Gael García Bernal

  • La mala educación [Bad Education] (2004)

    La mala educación [Bad Education] (2004)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (In French, On TV, February 2021) While I wouldn’t call myself a fan of writer-director Pedro Almodóvar’s work, I rarely miss a chance to see movies of his — he can usually be relied upon to show us something new, interesting and provocative every time. There are few boring Almodovar films, and Bad Education is not of them. The story of a director reuniting with a past flame soon turns to cross-dressing, impersonation, murder and melodramatic confessions. There’s seldom a dull moment along the way, and Almodovar keeps us on our toes with a non-chronologic structure that may simply be excerpts of the film being made along the way (echoing his later Pain and Glory). The film relies on the performances of Gael García Bernal and Fele Martinez and both actors prove up to the challenge. The cinematography is very colourful and, as usual, the film mercifully does not stick to a formulaic narrative. Bad Education may feel a lot like other Almodóvar movies, but like all of them, it’s also a voyage of discovery in what he can do with a film.

  • Zoom (2015)

    Zoom (2015)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (In French, On TV, August 2020) Canadian Content requirements weigh heavily on Canadian Cable TV channels, most of which are required to broadcast a certain percentage of Canadian content in order to keep their license. That’s often a recipe for substandard content, but once in a while you get a nice surprise, and that’s Zoom for you. I probably missed seeing this film for years due to its titular resemblance to the 2006 family film, but this 2015 Zoom is something else: a metafictional comedy that deals with ribald issues and three intertwined stories writing each other, once of them being executed as an animated (well, rotoscoped) movie. We begin with a sex-doll manufacturer who, unhappy with her own body, decides to have breast augmentation surgery but becomes unhappy with the results. In revenge, she reduces the penis size of the director protagonist in the comic book she’s writing. He, in turn, can’t quite decide what to do with the female writer protagonist of his film, especially once the producers are unhappy with the arthouse direction of his movie. Meanwhile, that woman writer is having trouble completing her novel, a tawdry story featuring a sex-doll manufacturer who, unhappy with her own body, decides to have breast augmentation surgery… The script takes a while to make the links clear, but as the film goes on, the plot threads become drawn closer and closer until we hit a climax that resonates through all three stories at once. Fans of metafiction will have a lot of fun with the results, even though some tightening up could have been beneficial in making the film even more fun. Still, what’s presented is quite entertaining to watch. Allison Pill is cute in her big glasses and overstuffed shirt, while Gael Garcia Bernal is all sputtering indignation as the shrunken member of the director’s guild. Director Pedro Morelli has the chance to deliver something quite unlike anything else, as he blends the relationship between his three interwoven stories. I’m surprised that I haven’t even heard about this film before today, but that’s today’s fragmented cultural universe for you. At least CanCon requirements have proven useful for once.

  • La Science des rêves [The Science of Sleep] (2006)

    La Science des rêves [The Science of Sleep] (2006)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, June 2018) I may not like Michel Gondry’s work all that much, but now that I’m familiar with his approach, each one of his films bothers me less and less. La Science des rèves is pure Gondry in that it mixes his flights of fancy, eccentric characters and low-tech stop-motion special effects in the service of a romantic story. It’s twee and silly and ultimately tragic (maybe) and messy in its small-budget style, but I ended up liking it more than I would have expected. Gael García Bernal stars as a young artist moving from Mexico to Paris and finding that his promised job is far less interesting than expected. Meanwhile, he falls for his next-door neighbour with results complicated by his eccentric personality and his difficulty in distinguishing dreams from reality. The street-level view of Paris is interesting, but not as much as the characters in their flawed, initially off-putting qualities. Charlotte Gainsbourg is appealing as the love interest and the treatment of French/English bilingual dialogue is something I always appreciate, but the star of the show is Gondry’s imagination, endearingly portrayed through cardboard bricolage and stop-motion animation even when (say) tap water could have done just as well. Part of the key in appreciating Gondry is letting go of logic and simply letting the film go where it wants. This goes double for the oneiric The Science of Sleep. It may not outclass Mood Indigo as my favourite Gondry (a very qualified recommendation) but its whimsical quality makes for a welcome departure from the rather more realistic movie fare I’ve been binging lately.