What a week!

Tuesday 6 February FILM
The Double Life of Veronique (La Double vie de Véronique)
Film de Krzysztof Kieslowski, avec: Irène Jacob, Philippe Volter, Claude
Duneton, Wladyslaw Kowalski.

“With its tale of two physically identical 20-year-olds, this film was one of Kieslowski’s most opaque in terms of its precise meaning. Weronika and Véronique are two young women in Poland and France, both singers, the same age and physically the same in every respect, unaware of each other’s existence, yet unconsciously sensing a spectral companion. Weronika, who has a weak heart, dies onstage mid-song, and, hundreds of miles away, Véronique, without knowing why, senses that she too has a cardiological flaw and that there is danger in pursuing a demanding singing career. She abandons it - to the horror of her teacher - and her artistic and spiritual life is displaced into a difficult love affair. The trope of double-identity becomes a brilliant meditation on choices and alternative lives, on the presence of death which forces these choices on us, and on the terrible demands which art can make - if we choose to let it.”

WHERE? Filmhouse, Lothian Road, tel. 0131-228-2688
WHAT TIME? See website
WEB: http://www.filmhousecinema.com

Thursday 8 February TALK
Rolland Man: The Devil in the Machine: Modern Life in the films of Jaques Tati

“2007 is the centenary of the birth of Jacques Tati, a very good reason to reconsider the work of this great French film-maker whose style is at the same time off-centre, humanist and funny. Rolland Man, film critic, will analyse the description of modernity through Jacques Tati.”

WHERE? Institut Français d’Ecosse, Randolph Crescent. Tel. 0131 225 5366

HOW MUCH? £3.00-5.00 (Booking recommended)
WHAT TIME? 6.30pm
MORE INFO? http://www.tativille.com/

Friday 9 February MEETUP

CINECLUB/PARTY

“Pour ce soir, vous avez le choix - soit regarder le classique de Pagnol, Fanny montré sur grand écran dans le confort de mon salon... Ou bien de discuter tout simplement, autour d’un verre (ou trois) de vin, dans ma salle de classe (maintenant rénovée, et toute belle!)
C’est à vous de voir!
Pour en savoir plus sur Fanny: http://www.albany.edu/writers-inst/fnf02n12.htm
Pour en savoir plus sur Pagnol: http://www.marcel-pagnol.com/
The film will have English subtitles, and so is accessible to all regardless of your level of French.”

WHERE? Private (got to the French meetup website for more info!)
HOW MUCH? Free
WEB: http://french.meetup.com/1

Friday 9 February MUSIC
Royal Scottish National Orchestra: Je t’aime Valentine’s.

A romantic Valentine’s evening, full of French passion and charm, lovingly crafted by Stéphane Denève - especially for you and your loved one. Includes French film music by Michel Legrand and Georges Delerue, as well as Bizet’s Carmen Suite, Massenet’s Mediation from Thaïs and, of course, Ravel ’s Boléro.

Stéphane Denève (CONDUCTOR)
Edwin Paling (VIOLIN)

• BIZET Selections from Carmen
• CHAUSSON Poème, Op. 25
• MASSENET Meditation from Thaïs
• VAN PARYS Générique from Les Misérables
• DELERUE La nuit américaine
• DELERUE Le Mépris
• PETIT Cyrano de Bergerac
• LEGRAND The Umbrellas of Cherbourg
• RAVEL Bolero

WHERE? Usher Hall, tel. 0131 228 1155
HOW MUCH? £10-£28
WEB? http://www.rsno.org.uk/

Friday 9 to Tuesday 13 February FILM
Gabrielle
Film français de Patrice Chéreau

“The unfathomable mystery of marriage is the subject of Patrice Chéreau’s handsomely furnished movie, taken from a story by Joseph Conrad. In the Paris of the belle époque, Jean Hervey (Pascal Greggory) congratulates himself on his success, and on the beauty and intelligence of his wife Gabrielle (Isabelle Huppert), until an act of madness causes them to confront the evasions on which their existence is founded. A remarkable, wholly unsentimental attack on bourgeois suppression and self-deception, with extremely fine performances from Huppert and Greggory.”

WHERE? Filmhouse, Lothian Road, tel. 0131-228-2688
WHAT TIME? See website
WEB: http://www.filmhousecinema.com
MORE INFO? http://www.lemonde.fr/web/article/0,1-0@2-3476,36-693403,0.html

Pour acheter Gabrielle en DVD…

Friday 9 to Wednesday 14 February FILM
Belle de Jour
Le chef d’œuvre de Buñuel | France/Italy 1967 | 1h40m | New 35mm print | French with English subtitles | 18
Cast: Catherine Deneuve, Jean Sorel, Michel Piccoli, Geneviève Page.

“Buñuel’s cool, elegant version of Joseph Kessel’s novel is an amoral comedy of manners. Beautiful, bored and bourgeoise Séverine, married to a surgeon, decides to while away her afternoons by working in a high-class whorehouse, where she encounters a variety of characters - a Chinese man with a strangely erotic box, a depraved Duke, and a gangster with gold teeth, with whom she falls in love. Or does she?

Allowing us no indication of what is real, what is not, Buñuel constructs both a clear portrait of the bourgeoisie as degenerate, dishonest and directionless, and an unhysterical depiction of Deneuve’s inner fantasy life, where she entertains dreams of humiliation galore.”

WHERE? Filmhouse, Lothian Road, tel. 0131-228-2688
WHAT TIME? See website
WEB: http://www.filmhousecinema.com

Sunday 11 February FILM
Freedom For Us (A Nous La Liberté)

“Deux prisonniers, Louis et Emile, tentent de s’évader. Seul Louis y parviendra. Quelques années plus tard, Emile se fait embaucher dans l’usine dont Louis est le patron. Après quelques péripéties, nos deux compères resteront amis et choisiront de fuir ensemble, tellement heureux de jouir de leur liberté.”

WHERE? Edinburgh Film Guild. Tel. 0131 623 8027, Filmhouse, Lothian Road
WHAT TIME? 6pm
WEB: http://www.filmhousecinema.com

A suivre… / To look forward to:
Thursday 15 February X Factor Dance Company
Fri 16 February to Thu 8 March The Science of Sleep, avec: Gael García Bernal, Charlotte Gainsbourg, Emma de Caunes, Miou-Miou, Alain Chabat.
Sun 18 February @ 1.00 Jour de fête
Mon 19 February @ 6.00 Zidane: A 21st Century Portrait (Zidane, un portrait du XXIème siècle)
Wed 21 February @ 6.00 Monsieur Hulot’s Holiday (Les Vacances de M. Hulot)
Thu 22 February @ 6.00 Mon Oncle (My Uncle)
Fri 23 February to Thu 15 March Orchestra Seats (Fauteuils d’orchestre)
28 February: Café Histoire
4 Mar Scottish Chamber Orchestra: Chamber Concert: A collection of 20th century French and English miniatures from composers including Debussy, Britten...
5 March Disco Bidochons
Tue 13 March @ 6.15 Beau Travail, de Claire Denis
22 March Scottish Chamber Orchestra: the SCO are joined by acclaimed French conductor Louis Langree
27 April Royal Scottish National Orchestra: Season finale. The season ends in style with Stéphane Denève conducting top French pianist Hélène Grimaud.