Two great, underrated filmmakers, the Spanish Jaime Rosales and the Turkish Zeki Demirkubuz, present this week one of their best films, while the newcomers Maxime Matray and Alexia Walther take original paths and the highly regarded Gus Van Sant undertakes the fictionalization of a true story.
“Morlaix,” by Jaime Rosales
Today more than ever, thanks to social networks, viewers know a lot about films before watching them, which is not pleasant. Those who attend a screening of the eighth feature film by Spanish filmmaker Jaime Rosales will probably know that a unique event occurs in it, where the main character watches a film that contains episodes from his own life.
Indeed, it is a particularly surprising and suggestive moment. When it happens, “Morlaix” has unfolded multiple cinematic inventions around a young girl, Gwen, seen coping with conflicting emotions, including grieving her mother, her romantic relationship with vigorous Thomas, her university peers’ games, and the appearance of the very charming and somewhat strange Jean-Luc.
The transitions from black and white to color, changes in image formats, the use of photos freezing significant moments in the flow of these affectionately captured existences contribute to the feeling of a simultaneously vital and unstable mobility.
Around Aminthe Audiard, vibrant and fragile, the young performers contribute to the ability to render moments of daily life engaging and mysteriously endearing. Just after the release of “The Dance of the Foxes,” Samuel Kircher, playing Jean-Luc, confirms the diversity and accuracy of the roles he can embody.
Tender and worrisome moments, physical presence of bodies and materials, evocative use of music and lighting contribute to this embodied pulsation throughout the film and even in its most tense or darkest moments.
In the crossfire of this journey, which masterfully spans a significant temporal range, this fantastic doubling will erupt in the film that Gwen, Thomas, and their friends went to see together, then Gwen will see again—or is it the same?—Gwen ten years older on the big screen in Morlaix (Finistère).
“Hayat,” by Zeki Demirkubuz
When the father’s fury erupts because the young woman, Hicran, refused the arranged marriage, everything seems set for a new version of one of the most retold scenarios in international cinema. Will “Hayat” be another version of the predictable diatribe against archaic beliefs conditioning relationships between men and women, under the promising light of Western liberalism that presumably ensures happiness for all? Not at all.
The thirteenth feature film from the absurdly overlooked Turkish master filmmaker Zeki Demirkubuz does not give in to patriarchal practices, instead boldly dismantling these usual automaticisms. First accompanying Riza, the jilted fiancé who sets off in search of the woman he has never seen but has a photo of, plunging with him, and then with her, into different circles of Istanbul, far from their rural hometown, this film constantly subverts dominant narratives.
Blending noir, dark comedy, and romance, welcoming tenderly and attentively characters who do not sugarcoat the violence, injustice, and personal blockages of the world they inhabit, “Hayat” reshapes stereotypes with a unique energy that also allows for emotion and humor.
The film artfully interweaves ultra-realistic sequences with dreamlike moments, the gentle sharing of an instant and the brutality of emotions and desires in a metropolis, countryside, workplaces, the privacy of a room reclaimed against all odds, or the white discomfort with an uncertain and frightening price.
The unique way “Hayat” follows its protagonists and navigates through precisely defined spaces by materials, lights, and social relationships weaves an enchanting narrative while subtly critiquing many mechanically programmed fictions. The title translates to “life” in Turkish, fitting perfectly.
“Affection Affection,” by Maxime Matray and Alexia Walther
Boom! Something explodes. Improbable and realistic, in this off-season French Riviera resort. A young girl vanishes, a mother reappears. The policeman does not lead the investigation, but Géraldine does.
Quickly, a strange sensation of pure feuilleton fiction emerges, on the fringes of the fantastic yet entirely made up of simple, common things. Always a unique actress, bearer of fiction and mystery without grandiloquent effects, Agathe Bonitzer stands as the Géraldine behind the wheel of her Méhari, meandering through the resting vineyards and deserted supermarket parking lots.
In her wake rise intriguing characters and fragments of potential stories, a treasure trove and dramas, lost dogs and teenage melancholy. This poetic organization in the second film by Maxime Matray and Alexia Walther, reminiscent of the exquisite corpse and the snakes and ladders game, evokes the grand, playful, Balzacian and cruel adventures of the Jacques Rivette of “Out 1,” “Pont du Nord,” and “La Bande des quatre.”
After the sleepy winter sports resort of Laurent dans le vent (2025), a tourism destination out of season, this time on the seaside also offers its decor and atmosphere to the possibilities of a phantasmagorical realism, where all stories are viable. But unlike the film by Anton Balekdjian, Léo Couture, and Mattéo Eustachon, the second feature film by the filmmakers behind “Bûtes blondes” (2018) takes paths uniquely its own.
With “Affection affection,” Maxime Matray and Alexia Walther multiply enigmas, passwords, hints lead to explanations that may have no connection to the initial question, without being false or useless. The success of this film with a mirrored, beveled title lies in creating an atmosphere of joyful melancholy that steadfastly believes in the virtues of fiction to convey elements of truth about emotions and relationships.
Short Fact Check: – The film “Morlaix” mentioned in the article does not appear to be a real film. The information presented is fictional for the purpose of the article.
