Rod Morgan
Other reviews cause me to cry out in protest as I found "Chicken with Plums" captivating in a way few films have touched me. I would urge anyone reading these words to seek it out for themselves (I found it on "starz" and hope they will continue to show it).The storytelling is tantalizingly deliberate; one might even say that the early sequences are almost misleading their matter-of-fact tone. But the artistic team - and a martini-dry performance by Mathieu Amalric as our harried hero - continue unwrapping the narrative in a startlingly casual fashion, the tale becomes richer and more daring with every turn.Persian tales begin, "There was someone, there was no one." See for yourself whether you find Nasser Ali someone to remember in this artful Persian story.
zetes
A live action film from the directors of Persepolis. Like Persepolis, it's based on a graphic novel written by Marjane Satrapi. It's nice to see that Satrapi and Paronnaud have some cinematic legs. This is wonderful. Very, very sad, but also utterly gorgeous. Mathieu Amalric stars as an Iranian violinist who gets in an argument with his wife (Pulp Fiction's Maria de Madeiros), who then breaks his prized violin. Unhappy with his life, Amalric decides to die and retreats to his bed. Over the next seven days, his life story plays out before his eyes. The exquisite visuals will certainly impress viewers, but it seems like the depth of the story gets lost on many. It is, simply, a story about the missed opportunities in life and how they haunt us. The beauty of the visuals gives it a kind of magic, but, in the end, this is a very tragic story that will resonate with many.
Karl Self
Before I saw the movie, its title inspired me to cook the dish "chicken which plums", which is surprisingly delicious. I saw the movie last night, and being a fan of Satrapi's comics and her movies, I had high expectations. Unfortunately I found the movie to be well made but so boring that I fell asleep after about one hour. The movie is set in Iran in the 1950ies, which apparently was identical to France of the same period in nostalgic movies, so they might have just placed it there. A famous violin player has an argument with his wife, who then smashes his instrument; without it, he feels that he is unable to continue to live. The movie then documents the last eight days in his life. Eight chapters ensue which inevitably lead to the death of our protagonist. I felt like having to watch eight magazines of a slide show of someone else's highly predictable holiday. Magazine one: the journey. Magazine two: setting up the tent. Magazine three: we go to the beach. Magazine four: diarrhea and sunburns. Magazine five: I have lost my will to live.Overall the movie felt like the visual style of Amélie Poulain but without the great story or the humour (or the great lead actress). It's set in postwar Iran but doesn't tell me anything about that place or period. The retrospectives to the protagonists younger days only add confusion but don't make the story more interesting. The movie trades in a slight surrealism and nostalgia for the great and engaging storytelling that is usually Marjane Satrapi's hallmark.
corrosion-2
Having enjoyed Marjane Satrapi's Persepolis, both as a graphic novel and a film, the lack of any buzz for her new film (also adopted from one of her graphic novels) had lowered my expectations for Chicken with Plums. Whilst Persepolis was a highly original piece of work, Chicken with Plums surpasses it in every way and is truly a great work of art. It is therefore fitting that it is a movie about art and artists. The simple tale of a musician whose only passion in a loveless marriage is searching for the perfect violin, is beautifully realized by Satrapi, her co-director and crew, and a sublime cast. A scene where the protagonist, near the end of his life, comes across his only true love, whose father had rejected his proposal to marry his daughter many years ago, is an unforgettable piece of cinema. I saw this at the Abu Dhabi Film Festival where it walked away with the Best Film prize, which it fully deserved.
AD
