Super Mario Galaxy, the movie, Stronger Than Me, The Drama: what’s new at the cinema this week

What to see in theaters

THE EVENT
SUPER MARIO GALAXY, THE MOVIE ★☆☆☆☆

By Aaron Horvath and Michael Jelenic

The essentials

The new blockbuster from Nintendo and Illumination based on the famous video game has all the faults of the first. But the public loves it, so…

After the mega success of Super Mario Bros., the film, the establishment of a franchise around the famous mustachioed plumber was inevitable. We are therefore faced with the next stage, a direct sequel where the plumber sets off again for a new adventure as saturated in colors as in nods to his world. As with its predecessor, it is very difficult to judge Super Mario Galaxy, the film as a cinematic object. Between family entertainment and ultra-referenced blockbuster for geeks of all ages fed up with the Nintendo hero, this second ultra-calibrated feature film makes no effort to exceed its status as a giant promotional spot for the brand. And a few interesting ideas are not enough to alleviate the vacuity of the plot, which struggles to keep the uninitiated viewer involved, and the multitude of childish gags too often falling flat. Super Mario Galaxy, The Film lacks steam, and leaves us with a less good impression than the first part, already not great. Which won’t stop it from filling movie theaters. That’s already it…

Edward Orozco

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PREMIERE LIKED A LOT

STRONGER THAN ME ★★★★☆

By Kirk Jones

Stronger than Me tells the story of John Davidson, suffering from Tourette’s syndrome (and more precisely from coprolalia, these vulgar verbal tics), a neurological disorder which permanently dynamites the public social order that Kirk Jones stages in an effective manner, without affectations, He focuses on his actors, from the fabulous beginner Scott Ellis Watson (who plays Davidson as a teenager, at the beginning of the 80s), to the no less exceptional Robert Aramayo, BAFTA award-winning via Peter Mullan, irresistible as a social worker straight out of a Ken Loach film. With a soundtrack based on songs from Oasis and New Order, Stronger than Me sketches Davidson’s journey in a succession of vibrant snapshots, in an ideal blend of humor, modesty and sensitivity.

Frédéric Foubert

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HOLDING LIAT ★★★★☆

By Brandon Kramer

Telling about October 7, 2023 is a particularly perilous thing. How can we succeed in neither falling into bias nor miserabilism? By choosing to follow Yehuda, a distant member of his family, and his Israeli-American wife who no longer have news of their daughter Liat and their son-in-law Aviv who disappeared from their kibbutz during the pogrom, Brandon Kramer succeeds brilliantly. In his third documentary, he recalls how terrorist attacks are not just a succession of statistics, each more appalling than the last, but also unspeakable tragedies. We become aware of the time that passes, diminishing their hopes a little more each day. We understand how members of the same family, no matter how united, can be affected by diametrically opposed feelings, each trying to survive in their own way. Striking.

Anne Lenoir

NUESTRA TIERRA ★★★★☆

By Lucrecia Martel

A murder has taken place. But it’s difficult to understand how, in the fog of pixels supposed to serve as evidence. On October 12, 2009, Javier Chocobar, a member of the Chuschagasta indigenous community, was shot dead by three men who claimed ownership of his land in the province of Tucuman, in northern Argentina. The crime, filmed by one of the attackers, led to a trial, in turn filmed by Lucrecia Martel. The filmmaker starts from what could be a true crime argument to analyze the history of the Chuschas and the logic of expropriation of which they have been victims for centuries. To the confused images of the murder, she contrasts photo archives, oral histories, and impressive drone shots, flying over the province of Tucuman and allowing the debate to be raised – literally. A powerful documentary in the form of an antidote to this vast fiction that is, in Martel’s eyes, the official history of Argentina.

Frédéric Foubert

FIRST TO LIKE

THE DRAMA ★★★☆☆

By Kristoffer Borgli

If Ruben Östlund had opened a film school to train disciples, there is no doubt that Kristoffer Borgli would have graduated with congratulations from the jury. Revealed by Sick of Myself, he is now moving upmarket with his new film, The Drama, with very sexy packaging (A24 film with Zendaya and Robert Pattinson and Ari Aster, producing), and which intends to confirm his expertise in the manufacture of small satirical machines nourished by flammable social subjects, aiming at a form of discomfort for the spectator, while proving entertaining. That said, it is difficult to reveal more about The Drama because it would be criminal to spoil it. Let’s just say that a few days before their wedding, the very much in love Emma and Charlie have a few drinks with their best men until the conversation drifts towards the question “what is the worst thing you have done in your life?”. And when Emma confesses, her interlocutors freeze, their jaws drop, and their masks with them. The pitch is attractive, the talent of the performers is breathtaking, but the small problem with The Drama is that it has a little trouble going the distance, as if it were relying too much on the effect of stupefaction caused by its terrible secret. He nevertheless lands brilliantly on his feet, in a final scene where Borgli opens up new horizons at the last minute, beyond his talent as a wry satirist.

Frédéric Foubert

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YELLOW LETTERS ★★★☆☆

By Ilker Çatak

After The Teachers’ Room, Ilker Çatak continues to tell the story of our times and its torments. Here he examines Turkey, where his family comes from and where he himself spent part of his youth. A pamphlet film that he was unable to shoot on location, as he mischievously points out in the credits, indicating that Berlin and Hamburg will play the respective roles of Ankara and Istanbul. His Yellow Letters depicts a couple in turmoil for having dared not to give in to the injunctions of the Erdogan regime. She as an actress, he as a college professor. Both banned from practicing their profession. How can you stay faithful to your ideals when economic reality is slowly strangling you? This is the question that underlies this story which would have deserved to shed a few superfluous subplots but which hits hard and right in its description of the way in which the political impacts the intimate. He didn’t steal his Golden Bear!

Thierry Cheze

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SILENT FRIEND ★★★☆☆

By Ildiko Enyedi

A gigantic tree overlooking the botanical garden of the University of Marburg plays the central role in the new Ildikó Enyedi (My 20th Century, The Story of My Wife…). A tree that bears witness to the three stories that the Hungarian filmmaker will interweave here. A young scientist who tries to find a place in a university world that was then only male, in 1908. A student who awakens both to love and to the mysterious world of plants in 1970. And a Chinese scientist (Tony Leung Chiu-Wai with stunning charisma) who came to give a series of courses in neurology and was stuck there, in 2020, by COVID. Through these three solitary explorers in search of knowledge, Ildikó Enyedi celebrates the complexity of nature according to the principle that plants are deep down humans like any other. Its aridity will leave many at the door but as long as we give in to it, the journey reveals itself to be of astounding poetry and depth.

Thierry Cheze

HELENE TRESORE TRANSNATIONAL ★★★☆☆

By Judith Abitbol

Trans woman, candidate for IDHEC, prostitute, actress at Godard, anarchist activist, member of the Homosexual Front for Revolutionary Action, Gazolines and the Act Up-Paris group, journalist at Libération, HIV positive, music lover on France Culture… Hélène Hazera is all of this at the same time. A tender story of lives and struggles in this documentary where the “you” is customary, a portrait down to the core (literally) of a pioneer who dedicated her life to the concepts of tolerance and freedom. Along the streets of Paris – the very ones where she once “played the hustle” – her voice bridges the gap between a past where everything had to be done and a present tending towards the best. Judith Abitbol has created a large-scale work of memory, a film that is more listenable than watchable, if it were not for the essentially visual interest of the archive images – photo albums, newspaper clippings, video clips – which punctuate it.

Chloé Delos-Eray

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FIRST TO MODERATELY LIKED

BEHIND THE PALM TREES ★★☆☆☆

By Meryem Benm’Barek

Eight years after Sofia, her first feature film, Meryem Benm’Barek does it again with this work selected at the last Marrakech Festival. And offers a realistic image of today’s Morocco and its cultural norms. This time, she brings to the screen the complicated loves of Mehdi (Driss Ramdi), a worker in her father’s construction company. While he was thinking of making a life near Selma, he meets Marie (Sara Giraudeau), the daughter of the French owners of a luxurious villa that he is renovating. He is seduced by her bohemian and carefree side but also by the dreams of grandeur that she finally allows him to have. They do not take long to maintain a relationship which risks leaving traces. The director effectively sketches the often complicated relationships between locals and French expatriates. Too bad the characters turn out to be too caricatured to be really credible.

Anne Lenoir

FIRST DID NOT LIKE

DOLLY ★☆☆☆☆

By Rod Blackhurst

Macy goes hiking in the forest with her partner Chase (Seann William Scott), determined to propose to her. Their escapade is cut short when they come across Dolly, a gigantic woman wearing a porcelain doll mask, who massacres Chase with a dirty shovel before kidnapping the young woman. Macy wakes up sequestered in a dilapidated house, where Dolly treats her like her baby: cradle, high chair, pacifier, spankings and meals consisting of questionable milk… Director Rod Blackhurst makes no secret of being obsessed with The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, which he apes here ad nauseum (16mm photo, incestuous father, carbon copy finale…) Unfortunately, Dolly does not have the horrific power of Leather or Blackhurst the talent of Tobe Hooper. It’s gory, everyone can agree, yet all of this doesn’t provide the slightest thrill, whether of fear or pleasure.

François Léger

And also

Compostela, by Yann Samuell

Bad pickaxe, by Gérard Jugnot

The Secret of the Ethiopian Wolf, by Baptiste Deturche and Adrien Lesaffre

The covers

The River of Death, by Luis Bunuel

The Taste of Others, by Agnès Jaoui

The time for liberation has come, by Heiny Sour