Winter Break, Past Lives. Our lives before, Wonka... Films to watch or avoid this week

Comedy by Alexander Payne, 2H13

A wink: in the credits, the copyright indicates 1971. The Universal logo dates from that time. The film scratches. Welcome to the seventies. Alexander Payne plays the game to the fullest. So it's 1970. It's almost Christmas. At the Barton boarding school (New England), some students will not leave the establishment for the holidays. This is the case with Tully. He had to join his mother who prefers to treat herself at the last moment to a honeymoon with her new husband. Outside, it's snowing. The ancient civilization teacher is responsible for guarding the high school. Everyone hates this Hunham fossil. He is arrogant, old-fashioned. Here he is responsible for putting on the supervisor's outfit and keeping an eye on this complex, devious teenager, who we feel is torn from the inside and who has already been expelled from three schools. There is also Mary, the black cook who carries her sorrow across her shoulder. These are three lost souls. Each has a secret. Winter Break evokes the first Bob Rafelson. Venus, from Shocking Blue, echoes through the corridors. Barton's academy (motto: “We tell the truth”) bears a striking resemblance to the Overlook Hotel in The Shining, deserted offices, portrait galleries, overstuffed pantry. Paul Giamatti, whose second appearance with Payne after Sideways, invades the screen with his presence that is both good-natured and disturbing. Life disappointed him. Above all, he disappointed himself. He certainly wouldn't want the same thing to happen to his young protégé in corduroy pants. Here, we exchange sentences in Latin. We read The Peloponnesian War and watch a showing of Little Big Man. Whiskey consoles the monotony of the days. Emotions are jostling. Thanks to Payne, the past has never been more present. We expected no less from the only American who was upset by Merlusse, de Pagnol. The film is special, miraculous, unique. It's as if, to stay alive, cinema had to go back fifty years. IN.

Drama by Celine Song, 1H46

Sitting at the counter of a New York bar, a trio immersed in a serious conversation clashes: a woman (Greta Lee), surrounded by an Asian man (Teo Yoo) like her, and another Caucasian man this time ( John Magaro). This one mostly lets the other two do the talking. Who are they to each other? Lovers, friends, colleagues? This curiosity which assail the other customers also torments the spectator who will not emerge unscathed from Past Lives - Nos vies d'avant, magnificent first film by the Canadian-Korean playwright Céline Song. Until they were 12, Nora and Hae Sung were inseparable childhood friends in their native Seoul. The bond breaks when Nora's parents emigrate to Canada. Twelve years later, Hae Sung is passing through the Big Apple, where Nora, a filmmaker, now lives with her husband Arthur. He contacts her. The duo sees each other regularly. With or without Arthur. Long walks along the Hudson allow them to talk about their childhood, their aborted goodbyes, uprooting, missed opportunities. Céline Song wonders about elective affinities, about being in the right place at the right time, about the mark left on us by those who love us and who disappear from our lives, what they take from us with them . Destiny has a thousand ways of intertwining threads more subtle and more haunting than love at first sight. C.J.

Also readOur review of Past Lives - Our lives before: friendship without qualms

Adventure of Paul King, 1h57

If in your mind Willy Wonka remains the eccentric confectioner, a bit sinister and menacing as played by Johnny Depp at Tim Burton, the musical Wonka, which positions itself as the Christmas story to watch with the family, will disorient you. Director Paul King imagines the chocolatier's youth, the initiatory journey that allowed him to become established on the street and his meeting with the Oompa Loompas, his future workers addicted to cocoa. His Wonka has the youthful enthusiasm of Gen Z heartthrob and Dune star Timothée Chalamet. A determined young man, but not yet eccentric, who has just returned to dry land after seven years at sea. An outstanding inventor of candies with fantastic properties (which levitate or change the color of hair), Willy wants to keep the promise made to his mother, who died, to open a shop. But he comes up against opposition from the chocolate cartel and the dishonesty of his landlady, Mrs. Scrubbit. The local thenardiere (Olivia Colman), intends to reduce him to servitude. To overcome these obstacles, Wonka will join forces with the other captives at the boarding house. A vintage musical comedy with an old-fashioned atmosphere, Wonka demonstrates that Timothée Chalamet knows how to dance and sing perfectly, even with a small voice. The mountains of candy and the chocolate fountains will delight the little ones. This hyperglycemic diet based on nice special effects will surely impress adults less. C.J.

Drama by David Wagner, 1h27

He yells. He only knows how to do that. Sergeant Major Charles Eismayer, with tense features and a hoarse voice, continues to instruct the Austrian soldiers as they did decades earlier. His superior, a rather modern captain, would like to curb his violence. But it is a young recruit, Mario, who will succeed. The major's cries do not frighten this bold, insolent and homosexual boy, who stands up to him. Perhaps the young man already guesses what this severity has hidden for years in Eismayer. The soldier and the officer approach each other. Mario fires. They end up loving each other. A rough, silent relationship, made of ambiguities, which director David Wagner skillfully stages. And with a little too much realism when it comes to showing their antics. We would have preferred to know more about the difficulties that arise between the major and his wife, the collateral victim of this singular barracks love. B.P.

Adventure of Martin Bourboulon, 1h55

The most fervent Dumassians readily recognize this. We never shoot The Three Musketeers, we shoot a screenplay that is inspired by the novel and its previous adaptations. And that's fine, as long as there is the spirit, in the absence of the letter. The novel is too complicated and tortuous to simply transpose the plot as is to the screen. Especially in its second part, which many filmmakers shorten or gloss over. Martin Bourboulon takes the same hyphenation. After D'Artagnan, the second part is entitled Milady. It's too much. Louis Garrel, Louis XIII, fat and tasty, makes up the numbers. The spirit of seriousness dominates. D'Artagnan is looking for Constance. Milady repeatedly attempts to sleep with him or kill him - Eva Green overplays the poisonous vamp. Athos languishes, less tormented than jaded. Aramis worries for the honor of his sister, a nun in love with a soldier. Porthos doesn't really know what role to play in this story, other than that of a good friend. Captain de Tréville still frowns. The scenario scatters them, launches several avenues which it does not manage to converge around the siege of La Rochelle. Richelieu, Gaston d'Orléans (the brother of Louis XIII, a vicious felon) and the Protestants would like to give a political dimension to entertainment. They just make an already confusing plot a little more convoluted. The adventures follow one another without the breath of adventure. The open ending of Milady leaves the way open for a third part. Enough to feed certain fears. E.S.

Also read Notre critique de Milady: Les Trois Mousquetaires à bout de souffle