*Avenue Montaigne*
2006, Director: DaniЁЁle Thompson
Cast: Claude Brasseur, CЁ¦cile De France, Albert Dupontel
he theatrical-release title is designed to give you the wrong idea. Better is Fauteuils d'orchestre, the French title, which was translated as Orchestra Seats for festival screenings. This isn't a movie about fashionable people; it's a movie about artsy people, of whom even the poorest happen to be exceptionally fashionable. The film assumes high-cultural literacy, not stopping to explain who Braque and Brancusi are. The one moment of astonishment that I, who couldn't tell a Brancusi from a Bernini, got from this movie was during its consideration of The Kiss, the Romanian sculptor's tribute to romantic love. Our heroine, Jessica (CЁ¦cile De France), a young provincial, who, unlike the Parisian characters, knows little of theater or classical music or art, is immediately taken by the sculpture and is invited to touch it. Throughout the movie, this block of stoneЎЄworth zillions as we are often remindedЎЄis handled and fondled like a favorite pet. I've no idea whether this was a real version of The Kiss, but not even Jules and Jim made sculpture so moving.
