"Potiche" - very French and very funny.

This months offering at the Port Fairy Film Society should tempt film lovers out into the cold and into the warmed up Reardon Theatre, for this very French and very funny film, complete with famous French stars and silly, farcical situations in a retro 70's setting. Based on a very successful hit comic play, Catherine Denueve plays Suzanne, the "Potiche" or submissive, housebound, trophy wife of a successful but tyrannical businessman Robert (Fabrice Luchini).

Robert is taken hostage by irate workers who go on strike at his umbrella factory and Suzanne steps in and takes charge of the factory and the situation, proving herself to be more than competent and capable. Things of course get complicated, and so the battle of the sexes and the classes ensues with comic consequences. With further great performances from Gerard Depardieu, playing a former union leader and Suzannes ex-lover ("a lovelorn political beast") and an ensemble cast of comic actors the film unfolds to be a hugely enjoyable and entertaining satire.

Critics have said of "Potiche"

"For pure pleasure of cinema, there's nothing better out there at the moment."

and

"This frothy, farcical film from Francois Ozon dotes on its star and Deneuve delivers. She's fabulous and funny. The song and dance routine she does with Depardieu is alone worth the price of a ticket." Margaret ABC

"Potiche" will be screened on Friday July 15th at 7:30pm at the Reardon Theatre Bank St. Port Fairy. It is Rated M and its running time is 110 Minutes. New and existing members always welcome. Free tea and Coffee and sweets for sale.

Summer Hours - Friday October 16th, 7.30pm

Port Fairy Film Society invites you to share in the delights of a summer table in provincial France this week with Olivier Assayas' Summer Hours.

Helene has a house full of family treasures and little time left to enjoy them. She asks her son Frederic to make sure they are preserved after her death. Once she's gone, however, Frederic must convince his sceptical brother and sister that memories are worth honouring.

With each revelation, the children and grandchildren gain an unfolding sense of a woman - and their own family's - true story. Juliette Binoche continues her dazzling career with another terrific performance as Helen's self-absorbed daughter Adrienne, while Isabelle Sadoyan plays to the film's heart as the elderly housekeeper.

The film was co-sponsored by the Musee d'Orsay in Paris and Assayas renders the aesthetic quality of these beautiful objects by making them, in a sense, co-stars of the film. More than beauty, however, this film is about loss, the preservation of stories and of the peculiar dynamic of a successful, lonely family.

"It's a rich, ambitous piece of work...this is a mature film by an accomplished director," wrote Paul Byrnes of the Sydney Morning Herald.

"Maybe this beautiful film will be too slight for many but it's certainly one of the better French films of the last year... fours stars," David Stratton said.

Summer Hours screens this Friday 16th October at 7.30pm after the Port Fairy Film Society Annual General Meeting at Reardon Theatre in Bank Street. Memberships available at the door with free tea and coffee provided.

I've Loved You So Long - Friday July 17th, 7.30pm

I've Loved You So Long is a slow burning, deeply psychological drama in the rich tradition of European - and particularly French - cinema. I never used to like these films when I was younger but I love them now, at a time when there seems to be fewer like them made.

Critical and popular acclaim for this film centres mainly around the performance of Kristin Scott-Thomas, one of those rare English-folk who speak perfect French and exude Gallic beauty and style. Scott-Thomas plays Juliette, a doctor and convicted murderer. When invited upon realease by her estranged sister Lea to live with her family, Juliette leaves much of the past unspoken despite her remaining, at least emotionally, imprisoned.

Director Philippe Claudel is a French novelist by primary vocation and he releases fragments of information slowly and carefully. The relationship of Juliette and her sister Lea is given time to develop, and the bridge that the younger sister so clearly wishes to build between them is constructed brick by brick, always threatening to topple if the trauma within finally breaks its levies.

"This is a film whose power lies in its restraint and the impact of its emotions compound as our hearts open wider and wider with each revelation," Louise Keller of Urban Cinefiles wrote.

"(It is) an exquisitely rendered story of reconciliation and redemption, which has something of a thriller's structure but is really all about relationships," Michael O'Sullivan of the Washington Post.

I've Loved You So Long screens this Friday 17th July at 7.30pm at Port Fairy Cinema in Bank Street. Memberships available at the door with free tea and coffee provided.

Click below to watch trailer: