‘Nobody would forgive me if I told the truth’: new film about pacifist turned Nazi collaborator divides France

In Les Rayons et les Ombres, Jean Dujardin plays a real-life press baron partying during the horrors of the second world war. Director Xavier Giannoli discusses bringing this still sensitive topic to light Xavier Giannoli’s new film Les Rayons et les Ombres (Rays and Shadows) is told from the postwar perspective of Corinne Luchaire, a French actor who was once hailed as “the new Garbo” but grew too close to the Nazis during the German occupation years. As Luchaire records her thoughts on a borrowed tape recorder, she struggles to reconcile her unfaltering devotion to her father, the once-powerful press baron Jean, with his 1946 execution for treason. Her wilful blindness collapses as the Jewish director who helped launch her career visits her cramped flat. When Corinne, played by newcomer Nastya Golubeva Carax, enquires after his sister, he reveals that she died in a concentration camp. “I didn’t know,” murmurs Corinne, only to be met with the devastating reply: “Did you even try to ...

Film: Wendy Ide’s 10 best of 2023

From a struggling mother to a monstrous maestro, the year was notable for superb performances by veterans and newcomers

1. Tár
Released in the UK in January
It’s been a banner year for fans of films about mercurial conductors/composers, with Maestro, Bradley Cooper’s mosaic portrait of Leonard Bernstein, a 2023 highlight. But Todd Field’s creation of the magnificent, monstrous fictional conductor Lydia Tár, inhabited down to the last shred of cruelty and ambition by the remarkable Cate Blanchett, is exceptional: a savage, slippery account of rampant narcissism brought down to earth.

2. How to Have Sex
November
A wealth of outstanding British first features has included Rye Lane (directed by Raine Allen-Miller), Scrapper (Charlotte Regan) and Earth Mama (Savanah Leaf) – and there are more to come in 2024. But Molly Manning Walker’s phenomenal How to Have Sex is the standout, for its visual flair, superb performances and for the crucial conversations about consent that it has prompted.

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