The first casualty

Cézanne et moi

Crit

A meditation on the incompatibility of art and friendship, as the moi of the title, Émile Zola (Guillaume Canet) and the Cézanne of the title (Guillaume Gallienne) spend their adult lives dueling with the respective phallic implements of their respective vocations.

Of particular note, and doubtless where virtually the entire clearance budget went, is an end titles sequence morphing through version after version of Cézanne views of Mont Sainte-Victoire. Spectacular.

Frantz

Crit

Though a fan of François Ozon (Under the Sand, Swimming Pool, Ricky), I was ready to express disappointment with the predictable turn this film, about the visit of a young Frenchman to the family (prewidowed fiancée included) of a German killed in the Great War, takes in the third act--until I realized that there was a whole nother act left, with nothing remotely predictable about it. I've never seen Lubitsch's 1932 Broken Lullaby, on which this is based, but if it was as subtly and delicately poised between expectation and revelation as this one is, well, credit Ozon for excellent thievery at worst.