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Brutal Intimacy: Analyzing ContemporaryFrench Cinema by Tim Palmer.Middletown, CT: Wesleyan UP, 2011William BrownPublished online: 28 Oct 2014.

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Quarterly Review of Film and Video, 32: 9197, 2014Copyright Taylor & Francis Group, LLCISSN: 1050-9208 print / 1543-5326 onlineDOI: 10.1080/10509208.2011.646161

REVIEW

Brutal Intimacy: Analyzing Contemporary FrenchCinema by Tim Palmer. Middletown, CT:

Wesleyan UP, 2011

WILLIAM BROWN

Brutal Intimacy: Analyzing Contemporary French Cinema aims to do for French cinemaof the 2000s what Dudley Andrews Mists of Regret: Culture and Sensibility in ClassicFrench Cinema (1995) did for French cinema of the 1930s. That is, the book aimsandsucceedsin offering a scholarly overview of a vital period of French filmmaking. Thereason for making this comparison between Palmer and Andrew does not end with thecreation of a book whose main title pithily, perhaps even poetically, sums up the periodof French cinema under consideration (the mists of regret of the 1930s; the brutalintimacy of the 2000s). For, while Palmer is perhaps not so concerned with film theory asAndrew is in Mists of Regret and, of course, in his wider work, the two scholars do share aconcern for providing not just an overview of French cinema during the period in question,but they also work hard to contextualize the cinema of that period, such that they offer upnot simply a series of close textual analyses, but also an understanding of where these filmscome from and why.

To this end, Palmer opens with an analysis of the ecosystem of French cinema inhis introduction, which charts the breadth of contemporary French film productionfromblockbusters and comedies to art house/festival films, as well as their successful circulationglobally. He summarizes the institutional support offered to French filmmakers, particularlythrough the Centre National de la Cinematographie (CNC), before also suggesting theimportant role of la Femis, Frances premier film school, in French cinemas ongoingsuccess. Beyond this, Palmer offers up four chapters that each deal with a certain keycharacteristic of contemporary French film: youth cinema often made by first-time directors;the infamous cinema du corps that is known internationally through filmmakers such asGaspar Noe and Catherine Breillat; the crossover in French cinema between the highand the low brows in many popular productions; and the significant role that womenfilmmakers play in the afore-mentioned ecosystem.

In greater detail, the first chapter considers French cinemas emphasis on first-time andyoung directors. Here, Palmer not only provides reasons for this (a history of supportingyoung filmmakers since the French New Wave, the promotion of new directors by organi-zations like UniFrance, consistent media coverage, and prizes, such as the Cesar for BestFirst Feature, the Prix Jean Vigo and the Prix Louis Delluc, which favor first-timers), but healso offers analyses of various films, all from 2007, and all by first-time female filmmakers.

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These include Et toi, tes sur qui?/Just About Love? (Lola Doillon, France, 2007), Nais-sance des pieuvres/Water Lilies (Celine Sciamma, France, 2007), Tout est pardonne/All isForgiven (Mia Hansen-Lve, France, 2007), Ceux qui restent/Those Who Remain (AnneLe Ny, France, 2007), and the internationally successful Persepolis (Marjane Satrapi andVincent Paronnaud, France/USA, 2007). As such, the chapter not only introduces in aconcerted fashion considerations of Frances youth-oriented film industry into scholarlydiscourse on French cinema, but it also offers up timely readings of films that, in only afew short years, have begun to attract critical and scholarly attention.

In the second chapter, Palmer addresses the cinema for which France is most infamous,if not outright famous: namely the cinema du corps, or what in other circles has beendubbed new extreme cinema (Quandt 2000). Films by the likes of Noe, Breillat, ClaireDenis, Bruno Dumont, and Philippe Grandrieux, as well as one-off movies like Baise-Moi(Virginie Despentes and Coralie Trinh-Thi, France, 2000) have received far more attentionthan the fact or actual work of first-time filmmakers in France, with significant contributionscoming from Lisa Downing (2004), Martine Beugnet (2007), and Tanya Horeck and TinaKendall (2011). However, while there is a tendency in all of these contributions to use thecinema du corps as a means to reflect on wider philosophical, cultural and/or sociologicalissues/concerns, particularly relating to the nature of the film experience, Palmer stickspredominantly to the films themselves. As such, he offers close readings of Trouble EveryDay (Claire Denis, France/Germany/Japan, 2001), Irreversible/Irreversible (Gaspar Noe,France, 2002), Twentynine Palms (Bruno Dumont, France/Germany/USA, 2003), Dans mapeau/In My Skin (Marina De Van, France, 2002), and Lannulaire/The Ring Finger (DianeBertrand, France/Germany/UK, 2005). While Palmer is attuned to the ways in which thesefilms evoke new levels of perceptual engagement from the viewer (93), the value of hiswork is that he sticks closely to the text, reading the films in a sensitive and informedfashion, something that I shall discuss in greater depth later.

The third chapter also breaks relatively fresh ground with regard to scholarship onFrench film in its take on popular cinema as not being easily separable from the art housefare that is associated with the likes of Denis, Breillat and Noe. Mention is of course madehere of Luc Besson, the director of such cinema du look hallmarks as Subway (France,1985), Le Grand Bleu/The Big Blue (France/USA/Italy, 1988) and La Femme Nikita/Nikita(France/Italy, 1990), and now the head of EuropaCorp and the writer-producer of suchlucrative films as Taken (Pierre Morel, France/USA/UK, 2008). Besson does, in somerespects, emblematize a certain kind of simultaneously artistic and popular cinema, andhas attracted scholarly attention for these reasons (see Hayward 1998; Hayward and Powrie2006), but Palmer prefers instead to concentrate on the comparatively under-analyzedMesrine and OSS 117 franchises.

Both enable Palmer, albeit briefly, to move away from the auteur-driven analyses thatpredominate elsewhere, and instead to consider the role that stars play in contemporaryFrench cinema. For, Vincent Cassel is the star that makes a relatively significant interna-tional hit of the Mesrine films, Linstinct de mort/The Killer Instinct and Lennemi publicn 1/Public Enemy No. 1 (Jean-Francois Richet, France/Canada/Italy, 2008), while JeanDujardin is the spoof Bond-esque hero of Le Caire: nid despions/Cairo, Nest of Spies andRio ne repond plus/Lost in Rio (Michel Hazanavicius, France, 2006 and 2009), which sim-ilarly have picked up a transnational fandom. These gangster films (Mesrine) and comedies(OSS 117) also help Palmer to introduce to the reader how genre plays a structuring rolein much French popular cinema, which in turns leads to considerations of the horror, war,and thriller genres through analyses of Les revenants/They Came Back (Robin Campillo,

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France, 2004), La France (Serge Bozon, France, 2007), and Demonlover (Olivier Assayas,France, 2002) respectively.

This is not to overlook how each of these films plays around with genre, which inmany respects is Palmers point: these films and filmmakers know how to maximize theirmainstream appeal, while retaining individuality of voice, which translates more or lessinto irreverence towards the cinematic establishment (subverting genres)and as such thefilms offer a final (potentially problematic) reaffirmation of the auteur as the geniusbehind even quite mainstream films. This is made most clear in Palmers considerations ofValeria Bruni Tedeschis two films, Il est plus facile pour un chameau . . . /Its Easier for aCamel (France/Italy, 2003) and Actrices/Actresses (France, 2006). Both remain resolutelyfilms by Bruni Tedeschi in Palmers analysis (although he does recognize close collab-oration with co-writer Noemie Lvovsky), while simultaneously doffing their cap to andbiting their thumb at high culture. That only someone who is of/with/from high culturecould achieve this does not get analyzedthough this is a topic to which I shall returnbelow.

The fourth chapter, meanwhile, builds upon Palmers considerations of female first-timers in the first chapter, and considerations of Denis and Bruni Tedeschi in the secondand third chapters respectively, by looking specifically at contemporary women filmmakersin France. In spite of a history of late adoption regarding progressive sexual politics inFrance, its cinema has perhaps the highest number of women filmmakers in the world.As such, Palmer guides us through work by Christine Carrie`re (Darling, France, 2007),Lucile Hadzihalilovic (Innocence, Belgium/France/UK/Japan, 2004), Siegrid Alnoy (Nosenfants/Our Children, France, 1999, and Elle est des notres/Shes One of Us, France, 2003),Alante Kavate ( Ecoute le temps/Fissures, France, 2006), Claire Simon (Ca brule, France,2006), and Julie Lopes-Curval (Toi et moi/You and Me, France, 2006). This is not to say thatPalmer overlooks the grandes dames of French cinema, particularly Agne`s Varda, whosework is considered briefly in Brutal Intimacy, and nor is it to say that Palmer disregardsthe substantial literature written on French womens cinema by all manner of scholars.Nonetheless, by framing contemporary French cinema through the lens of a proactive anddiverse femininity, Palmer does suggest the progressive nature of contemporary Frenchcinema.

In the conclusion, Palmer rounds off his analysis of French cinema in the 2000s byarguing that cinephilia is what holds it togetheron a cultural if not explicitly on an insti-tutional level. That is, French cinema is underwritten by a knowledge and understandingof film history, or by what Palmer terms film literacy. By extension, French cinema ispopulated by filmmakers who are actively trying to find their own place within that his-tory, which they endeavor to achieve by exploring different forms and styles, even whiletrying to produce mass-market fare. If in placing cinephilia at the heart of French cinemaPalmer reaffirms Frances cinephile image as a whole (one thinks of Shosana/MelanieLaurent in Inglourious Basterds (Quentin Tarantino, USA/Germany, 2009) telling FredrickZoller/Daniel Bruhl that we respect directors in our country), he does also seek to provideinstitutional evidence for this.

Not only does Palmer recall early on the diversity of cinemas that any film scholar orfan who has been to Paris will know exists there, but in the conclusion he also examinesin greater detail the role played by la Femis in training its students (40 per year) infilm history as much as in the technical aspects of film production. These students arealmost all employed soon after graduationand they go on to play influential roles in theFrench film industry, particularly as directors. As such, film literacy drives the French film

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industry, providing it with knowledgeable and distinctive voices, as evidenced by the workof filmmaker and la Femis instructor, Jean Paul Civeyrac, whose `A travers la foret/Throughthe Forest (France, 2005) forms the focus of Palmers final section. Civeyracs career issummed up as that of an artist, the meaning of which is a lifetimes work with a mediumin order to elaborate the means of its best expression (214). This in turn is the model thatPalmer feels fits French cinema the best.

If Palmer sees cinephilia as being at the heart of French cinema, then it also informs hiswork. That is, the pleasure that Palmer seems to take in describing contemporary Frenchcinema transfer easily to the reader. As such, the close textual analyses that Palmer offersin Brutal Intimacy are one of the major strengths of his book, conveying a real passion forthe subjectand not an excuse to use the subject as a means to discuss something else.Palmers cinephilia also shines through thanks to his resolute desire to find worth in filmsthat many scholars might overlook, such as the popular and relatively infantile Dujardinvehicle, Brice de Nice/The Brice Man (James Huth, France, 2005), alongside the morescholar-friendly films of Denis, Noe and Dumont. Palmers accessible and enthusiasticwriting style is furthermore matched by his sensitivity to nuances of character and themeduring his close textual analyses. Perhaps an extended quotation from relatively early on inBrutal Intimacy can help to convey this. Writing of Hansen-Lves All is Forgiven, Palmeroffers the following analysis:

It is Pamelas sixth birthday, and we meet her and Victor naming new dolls(You cant call them both Dolltheyll get confused!) while sitting on a matsurrounded by toys. Leaving the apartment to play tennis, father and daughter hittheir ball off walls, the ground, and each other, and the two actors simply play,in impromptu reaction to where the ball bounces. Hansen-Lves camera tracksthe pair in a static long shot as they exit their building, a rightward pan as theymove through an adjacent courtyard, then a series of wobbling handheld close-ups when the game [of wall tennis] degenerateshappilyas Victor grabsPamela (Meanie!), and she sees him off with a swipe of her racket. Hansen-Lves cinematography underscores the unforced tenderness of the characters,the actors physical improvisations accentuated gently by the increasingly close,bustling camerawork. The payoff comes, though, when Annette [Victors wifeand Pamelas mother] arrives in a static insert that interrupts both the stylisticflow and the tennis. The effect is compounded when she calls out (Ive beenlooking for you everywhere!) in loud German, rather than Pamela and Victorsconversation French. When Victor now hastily abandons Pamela to her motherscare, the dramatic seed is sown. Victor, we infer, is the source of anarchic funin this household whereas Annette is the reluctant disciplinarian; one parent,not two, is present in this family tableau. (45)

This is not to say that other scholars do not carry out this sort of analysisbut Palmersbook is full of such descriptive passages that vividly bring to mind not only the style, butalso the possible meanings, of the various films under consideration. In this way, and givenits commitment to looking more often than not at seemingly overlooked filmsbe theyfrom the established, art house canon or otherwiseBrutal Intimacy is a treasure trove ofinsightful work. Perhaps inevitably, though, a however must emerge: there are issues totake with Brutal Intimacy, not necessarily in terms of how Palmer interprets the films inquestion (all of his readings seem entirely reasonable, even if not final or game-ending),but more in terms of the way in which Palmer frames his ecosystem of contemporary

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French cinema. Drawing on the above-cited passage regarding Mia Hansen-Lve can helpto make this clear.

Hansen-Lves second feature film, Le pe`re de mes enfants /The Father of My Children(France/Germany, 2009), tells the story of Gregoire (Louis-Do de Lencquesaing), a filmproducer who vehemently supports art cinema and who is up to his eyeballs in debt asa result of thissuch that he takes his own life. The film is in this way a fictionalizedaccount of the life of Humbert Balsan, the producer of work by filmmakers as diverse asPierre Kast, Samuel Fuller (when in exile in France), Claire Denis, Sandrine Veysset, EliaSuleiman and Youssef Chahine. While I cannot here offer up the history of Balsans careerthat perhaps deserves to be written, not least because of Balsans reputed and continualsupport of/for women filmmakers, I mention him because Brutal Intimacy does not takeus too far behind the scenes of contemporary French film. For example, while in Mists ofRegret Dudley Andrew explains the important role of producers in 1930s French cinema,Palmer does not get much beyond the surface of support for young filmmakers and/or forwomen filmmakers. Who brought this about? What were the conditions in which suchsupport systems could be brought about? Whose brainchild was it? Such a history, surelymore informative than simply telling us that there is such support in place for first time andwomen filmmakers, is not offered here.

Furthermore, while Palmer does explain the ways in which many of the filmmakersthat he discusses work together in different roles on different projects (for example, NoemieLvovsky, mentioned above as Bruni Tedeschis co-writer, is also a director and actress inher own right), and while Palmer does name check important creative personnel such ascinematographer Benot Debie (who worked on Noes Irreversible and HadzihalilovicsInnocence), he does not necessarily provide us with the sense of an integrated film in-dustry that in fact has many important personalities beyond simply directors (and starsin the cases of Cassel and Dujardin). Are personnel such as Agne`s Godard (the regularcinematographer for Claire Denisalso mentioned but not leant much creative weight byPalmer), Guillaume Schiffman (who lensed the OSS 117 films, before going on to shootJoann Sfars remarkable Gainsbourg (vie heroque)/Gainsbourg (France, 2010)), produc-tion designer Christian Marti (whose work on the eye-catching Gainsbourg follows a longcareer working with the likes of Claude Berri, Jean-Paul Rappeneau, Chantal Akerman andClaude Sautet), or composers like Alexandre Desplat (who has written scores for JacquesAudiard, David Fincher, Tom Hooper, Wes Anderson, Stephen Frears and Roman Polanski)and groups like Air (the French pop group) and Daft Punk to be overlooked?

Directors are of course important, but the overwhelming sense of auteurism thatpervades Palmers book arguably occults as much of French cinema as it shows. And evenon the topic of auteurs, Palmers emphasis on youth tends to overlook the ongoing/endingcareers of established filmmakers, from the New Wave stalwarts (Godard, Chabrol, Rohmer,Resnais, Marker, etc) to the likes of Berri, Rappeneau, Jean-Jacques Annaud, Bertrand Blier,Robert Guediguian, Pierre Salvadori and so forth. Given that many filmmakers find theirsecond film significantly harder to fund than their first film (an issue mentioned but notexplored by Palmer), to achieve a career as a filmmaker is not to be overlooked these days,particularly one with the longevity of the New Wavers.

What is more, for all of the welcoming that the French film industry supposes (supportfor young, first time filmmakers), it also remains very exclusive. Palmer disavows nepotismas a deciding factor in Lola Doillons career (she is the daughter of director Jacques Doillon),before listing various sons and daughters of established filmmakers who now make films(22). This list only grows when we analyze the provenance of a good number of the otherfilmmakers considered/mentioned (Palmer does not specifically examine, for example, the

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filmmaking connections of Vincent Cassel, Mathieu Kassovitz, or Louis Garrel, nor thearistocratic credentials of Bruni Tedeschi, sister of Carla Bruni, who herself is the wife ofPresident Nicolas Sarkozy).

In fact, most places one looks, French cinema is (perhaps like British and other cinemas)never far from the establishmentbe that the cinematic or industrial establishment. In thisrespect, while the work of women filmmakers is justly feted by Palmer, it seems odd that theachievements of other overlooked groups, including specifically immigrant/beur directors,barely get so much as a mention here. Abdellatif Kechiche is named once, while others,like Rabah Ameur-Zameche, Karim Dridi, Mahmoud Zemmouri and Rachid Bouchareb,whose Indige`nes/Days of Glory (Algeria/France/Morocco/Belgium, 2006) is surely one ofthe landmarks of 2000s French cinema, merit not a single mention between them (and manyothers).

While this is perhaps a predictable and therefore cheap shot to make at a book thatarguably does not set out to address all aspects of contemporary French cinema, the bookdoes claim in its title to analyze contemporary French cinemathe implication beingthat it is inclusive, even if in execution Brutal Intimacy leaves out far more than it does orcan include. Indeed, on the basis of Palmers book, one could read contemporary Frenchcinema as being dominated by a small coterie of white, middle- to upper-class filmmakerswho work in a relatively enclosed field. No wonder Luc Besson, an avowed outsider to theFrench system and self-made man, does not really figure here.

What is more, with Balsans spirit still looming, Brutal Intimacy never really defineswhere France begins and ends. Here, not only is the exclusion of minority ethnic filmmakerstelling, but so is the exclusion of Frances involvement in much world cinemaas perBalsans work with Elia Suleiman and Youssef Chahine. Alongside Balsan, then, onethinks of Marin Karmitz, whose MK2 production and exhibition arms have played a keyrole in the life of world cinema over the last two decadesand who also is not consideredhere. Given that Karmitz was born in Romania, and given that in late 2010, Frances lowerhouse passed a bill to strip immigrant criminals of their nationality (even if they had residedin France for 80 years, they would/could be deprived of their French passport and sent backto their country of birth), Karmitz is from a certain perspective not really French, eventhough he carries a French passport.

My point is that by not engaging with the complexities surrounding France and nationalidentity, and by sticking exclusively to an auteurist and pure French cinema (with NoesArgentine nationality perhaps being the exception to prove the rule), Palmer seems toassume something like the lower houses position: anything tinged with foreignness isnot French, unless, of course, that foreignness happens to be American. Palmer does, forexample, talk about how various filmmakers like Kassovitz, Cassel, Richet and ChristopheGans have worked in the USA at times, explaining at one point that the internationaldistribution of Persepolis (claimed, without much justification, as distinctively Frenchdespite its international connections) climaxed with a run in North America for SonyClassics (49). That this achievement is perceived as the films climax suggests anAmericentricism on Palmers part that remains unexamined.

For all of its youth-driven gusto and tales of sexual equality, then, Brutal Intimacyoffers a relatively reactionary account of French cinema in the 2000s, providing us with anecosystem that seems distinctively fenced, even if the cinema du corpss presence gives thetitle the frisson of danger. Brutal Intimacy is a beautifully written and ambitious account ofFrench cinema in the 2000s. It carries out original work in discussing first-time filmmakers,popular stars like Jean Dujardin, and the role played in French cinema by la Femis. Ifcinephilia describes French cinema and Palmers love thereof, it is perhaps an exclusive

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cinephiliawhich begs the question of how much love of cinema Palmer has. He loves theFrench films he loves, obviously, but he does not travel too far beyond the bounds of themainstream to measure whether his love of French cinema is without measure.

William Brown is a Lecturer in Film at the University of Roehampton, London. He is theauthor of Supercinema: Film Theory in the Digital Age (Berghahn, 2013) and, with Dina Iordanovaand Leshu Torchin, of Moving People, Moving Images: Cinema and Trafficking in the New Europe(St. Andrews Film Studies, 2010). He is the co-editor, with David Martin-Jones, of Deleuze andFilm (Edinburgh UP, 2012), and has published a growing number of essays in edited collectionsand journals, including New Review of Film and Television Studies, animation: an interdisciplinaryjournal, Studies in European Cinema, Studies in French Cinema, Third Text, Deleuze Studies, andmore.

Works CitedAndrew, Dudley. Mists of Regret: Culture and Sensibility in Classic French Cinema. Princeton:

Princeton UP, 1995.Beugnet, Martine. Cinema and Sensation: French Film and the Art of Transgression. Edinburgh:

Edinburgh UP, 2007.Downing, Lisa. French Cinemas New Sexual Revolution: Postmodern Porn and Troubled Genres,

French Cultural Studies 15.3 (2004): 265280.Hayward, Susan. Luc Besson. Manchester: Manchester UP, 1998.Hayward, Susan, and Phil Powrie, eds. The Films of Luc Besson: Master of Spectacle. Manchester:

Manchester UP, 2006.Horeck, Tanya, and Tina Kendall. The New Extremism in Cinema: From France to Europe. Edinburgh:

Edinburgh UP, 2011.Quandt, James. Flesh and Blood: Sex and Violence in Recent French Cinema, Artforum 42.6 (2000):

2427.

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