Even art-loving dogs had to wrap up during the recent cold snap in Paris. Photo: Eric Tenin of Paris Daily Photo.
Wednesday, 15 February 2012 11:13
Paris Update Fashion Flash
FRENCH MICHAEL MOORE TAKES ON NATIONAL FOOD INDUSTRY
The motto of Le République de la Malbouffe: "Opacity, Obesity, Precarity."
Xavier Denamur, the owner of five small restaurants in Paris, is a man on a crusade. It began with the 2009 decrease in value-added tax from 21.6 percent to 5.5 percent on restaurant meals, which he says favored big chain restaurants without helping the small independents as promised. Going beyond that issue, he blames French government policies and a lack of transparency in the food industry for the increasing industrialization of food preparation and delivery, the degradation of food quality in France, and increasing obesity and public health costs. One of his campaigns calls for legislation that would create a label informing restaurant customers whether the food is prepared from fresh ingredients on-site or is factory-made or frozen.
Denamur has formed an association called La République de la Malbouffe (The Republic of Bad Food) and has just released a documentary film of the same name, directed by Jacques Goldstein. Unfortunately, the film lacks focus and does not get his laudable message across clearly. Shown only in a handful of Paris cinemas, it is also available on DVD (with issue no. 17 of Rue89 magazine, for €5). Denamur continues to hold debates and chase politicians, hoping to get them to listen to his call for transparency. “My goal is to get citizens interested in politics again,” he says, by encouraging them to vote and write to their representatives. Heidi Ellison
Tuesday, 14 February 2012 23:00
Paris Update Art Notes
ANDREAS SLOMINSKI
Recent works by Andreas Slominski at the Galerie Thaddaeus Ropac in Paris (through February 29). Video by Nikolaï Saoulski. Click here for larger screen.
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Jacques Tati fans will be thrilled to know that the English-language version of the beloved French filmmaker’s 1958 Academy-Award-winning My Uncle (Mon Oncle) has been unearthed from the archives and lovingly restored to as close to its original condition as possible.
This is not a dubbed version: when making the movie, Tati shot each scene in both English and French. If anything, the film is even funnier to English speakers now, with the wealthy characters speaking in exaggeratedly stilted accents. In any case, words are not that important to a Tati film, where images, action and music set the scene and the mood. Long stretches of the film are wordless or, when there is conversation between the characters, it is often purposely incomprehensible. Tati, who plays Mr. Hulot, the uncle of the title, almost never speaks, relying on gestures and physical humor to portray his winning character.
Those who have never seen the film are to be envied as they discover the delights of Tati’s gentle satire of modern life, which is depicted as arid, ridiculous and dehumanizing in comparison to the messy, convivial old-fashioned ways. Tati mocks modernity not only visually (although his modern world actually looks beautiful to us) but also through sound, making sure we hear all the buzzing, beeping, whining, clicking and clacking of futuristic gadgets and machinery.
The pace of the film is leisurely, the colors magnificent, the humor gentle and the wonderful soundtrack uplifting. Jacques Tati had a way of looking at the world that was all his own. After watching one of his films, you may believe that everything will be all right after all.
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