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Right Now
Screening: Monday 9 July, 6:30pm
Right Now (Benoît Jacquot, France 2004) [À tout de suite]
In Benoît Jacquot's best film in years, it's the mid-1970s, the period after both student and sexual revolutions, and our nameless, upper-middle-class heroine (Isild Le Besco) is a 19-year-old art student. Soon after breaking up with her boyfriend, she is seduced by a young Moroccan man's strangeness, and awestruck by his beauty.
Her life turns into a Godard film — little does she know, her new beau (Ouassini Embarek) and his brutish friend (Nicolas Duvachelle) are bank robbers, and when they get into a tight situation, they come knocking on her door. Attracted by the adventure and the danger provided by this opportunity, together they take off on a passionate trip that leads to Spain, Morocco, and Greece, with one eye always looking back to the country (and the accidental carnage) they left behind.
Suffused with nostalgia for the 70s (and for the films of that time), Right Now is based on a true story that sounds ripped from the movie headlines — young lovers on the run like Bonnie and Clyde. At its heart, though, Jacquot has fashioned a timeless character study. Like most of his films, it reveals the director probing for the mystery lurking behind the surface of women, and never quite comprehending.
With stunning widescreen digital video by Caroline Champetier — save the exceedingly odd establishing shots of the Parisian streets, which look blown up from decaying archival 8mm — Jacquot's camera can't take its eyes off of the wan and sexy Le Besco, charting her inner storm as she is blown by the inexorable vagaries of circumstance towards depression, catatonia and a wrenching search for self. (Mark Peranson)
Written by Jacquot, from a story by Elisabeth Fanger. Photographed by Caroline Champetier. With Ilsid Le Besco, Ouassini Embarek, Nicolas Duvachelle, Laurence Cordier.
(35mm, B&W, 95 mins, In French with English subtitles)
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