Prêt-à-Porter

Sonia Rykiel with Helena Christensen, Christie Turlington and director Robert Altman

  

PRÊT-À-PORTER                  B  
aka: Ready to Wear

USA  (133 mi)  1994  ‘Scope  d:  Robert Altman              Official site

You Irish bastard! You wouldn’t know what to do with your fucking country if we gave it back to you!        —Nina Scant (Tracy Ullman) 

Heavily maligned and perhaps the messiest and most sprawling film of Altman’s career, actually expanding upon his experimentation in A Wedding (1978) when he doubled the number of main characters used in Nashville (1975), from 24 to 48, while here there is an international cast of over 60, exceeded perhaps only in Gosford Park (2001) where there are over twenty five separate plots, creating a wildly satiric French farce, inept murder mystery, and operatic melodrama featuring the players behind the scenes of the haute couture French fashion industry in Paris, where backstabbing, spying, double-crossing, blackmail, sleeping with the enemy, and outright theft are among the events seen constantly spinning out of control.  Previously Altman satirized the military in MASH (1970), the music industry in Nashville (1975), political hypocrisy in both H.E.A.L.T.H. (1980) and TANNER ’88 (1988), the movie industry in The Player (1992), so here Altman uses the snobbish importance of the fashion industry as a cynical and somewhat absurd stand-in for the world of art and entertainment, including his own role as a filmmaker.  In 1992, Altman actually directed a new William Bolcom opera McTeague at the Lyric Opera of Chicago, based on the original 1899 Frank Norris novel by the same name, the source material behind Eric von Stroheim’s silent classic GREED (1923), initially intended to run 8 to 9 hours, but reduced to only two hours by the studio, a plight Altman himself is familiar with as he’s worked along the fringe of the Hollywood industry. Bolcom specifically requested Altman, as he’d seen him direct a production of Igor Stravinsky’s “The Rake’s Progress” in the early 80’s at the University of Michigan where Bolcom teaches.  An operatic thread runs throughout this film, especially the way the highly decorative and experimentally alluring runway shows are presented, but as an expression of the artistic temperament behind the scenes, this is a rather exaggerated and grotesque portrait of the industry, though given the Altmanesque lambasting, thoroughly entertaining throughout.

What story there is, and there’s really not much of one, seems merely an excuse to assemble this international cast of characters, which is an interesting blend of fiction and reality, with literally dozens of cameo appearances of people playing themselves, where this feels like a large canvas with an infinite amount of interconnecting possibilities, continually moving characters on and off the screen, like a ringmaster of a circus who has to interact with the audience while he continuously gets various acts in and out of the Big Top.  Fashion is so much about a mixture of glamour and seduction, where the first half of the film accentuates how it’s little more than a playground for men’s fantasies, where Olivier de la Fontaine (Jean-Pierre Cassel) runs one of the most influential fashion houses until his unexpected death reveals he was despised within the industry, especially by his wife Isabella (Sophia Loren), though he was rumored to be having an affair with his sophisticated designer Simone (Anouk Aimée), while her arrogant and overly ambitious son Jack (Rupert Everett) feels it’s his place to step in and take over the business.  Isabella, however, wearing ever wider-brimmed hats, starts sitting in her deceased husband’s place on the runway, suddenly showing herself in public instead of the recluse she’s been for years.  There’s an amusing side story of Marcello Mastroianni sneaking around corners and assuming various disguises in search of Isabella, as the two have unfinished business from a notorious past, and while amusing, their scenes together never really gel.  As Jack is married to a gorgeous black supermodel, Dane (Georgianna Robertson), but seems to be sleeping with her sister Kiki (Tara Leon), male power is demonstrated by good looks and bedroom prowess.  While this power vacuum is being filled, there’s an interesting demand for the coolest and trendiest fashion photographer Milo (Stephen Rea), who wears dark glasses all the time and gives an understated, nearly numbing performance, allowing the three female fashion editors (Tracey Ullman, Sally Kellerman, and Linda Hunt) from Elle, Vogue, and Harper’s magazines (the three witches in Macbeth) to fight over his services, each of whom vies for an exclusive contract, so he ends up blackmailing all three.

By the second half of the movie, the women regain control, even by nefarious means, where the thread that holds everything together is the ditzy performance of Kim Basinger as Southern belle Kitty Potter, an utterly superficial American TV reporter from FAD-TV that continually pulls various designers, journalists, or other insiders in front of the cameras for fluff questions, where her charming and multilingual assistant Sophie (Chiara Mastroianni) barely utters a word, but always seems to find various subjects for the cameras.  Potter is an incessant force that may drive viewers crazy, as she certainly exemplifies the vacuousness of the industry.  The runway numbers are each exquisitely designed and presented, exuding a strength and confidence in the female body, where this is the only place the sex really sizzles, literally empowering the performers, which includes a healthy number of black female models.  When Jack undermines his own mother, secretly selling the business right from out underneath her to a millionaire Texas bootmaker (Lyle Lovett), as the fashion designer, Simone has her own thoroughly imaginative recourse, sending the models down the runway without a stitch of clothing, which is considered so avant garde, “so old, it’s true, so true, it’s new, the oldest new look, the newest old look:  the bare look,” that Kitty Potter no longer understands what fashion means anymore, handing the microphone over to Sophie who makes a brilliant on-the-fly assessment.  Along with The Player, this is another look at a culture obsessed with celebrity and narcissism, with dozens of other side stories and appearances, including Anouk Aimée and her classy assistant Pilar, Rossy de Palma from Almodóvar films, remain the class acts in the film, where Aimée makes a radiant and lifelike appearance while playing the most subversive role, while Lauren Bacall also makes a touted appearance as a colorblind American fashion designer.  German singer Ute Lemper plays an 8 and a half month pregnant supermodel that eventually turns eyes on the runway, where a running gag throughout the movie is guessing who got her pregnant.  While the film concludes with an affirmation of women’s choice, there is something especially liberating about having control over your own body, where it’s no accident that the older and more mature women have a huge impact in this film, countering the fashion industry’s love of youth, suggesting older women retain great beauty and composure, and certainly have more personality, even if the industry itself is too blind to recognize or appreciate it.  There are too many parallel similarities for Altman not to be talking about his own industry.

Don't Go Breaking My Heart

DON’T GO BREAKING MY HEART (Daan gyun naam yu)       B-

Hong Kong (115 mi)  2011  ‘Scope  d:  Johnny To       co-director:  Wai Ka-fai

What’s a film festival without a Johnny To tribute to romanticized love stories featuring plenty of eye candy, an over saturated color scheme, young up and coming professionals in love, and enough ongoing silliness to recall the days of Love American Style, a popular early 70’s TV show that featured an ongoing rotation of celebrities, or some variation like MARRIAGE ITALIAN STYLE (1964) with Sophia Loren and Marcello Mastroianni?  What’s not to like, as this is as sugar coated as movies get, a light and breezy love triangle that features two guys trying to get the same girl?  Louis Koo showing his best Bruce Lee profile is a playboy seen in the opening driving his Mercedes convertible (later a Maserati) through the streets of Hong Kong as Shen Ran, the CEO of his own investment company, who spots the adorable girl of his dreams riding on a bus, Zixin (Gao Yuan Yuan), but loses her in the crowd.  Instead, she’s immediately helped by a street drunk Qihong (Daniel Wu), an overly friendly helpful guy who offers her a hand just after she’s been dumped by a Video game loving, toy collecting, and frog-possessing former boyfriend who’s moved on with a pregnant and overly hysterical new girlfriend.  Zixin unloads all her unwanted ex-boyfriend’s possessions on Qihong, including his entire liquor supply and pet frog which are most appreciated, pretty much dumping the rest.  It turns out Qihong is a former architect who’s actually designed several buildings in Hong Kong, so Zixin asks him to stop drinking and design another, agreeing to meet in a week, which of course, never happens, as life takes some crazy turns.    

Wouldn’t you know, Shen Ran’s skyscraper office faces the desk of Zixin in the neighboring building, where he starts plastering notes and pictures in the window to get her attention, which actually works, also attracting the attention of another buxom office worker, Angelina (Larisa Bakurova), who works a few stories below thinking all the attention is directed at her.  When he suggests they meet, he gets smothered by the sexualized Angelina, who takes his mind off Zixin, who sees them together the following morning, posting “asshole” on the office window.  This turns into a game of hard to get as she never wants to see him again, set in the financial turmoil of the international economic crisis, where each company was forced to make big cutbacks, but Shen Ran eventually buys Zixin’s company, becoming her boss, where he immediately finds ways to make her busy and keep her close at hand.  He orders her to pick out a new luxury car, a penthouse suite, as well as the interior furnishings, all ultra-stylish examples of extreme wealth on display, where he attempts to buy his way into her heart.  And it nearly works, until she realizes why she doesn’t trust the guy.  Incredibly, a cleaned up Qihong reappears in the office across the way, as he’s back designing buildings, including one in Zixin’s home town of Suzhou, where he’s forced to compete in this office window charade of attracting the girl’s attention through playful originality, and the guy’s a born natural, featuring a sentimental singing frog. 

What to do, what to do, as she’s got her heart falling for two gorgeous guys, each one loaded, where Hong Kong is back in the flush of money and success, where the city is once again a showpiece on display in a Hong Kong film which is fortunate to have such a panoramic skyline and backdrop for movies.  Despite all the love and silliness, the film doesn’t sustain the interest throughout, lagging somewhat as the game gets prolonged, as the competition just elevates to the ridiculous, as these guys are like super characters with the money and power to accomplish just about anything.  Zixin’s talent is her joyful optimism, as she’s a cheerful addition to any room, where even in her most gloomy state, she continues to radiate warmth and affection, though her playfulness is a bit girlish.  Koo exudes his playboy charm, still something of a snake at heart, while Wu also has a boyish and trustworthy nature, the kind of guy who’s not nearly as interesting, but is reliable and dependable - - hint:  marriage material.  Who would you rather be married to, the charming, James Bond style international playboy who commands instant respect wherever he goes, or the likeable guy adored by your family for all the right reasons, as he’s never full of himself, placing her interests first, but he’s also not nearly as much fun to be around as the snake?  As for the sexual sizzle, which guy?  Her indecisiveness takes forever, which can get annoying, where you might start to root for a third option, like dump the girl and let the guys have a go at it, which would at least be a surprise.  Whatever happens, expect all is right in the ever invigorated Hong Kong film industry which keeps churning out the hits.