Saturday was definitely a great day for movies at the COLCOA film festival, at least for the couple I saw. Lucas Belvaux's Rapt (Rapt review) was a captivating look at a kidnapping, marking its originality by focusing on what's going on behind the scenes, on the victim's side, rather than on the victim and his kidnappers. The film brushes the psychological portrait of the parties involved, questioning their morality and confronting them to their own conscience, without being judgmental.
Looking at the huge turnout for Gainsbourg (Gainsbourg review), it was obvious that this biopic about the legendary French artist, would have been a much better way to kick-off the festival, than Heartbreaker. Tackling such a fascinating character seemed like a quite perilous project but writer/director Joann Sfar's choice to build a tale high in metaphors and surrealism makes it more worthy of the character than a tame chronological biopic. Joann Sfar's film shouldn't been approached as a historical film though but rather as a pop art piece, which is colorful, exciting but also superficial - you won't get into the singer's psyche here but will get to experience how unordinary and fun his life might have been.
The screening was followed by a Q&A with Eric Elmosnino, the star of the film, which provided some insightful information.
