem, of course: Charlie has a secret past, which Léna knows about. In fact, she stalks him because of it? But in a cute way! Anyway, she has some ideas about his life, as do the thugs, his brothers, and his boss at the bar. Charlie, like many noir protagonists, is a mostly passive figure at the center of swirling chaos. Okay? Okay.

I really enjoyed the two leads' performances. Dubois does some kind of magic (acting?) that makes her character seem more likable and less undeveloped than the script deserves. Aznavour balances Charlie's timidity and charisma beautifully. (Also, he reminds me of Kevin Spacey, all detachment and dimples.) Their chemistry with each other was fine, but their makeout scene was Very Awkward. They don't so much kiss as press their faces together. Plus the camera doesn't just hang out on them; it does this weird thing where you see them and also a panning shot of Léna's apartment over them? Or maybe under them?

Dissolve back and forth, forever. ))<>((

As for other characters, there's a prostitute Charlie likes to sleep with (Michèle Mercier); she also takes care of Charlie's little brother when he's out (i.e. most of the movie). Charlie's boss (Serge Davri) is one of those okay-until-he's-not types, and the violent confrontation between Charlie and Plyne was one of the least believable, least enjoyable parts of the movie for me. I guess I'm not supposed to find it "believable" because the New Wave wants to teach me about artifice and bust down all my square ideas about narrative film. Bore snore. A work of art that makes me reexamine my ideas about plot/story/politics/zucchini is exciting. A chain-smoking Frenchman telling me to reexamine my ideas is irritating.

Though I found some parts of the movie boring/annoying, Truffaut's style is undeniably cool. The sequence where Charlie and Léna drive out of town has a lovely, familiar feeling. It's shot through the windshield, and over the course of a song ("Dialogue d'amoureux" by Félix Leclerc and Lucienne Vernay, apparently), the city's streetlamps are replaced with the sun rising over the snowy countryside. I enjoyed select images much more than I enjoyed the film as a whole: opening credits inside a piano with its hammers hitting, a gangster with a musical lighter, a betrayal framed with--not sure how to describe these:

What is this technique called? Besides "cool."

Finally, I want to mention the first scene of the movie, which did not let me down. Truffaut does this hilarious thing that shows up in lots of French movies: he has two complete strangers talk about very personal things for no reason. I love seeing movies where this happens, and I love the reliable pattern for these conversations: "intimate detail, proverb/platitude, agreement/disagreement, proverb/platitude, intimate detail." Example:

Man A: In the old days, there were never enough syringes. My wife and I met when we looked up from our shared needle. Haha! You know what they say: a stitch in time saves nine.
Man B: No, I don't think so. After all, what's true is true.
Man A: I have celiac disease.

Sound like bad dialogue? Maybe here, but translated and spoken by two knobbly-nosed men strolling down a narrow Parisian street, it's stylish. Welcome to French cinema!