Rosalie, Madame Hofmann, Evil does not exist... Films to see or avoid this week

Drama by Stéphanie Di Giusto, 1h55

Rosalie makes people fear the worst because it features an actress playing a bearded woman - ridicule doesn't kill but it sometimes causes serious injuries. Bearded Nadia Tereszkiewicz, we believe it. This is to the credit of makeup artist Mélanie Gerbeaux, a specialist in artificial hair (Benjamin Lavernhe as Abbé Pierre, that's her). The fake beard isn't everything. The actress has a lot to do with the naturalness of her Rosalie. Curvy, sexy and pretty. His beard in no way taints his attractiveness, which has as much to do with cheerfulness as with beauty. This does not mean that a woman with a beard was taken for granted in the France of 1870. Her extreme hairiness was initially a shameful and secret illness. His face and body are covered in hair. Her father shaves her every morning out of sight. Before marrying her to Abel (Benoît Magimel), a war wounded man with a corseted back, a café owner riddled with debt, without confiding to him the truth about his daughter. The lie is quickly exposed in the bedroom. The dowry is not enough to swallow the pill. Abel does not touch her, consoles himself in the arms of a prostitute (Juliette Armanet). But Rosalie gradually frees herself by refusing to shave. The argument is primarily of a financial nature. The bearded owner attracts customers into the hitherto uncrowded café. Rosalie assumes and takes responsibility. Of course, people didn't wait for social media to be mean. They tolerate her less and less as her husband loves her more and more. Abel and the Beast? There is no beast in this graceful couple in their feverish embraces. E.S.

À lire aussiNotre critique de Rosalie: femme au poil

Documentary by Sébastien Lifshitz, 1h44

Sylvie Hofmann has been a nursing manager for forty years at the northern hospital in Marseille. She's drunk and cheeky. She also has a big heart like that. She can be nervous but never climbs into the towers. Sylvie married young, divorced and raised two children. Her daughter suffered a cardiac arrest when she was one month old. She revives her while crying. The first treatment in a long series. Sébastien Lifshitz (Adolescents, Little Girl) has found a colorful character and is not letting go of him one step. Sylvie has all the flavor of a conventional film in the form, where the chronicle of the service alternates with scenes of private life and interviews in front of the camera. Not just any service. Sylvie works in oncology. Cancer is his ordinary. Palliative care and deaths are his daily life. To spice things up, Sylvie is in her last year before retirement. You really have to have a heart of stone not to cry out on Sylvie's last day in the hospital. E.S.

À lire aussiNotre critique de Madame Hofmann: Mère Courage peuchère

Drame de Ryūsuke Hamaguchi, 1h46

What next ? These people from Tokyo think they can do anything. Now they are planning to open a “glamping” (mixture of camping and glamour) in this secluded countryside. Some locals don't see it that way. The upscale facility would interfere with deer travel. There is not just that. The septic tank, for sure, would pollute the crystal clear stream where the villagers fill their jerrycans. These ancestral habits go against the modernity of these bobos in search of roots they never had. A meeting pits local residents against communicators from the capital. There is a lot of misunderstanding between them. Hamagushi (Drive My car) changes gear. The truth obliges us to say that this change of course is confusing. Beauty and slowness are there; the ecological fable replaces sentimental quarrels. It is not certain that we gained anything from it. The director hesitates between tale and realism, does not really choose between poetry and suspense. This leaves you a little speechless. IN.

Also read: Evil Does Not Exist: The Confusing Tale of Hamagushi