13 September 2013
It's 1943 and an ancient, creatively blocked sculptor, Marc Cros (Jean Rochefort), has his life in rural France turned upside down when his gimlet-eyed wife (Claudia Cardinale) brings home a handsome, homeless Catalan teen (Aida Folch). This isn't a biopic, but Fernando Trueba's self-consciously tasteful drama, exquisitely shot in black and white, feels worryingly similar to Renoir (released earlier this year). Enough already with the delectable, earthy muse. Folch has an explosive, wonderfully dirty laugh, but it's so reminiscent of Cardinale's guffaw in The Leopard that it makes you long for the older actress to play a bigger part here. The artist's wife and his model. Now that's something we haven't seen before.
