If there were an Academy Award © for the most improbable production of the year, Ra’up McGee’s ‘Autumn’ would surely be a front runner. Conceived in Indonesia, written in Los Angeles and eventually translated into French for a French cast and crew, the movie is film noir seen through American glasses.
Jean-Pierre is a hit man working for his father-figure Noël in the steamy depths of wet-street Paris.
Noël believes in tough love and slices and dices his crew like his omelets if they show wayward tendencies. But Jean-Pierre is thinking his best work may be behind him and is growing a conscience.
A traumatic event in his childhood involving a dead woman sent him off on this life of crime. He shared that scene with his childhood love, Michelle, with whom he has mysteriously recoupled in an attempt to let love find a way. Both are looking for a way to put the pieces of their lives back together, but it may be too late.
Love not only needs to find a way past Noël and his fillet knife, but past his beautiful and dangerous assistant Veronique. Veronique is also without sleep for a week or two since her last assignment and also faces a moral dilemma.
Somthin’s gotta give and the key might be in the mysterious briefcase that Michelle stole from her bomb-making boyfriend. Michelle tells us a bomb requires a container, clips, timer, initiator and charge.
But how do the pieces of the two lives fit into the misshapen container of the Parisian underworld distorted by childhood memories of leaves blowing over an abandoned body?
If all this seems complicated you are definitely catching on.
The press materials warn screeners to pay close attention to the film and one can only hope viewers will be issued the same warning. There may be places at which the sign points are not only subtle, but missing.
Like drivers on New Jersey highways, the audience is asked to keep several alternatives in mind while the film proceeds to the next crossroads.
If breakthrough director and screenwriter Ra'up McGee may have bitten off more in his screenplay than he could chew this may be forgiven based on the commendable product he has produced with this low budget truly indie release.
His only previous major film credit is the documentary "Ramadhan" in Indonesia (1998) which was made for TV. According to McGee, it was slogging through the fetid humidity of Sumatra when memories of those cold, wet, Parisian streets started to attain a special attraction.
Of course, he could have gone to Seattle and shot the film for less. But it wouldn’t be the same.
Paris had more than soul in store for McGee; it had Irène Jacob to play the part of Michelle. Having seen Jacob star in Krzysztof Kieslowski’s “Red” (1994) he was smitten by the style and sense of the film as well as the actress.
She won Best Actress at Cannes in 1991 for “The Double Life of Veronique” and was nominated for the César for Best Actress for “Three Colors: Red” (1994) and also for “The Double Life of Veronique.”
Conflicted hit man Jean-Pierre is played by Laurent Lucas who claims a nomination for the César for Most Promising Actor in “Haut les coeurs!” (1999). His edgy and swarthy performance as a troubled but disciplined professional brings to mind the similar performance by Romain Duris in the 2005 Parisian underbelly drama ‘The Beat That My Heart Skipped’ and its predecessor, the 1978 Harvey Keitel pot-boiler ‘Fingers’ about the trained classical pianist who is doomed to break heads for a domineering and sociopathic gangster dad.
‘Autumn’ is a quality piece of work that will be thoroughly enjoyed by those who can’t get enough of those dark interior scenes and brooding individuals who are not what they seem.
But the decision will be whether to watch this film or rent the DVDs of the past award winners like it.
Does this film add significantly to the work before it?
Maybe not, but even so it is a good chance to see breakthrough Laurent Lucas at work. One can’t go on watching the same films forever.
See this in the theatre while you can, and rent the old DVDs anyway.
Limited release opens June 9th 2006 MPAA not rated
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