In KL at the moment we're enjoying the French Festival.

We started our film-going last week with Pas Son Genre, which we nearly didn't go to see because of this cutting review, but which I ended up enjoying quite a lot.

What's to like?

-- Well, it makes you think. Who's the happier or better person at the end of the day? Emotionless, cerebral, ever-the-pedagogue Clement, elegantly but solitarily doing his round of hifalutin cafes and galleries? Or vivacious, fun-loving, genuinely nice Jennifer, partying with her mates in the karaoke club?

-- It's set in Arras, which for a while I misremembered as the very first French town I ever encountered, back in the days of road trips with my friend Sue, more than 30 years ago. But having checked on the map, I find I'm mixing it up with Verdun. Our trip -- which involved many, many renditions of Kiki Dee, Abba, and the Mamas and Papas, as we had little variety in the way of cassette tapes -- took us from Minden to Paris, via Luxembourg. We overnighted in Verdun, and I distinctly remember the feeling of being very close to the First World War, which is probably why I'm relating it to all the doomed souls who "slogged up to Arras with rifle and pack".

Pause for a photo... This is La Rochelle railway station. It's appropriate not only because of the multiple train trips in this movie and the next (see below), but also because the nostalgic journey that French movies always take me on includes learning (while staying with a delightful family in La Rochelle) how nice meat is when not overcooked in the (then) British way, and leaving Nigel at various railway stations to do train research while I toured art galleries, bookshops, cafes, or whatever.



Anyway, back to Pas Son Genre...

-- It takes a nice little swipe at Proust. Clement tries to "educate" Jennifer with regular reading sessions. At first she finds this charming. But the heaviness slowly begins to make its mark. And the one that finally pushes her over the edge? Du Cote de Chez Swann, from that Proustian epic that I too have several times failed to finish. Ironically, Jennifer is very scathing about those who don't finish books, "after the author has made all that effort".

-- It's a French ending, ie, not happy. I swear the Americans would have ducked out on this one, and found some way of making the unlikely pair stick together. But the nation that brings us songs about dead seagulls on beaches is not going to recoil from a severed relationship and a dislocated life. (Actually, the director is Belgian, but never mind...)

-- It's especially fun to hear the rustle of amusement, disbelief, and annoyance from the audience when the card comes down over the lens to stop us seeing any of the sex scenes. (Inconsistently, though, as Nigel pointed out, they don't cut the sound...)

As a follow-up, yesterday was marked down as French day.

We started with lunch at 2OX back on Jalan Doraisamy. If you eat a la carte, this is not a cheap place (the set menu is much easier on the pocket, but though yesterday's Brittany-themed offering looked quite delicious, it seemed to involve more food than we felt was appropriate for our current needs and aspirations).

But the quality is definitely there. From the warm bread with pesto oil, to the perfectly cooked lamb, to the nice (if skimpy) glass of Chilean Syrah, to the decadent dessert (which we shared), it was all faultless.





Yesterday was a two-movie day. But on account of a misbooking (over which we'll discreetly draw a veil...), we ended up seeing not our original choice but two other movies.

The first was Trois Coeurs. This revolves around a love triangle between Marc, a 47-year-old tax man, and two sisters. As this review, puts it, "Marc's relative absence of magnetism leaves a hole in the movie's center". And that was absolutely my problem with it all. Right from the beginning, I just couldn't get why this attractive, relatively young woman would fall head over heals for this aging guy and his cheesy lines. And as the plot moved on, his repeated declaration that he enjoyed exploring the private lives of women (plus his job, which clearly involved digging around in private affairs of another nature) made him seem more than a little creepy to me. That, and the doom-laden music, kept making me wonder if he was about to turn into an axe-murderer. But he didn't. He dies quietly of a heart attack, leaving the whole muddle finally exposed, and the three hearts of the title all broken in their different ways.



Thence to Newens Tea House in Starhill Gallery. As we were on a French trip, we spurned the famous Maids of Honour in favour of the macarons (and aren't macarons incredibly photogenic?). Any which way, it is very pleasant to sit back in the deep, comfy sofas, sip one's tea, and listen to the pianist extemporizing a little relaxed jazz.



Our evening fare was Dans la Cour, again with Catherine Deneuve. That one I liked. It had that funny/sad quality that is difficult to do, yet always seems to me the most apt interpretation of human life.

Central to the story is the crack in the wall that Mathilde finds and increasingly worries about. A rational analysis finds nothing amiss -- but how many of us can always embrace "rational"? Not Mathilde, who seems to be struggling with lack of meaning in her life, and is prone to obsession. And not Antoine either. The insomniac, addiction-prone singer-turned-janitor is incapable of saying no, and unconsciously enables her refusal to face up to her changing mental state.

But they're not the only ones who are cracked and flawed. They are surrounded by people whose lives represent arrested potential and/or neuroticism -- the kinds of tales we find when we scratch the surface of almost anyone's life.

At the end of the day, we are all slightly insane.