LA PATINOIRE
THE ICE RINK |
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Director:
Jean-Philippe Toussaint
Screenplay: Jean-Philippe Toussaint
Cast: Tom Novembre, Mireille Perrier, Dolores Chaplin, Marie-France
Pisier, Bruce Campbell.
Running time: 80'
Year of production: 1999
Rating: Not rated
Gauge: 16 & 35mm (color)
Distributor: Kino International
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“If
its pieces don’t completely fit, The Ice Rink has sophisticated
comic performances by a cast who know their characters well enough
to make us like them in spite of their self-absorption. While portraying
moviemaking as one of the silliest activities on earth, The Ice Rink
also makes us want to be there in the heart of all that foolishness,
quaking in our skates.” Stephen Holden, The New York Times. |
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A
film director (Novembre) sets out to shoot a low budget romantic feature
in the world of ice hockey, but seems cursed by the eponymous location.
With his mostly weak-ankled crew wobbling around on skates, and movie
lights melting the ice, finishing his magnum opus in time for the
Venice Film Festival proves to be a Herculean task. The Lithuanian
hockey team he’s bussed in don’t speak French, which makes
them somewhat difficult to direct, while the conceited American star
(Campbell, of “The Evil Dead” fame) seems more interested
in bedding his flirtatious co-star (Chaplin, Charlie’s granddaughter).
The director himself would like to have a fling with his female lead
but, to his chagrin, the American beats him to it, putting a strain
on their professional relationship. As filming progresses the rigors
of the shoot take their toll. Finally, after a particularly nasty
mishap, the director finds himself directing from the confines of
a wheelchair. Using the chaos of the ice rink as a metaphor for the
undignified, obsessive and improvised nature of filmmaking, Toussaint
constructs a series of droll vignettes strung together with the simplest
of narrative strategies. With Jacques Tati-style visual gags, this
gentle satire on the perils and pitfalls of filmmaking resembles a
lighter, less neurotic “Living in Oblivion.”
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| PHOTO Courtesy
of Kino International |
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