By Marian Masone
Brooklyn Eagle

A taste of recent French cinema makes its annual appearance at BAMcinématek from November 11 to 15. The program of five films introduces a first-time filmmaker and also welcomes some familiar names back to Brooklyn.

Each year since 2002 BAM has shown a small selection of new work from France, always curated by BAM’s own Florence Almozini. She finds these films during travels to the Cannes film festival in France, seeing what’s playing in cinemas marquees in Paris, and by looking at films sent to her from producers who are familiar with “New French Films� (originally called New French Connection).

Almozini shared some of her thoughts about the series in an e-mail, beginning with how she came across them:

“I saw Irène, Ricky and Please Please Me! at Cannes this year,� she says. “As for Park Benches, I saw it at a public screening in Paris. And Grown Ups was submitted by a French distributor who knew I was working on New French and looking at different films.� But Almonzini viewed many more films than were selected for the series.

“I saw about 15 films that could have qualified, maybe a little more than that, since I see films all year round and always make notes for possible future screenings in specific series,� she says. “Some get eliminated because dates do not work out, or they have already played or opened in New York. Some I don’t like or I don’t think are right for us.� As for the films themselves, Almozini says there is no theme or central idea running through the selections, but rather she looks “more for a variety of what films are produced and coming out in France, trying to include at least one documentary.�

“I think when I start working on this, I usually prefer to look for newer talents and upcoming directors, but I also keep an open mind without too many strict rules and regulations,� she says.

“So, this year we only have one first-time director, Anne Novion with Grown Ups. I loved the Alain Cavalier doc and it felt like good timing after this year’s succesful re-release of his earlier feature Le Combat dans l’île. I have also showed films by Emmanuel Mouret before, whom I think is very talented and a little underrated as a comedian, as well as Bruno Podalydès and François Ozon.�

But if one thinks about it enough (or, overthinks it enough), there is a thread that links these films. The idea of fantasy runs through many of them — certainly Ricky is a fantasy, but even Alain Cavalier’s beautiful and sadly touching documentary of his late wife, Irène, has a dream-like quality to it.

The film premiered at the Cannes film festival last May, in the section called Un Certain Regard. Though his wife died in a car accident more than 25 years ago, Cavalier has finally brought all the memories of her troubled life together for what seems to be a very personal, cathartic experiment. For the rest of us, it is a magnificent meditation on a life and the grief that can extend for years beyond the end of that life.

Ricky is one of two films made this year by prolific filmmaker François Ozon (and he’s currently shooting another film). This story of a factory worker who falls for a Spanish co-worker, loses him and gets him back again, literally takes flight when their baby sprouts a pair of wings — resembling chicken wings more than those of, say, an angel. Mother, father and older sister of little Ricky totter between keeping this bizarre yet in some ways exhilarating phenomenon a secret and letting the world in on their secret.

It’s a cross between the Dardennes brothers, whose specialty is salt of the earth, working class characters, and Tim Burton. Certainly Ozon is exploring family dynamics here, but in both a dramatic and comedic way.

Certainly Emmanuel Mouret’s slapstick comedy Please Please Me!/Fais-moi plaisir! goes off to fantasyland throughout. Mouret also stars in the film as an unlucky guy whose girlfriend thinks it’ll help their relationship if he actually steps out on her. The woman he attempts to be unfaithful with happens to be the daughter of the French president — as if! Mouret has been compared to Buster Keaton, and his work is full of physical comedy, but Keaton’s characters always seemed to have a sort of secret working in their minds. Mouret’s lovelorn character sometimes seems a bit simple-minded.

Park Benches/Bancs publics, Bruno Podalydès’ character-driven roundelay of hopes and dreams boasts a who’s who of French cinema — EVERYONE is in this film, from Catherine Deneuve (and her daughter Chiara Mastroianni) to that French everyman — and now Hollywood bad guy — Mathieu Almaric.

As the camera makes its way through a park, an office, and an appliance store in the very well-heeled Parisian suburb of Versailles, Podalydès examines the lives of mostly middle and upper middle class French people. Though his characters are contemporary, they are almost all typically French. The few immigrants wandering through the proceedings (salesmen, an office janitor) only serve to point out certain insular qualities of this community’s population.

First-time filmmaker Anne Novion’s Grown Ups/Les grandes personnes has its feet planted more firmly in reality than the others, though any story involving a teenager and a parent is bound to take a few steps into wish territory. Actress Anaïs Demoustier was nominated for a Cesar (the French Oscar) as the loving but independent daughter trying to find her way into adulthood, while she spends a holiday with her loving but afraid-of-change-father, played by the always wonderful Jean-Pierre Darroussin (Same Old Song, Cold Water). In addition to eliciting these two great performances, Novion captures a beautiful sense of time and place.

One of the best things about “New French Films� is the ability to see 35mm prints (whenever possible), since most French films are still shot and distributed this way. And given the dwindling number of foreign language films that get U.S. distribution (only Ricky has U.S. distribution; IFC Films will open it in December in Manhattan), this could be the only chance to see most of these films — and all are worth the trip.

See show times at www.bam.org.

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