Discover the films supported by Villa Albertine San Francisco at the 69th San Francisco International Film Festival

Arnaud Desplechin returns to SFFILM with his high-pitched drama (Two Pianos) set in the world of concert pianists. Tempestuous Matthias (François Civil) returns to Lyon from a tour in Japan, and reconnects with his mentor Elena (Charlotte Rampling, at her diva best), who plans to retire and hopes they can duet at what will be her final performance. Complicating matters is Matthias’s old flame Claude who is now married to his former best friend and whose child bears more than a passing resemblance to Matthias. Desplechin is a master at tracing fraught personal dynamics, frequently finding sly humor amid the emotional fireworks, and his script (written with Kamen Velkovsky) is buoyed by an expert cast. As Matthias wavers between romantic and professional opportunities offered by Claude and Elena, there is a constant tension over how he will respond to the desires and demands placed on him by these two strong-willed women.

—Rod Armstrong 

Set in late-80s suburban Tokyo, 11-year-old Fuki is thrust into adolescence by the harsh realities surrounding her parents in Renoir. Her father Kenji (Lily Franky) is suffering from a terminal illness, and her mother Utako (Hikari Ishida) is overburdened by the consequences. For Fuki (Yui Suzuki), the specter of death begins manifesting in various corners of her daily life, leading her to seek a respite from engulfing tragedy with her irrepressible imagination. Chie Hiyakawa expands on her meditation on mortality, first explored in Plan 75, offering a distinctly arresting perspective centered on Suzuki’s outstanding performance where she channels grief in ways that feels wholly new and hauntingly truthful. Renoir serves as a provocative meditation on the ponderosity of life and ultimately what imbues it with meaning.

—Jordan Klein 

Agnès Varda’s film (Vagabond), which not only won Venice’s Golden Lion but the awards of the international critics as well, has echoes of her earlier work, Cleo from 5 to 7 and also recalls Alain Tanner’s superb Messidor. Its central character, beautifully played by Sandrine Bonnaire, is a young drop-out who roams a wintry south of France with a knapsack containing a tent on her back. She sleeps and eats where she can, a fiercely independent character little understood by even those who know her best. What she seeks is freedom, and her tragedy is that society extracts from her too great a price for it. Varda tells her story with a strong and simple eloquence that is very moving, and searches not so much for explanations as for emotional understanding. This is a film of considerable resonance precisely because it seeks neither to praise nor condemn, but to comprehend a profound alienation.

—Derek Malcolm 

Stranded in South America with no jobs and no money, four men risk their lives for a big payday when they agree to drive two trucks full of nitroglycerine to a far-off oil field in The Wages of Fear. The treacherous road is windy, unpaved, and peppered with obstacles. The trucks lack shock absorbers and suspension, so the possibility exists that the loads might combust with only the slightest jostling. But the $2000 per man waiting at the end of the trip is too much to resist for Mario (Yves Montand), Jo (Charles Vanel), Luigi (Folco Lulli), and Bimba (Peter van Eyck). Henri-Georges Clouzot’s classic thriller is a masterclass in building and maintaining almost unbearable suspense. The first third of the movie sets the stakes as it creates emotional investment in the characters, especially Mario and Jo. Then the journey itself packs a wallop. Will it end in the money or this a drive straight into hell?

—Pam Grady 

In this Academy Award®-nominated picture, the world is a perplexing, peaceful mystery to Amélie, a little Belgian girl born in Japan, until a miraculous encounter with chocolate on her third birthday ignites her wild sense of curiosity. She discovers language, her attachment to her parents, her love and disdain of her brothers and sisters, a heavenly garden, passions, aversions, seasons and time. As she develops a deep attachment to her family’s housekeeper, Nishio-san, Amélie discovers the wonders of nature and appreciation for the surrounding culture as well as the emotional truths hidden beneath the surface of her family’s idyllic life as foreigners in post-war Japan. Adapted from the autobiographical novel by Amélie Nothomb and brought to life in the completely original animated style Little Amélie or the Character of Rain tells a tender, poignant and visually stunning story about the healing power of human connection. 

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