FREE TUESDAY 19TH FEBRUARY THE OFFICAL GFF DAILY GUIDE
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WHAT’S INSIDE? 2 — TODAY’S PICKS There’s a Marvel Marathon on, if you’re into spandex
2 — FEATURE Interview with Village at the End of the World director
Sarah Gavron
3 — REVIEWS Tower Good Vibrations Village at the End of the World
4 — WHAT’S NEW ONLINE Links to people who write more better than CineSkinny
IN THE HOUSE
THE OZON LAIR
We anticipate good things from FRANÇOIS OZON’s latest confection
4 — MUCH ADO ABOUT WHEDON We profile the beloved screenwriter of Alien: Resurrection 4 — PIC OF THE DAY The Daleks took a super injunction out against our first choice of photo 4 — WHAT DO YOU THINK? Just be grateful that we let you
WORDS: HELEN WRIGHT
THE TITLE of François Ozon’s In the House is likely to tantalise those familiar with the man’s back catalogue. From his first feature, 1998’s Sitcom , in which a suburban household is terrorised by a pet rat, to his 2010 effort Potiche , a satirical Catherine Deneuve vehicle about a housewife freed from maternal obligation, the French director consistently insinuates how menacing and threatening a domicile can be. Various influences are channeled through the filmmaker’s obsession with familial spaces. Sitcom is indebted to Pasolini’s Teorema , a classic account of bourgeois values breaking down as a lusty stranger sleeps with the occupants of a single Italian home. By replacing the stranger with a rodent, the effect Ozon creates is more magical realist and tongue-in-cheek than his source material, but his commentary on middle class hypocrisy is unmistakable. The auteur also
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notably adapted the socialist critique of R.W. Fassbinder’s play Water Drops on Burning Rocks, about a businessman’s inexplicable domination of all who enter his apartment. While a student at Paris’ prestigious La Fémis film school, Ozon was looked down upon for watching Hollywood movies alongside more respectful Euro-arthouse fare. Exposure to divergent styles goes some way to explaining the eclectic nature of his output. The type of creepy house found in horror staples such as Psycho, The Haunting, and The Texas Chainsaw Massacre was surely on the director’s mind when making his Criminal Lovers , in which an ogre locks a young couple up in his basement, and Swimming Pool, a meta-murder mystery featuring Charlotte Rampling as an author intoxicated by the eeriness of a French villa. Perhaps because of his close acquaintance with American
pulp, Ozon’s fixation with familial life is finally identifiable as a study of sexism, the sort concentrated in mainstream cinema. ‘Women’s director’ Douglas Sirk is another major reference point. Musical 8 Femmes , which first made Ozon famous outside France, and Potiche , are steeped in Sirkian melodramatic irony. Set in the 50s and 70s respectively, they are bold in both colour and their appraisal of patriarchy. With its salutatory heading, In the House is bound not to disappoint in terms of seedy sexuality, Hollywood-esque pastiche, and social exposition, all of which will presumably be focused on an outwardly civilised but deeply disturbed human home. 20 FEB – GFT 1 @ 18.10 21 FEB – GFT 1 @ 16.00 GLASGOWFILM.ORG/FESTIVAL/ WHATS_ON/4761_IN_THE_HOUSE
even have your own thoughts
Produced by The Skinny magazine in association with the Glasgow Film Festival Editors Designer Digital Deputy Editor
Lewis Porteous Jamie Dunn Marianne Wilson Nathanael Smith Josh Slater-Williams
GFF BOX OFFICE Order tickets from the box office at www.glasgowfilm.org/festival or call 0141 332 6535 or visit Glasgow Film Theatre 12 Rose Street, Glasgow, G3 6RB boxoffice@glasgowfilm.org
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