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

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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 ...
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How to Make Gravy review – a well-intentioned, mawkish misfire

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This soupy Christmas drama based on Paul Kelly’s song tips into corny sentimentalism – and comes dangerously close to suggesting that gravy is actually magic

How to Make Gravy is a rare example of a film that originated as a song – in this case, the beloved ballad by Paul Kelly. Maybe, given the entertainment industry’s addiction to recycling pre-existing IP, transforming popular tracks into movies will one day become a thing. Not that I’m looking forward to it: this soupy Christmas drama from first-time feature director Nick Waterman demonstrates how lyrics can become a series of reference points, with an obvious temptation to be very visual and literal – to give us that shot of a gravy boat being passed reverentially around the dinner table.

Waterman deploys the gravy early in the runtime, staging it as a moment of quasi-religious significance. This is not a subtle film – some scenes made my face react not like I’d consumed a delicious, nourishing sauce (infused with a dollop of tomato sauce for sweetness and that extra tang) but like I’d wolfed down a brick-sized block of artery-clogging cheese.

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