What are we watching this weekend? A great performance by Nathalie Baye, an acidic social satire, a classic by Sydney Lumet…
Cinema, streaming, VOD, TV… Find the Première selection every Friday.
The film in theaters: We, the orchestra of Philippe Béziat
To tell the story of the Paris Orchestra, Philippe Béziat reinvests the codes of silent film. It’s a shame but above all… a masterstroke. Six years after the marvelous Indes Galantes, the music-loving documentary filmmaker is interested in the waltz of winds, strings and percussion which every day fills the futuristic sinuosities of the aluminized colossus of La Villette, in this ensemble of one hundred and twenty musicians led by the Finnish Klaus Mäkelä since 2021. The identity of the musicians, recognized by the camera, is erased by their instrument; their testimonies can be read in intertitles. For once, in cinema, music wins, uncontested. We the Orchestra is a film of contrasts. Dedicated to the collective, to “this desire to play together”, as much as to individual trajectories. Playing on the macroscopic as much as the detail. A gigantic music box, dissected in such a virtuoso way that it suggests that this film presents not one, but two maestros: one in front of the camera, the other behind.
What’s new at the cinema this week
The series: Acharnés, season 2
After an astonishing first season, Lee Sung Jin continues his exploration of human flaws with a new story centered on desire and couple dynamics. In a posh California country club, an explosive domestic dispute filmed by two employees turns into an attempt at blackmail. The series continues to blur the lines between victims and executioners, drawing complex characters, by turns endearing and odious. Acidic social satire, it opposes generations and social classes while dissecting the couple, renunciation and the illusion of social ascension. Driven by precise writing and XXL performances – Cailee Spaeny and Charles Melton in the lead – this season is as cruel as ever… and deeply lucid about our contradictory desires.
Watch Acharnés on Netflix
The film on VOD: The Master of Kabuki by Lee Sang-il
Behind the precise gestures and ritual of kabuki, Lee Sang-il unfolds a vibrant drama where the rise of the son of a yakuza adopted by a theater master transforms into a silent struggle against the established order. The child of crime becomes a prodigy of tradition and from this paradox is born the emotional charge of the film. The sequences on stage, flashes of color and choreographed precision, offer a literally hypnotic spectacle. Conversely, behind the scenes, sometimes violent, reveal the mechanics of a world where beauty and cruelty coexist. Through this story of staggering romantic scope, covering half a century at an accelerated pace, the filmmaker questions both the price of grace and the sacrifice necessary to become an artist. In short, a great film which brought together 11 million spectators in Japan and received an Oscar nomination for best makeup.
Watch The Master of Kabuki on VOD on Première Max
The film in streaming: The Little Lieutenant by Xavier Beauvois
What film to watch to remember the late Nathalie Baye, who died last Saturday? And why not this police drama which earned her her second César for best actress in 2006? The “little lieutenant” is Jalil Lespert, but she is the heart and soul of the film. This role of a former alcoholic cop, broken by a family tragedy, who returns to service was initially planned for a man (Jacques Dutronc). Baye had to play the judge. She brings to the character and the film all her sweetness and melancholy, as well as her finesse and humanity, in tune with a story of great sobriety, far from the clichés of the genre. Until this magnificent final scene where his face is worth all the dialogue in the world.
Watch The Little Lieutenant streaming on France.TV
The new on VOD: Honey don’t by Ethan Coen
It’s not a masterpiece, far from it, but we must alert the most die-hard fans of the Coen brothers of the VOD release of Honey don’t, Ethan Coen’s second solo attempt, a tad more successful than the painful Drive-Away Dolls of 2024. Presented in a midnight screening at Cannes last year, announced in theaters then finally deprived of release by Universal, the film is the second part of an informal trilogy, neo-noir and lesbian, and features a rather brilliant Margaret Qualley as a private detective from a small California town confronting a sex-obsessed pastor played by Chris Evans. Honey don’t is rather laborious, but can be appreciated for a few pieces of comic-violent bravura where the co-director of Arizona Junior finds a little of his former brilliance, and also, we repeat, for the performance of Margaret Qualley as a super glamorous badass, too well looked for the poor town where she wanders, an anthology number which would have deserved a better setting.
Watch Honey don’t on VOD on Première Max
The classic: Network by Sidney Lumet
Network should be rewatched regularly to see how this film about the birth of trash TV stands the test of time. Especially the year when this Sidney Lumet classic celebrates its fiftieth anniversary. Especially the year when we said goodbye to Robert Duvall, one of the most eminent members of a high-flying cast which also brought together William Holden, Faye Dunaway (who won the Oscar for best actress) and Peter Finch, Oscar for best actor for his performance as a star presenter of the news at the end of his tether who threatens to commit suicide on the air… and therefore increases the audiences. The style is dead seventies but the moral of the story is undoubtedly timeless.
Watch Network on Arte.TV
