A Monster in Paris 3D (U)
HHH
Dir: Bibo Bergeron
Voices: Vanessa Paradis, Danny Huston
Running time: 89 minutes
BIBO Bergeron's animated concoction gives a beret-clad nod to everything from The Phantom of the Opera and The Hunchback of Notre Dame to the early works of Georges Melies. All of which four-year-olds will lap up. Or maybe not.
What they will like, and what will pass a winter afternoon pleasantly, is the simple story of good eggs versus bad as an experiment goes wrong in the flooded Paris of 1910, giving rise to the creature of the title.
And what a bizarre creation he is. On a night terrors, heebe-jebee scale, he's probably up there with blancmange. Still, the animation of turn of the century Paris is lovely, all pastels and squiggles and carriages, and the songs, some performed by Vanessa "Joe Le Taxi" Paradis, are nice and easy on the lugs.
A Useful Life (U)
HH
Dir: Federico Veiroj
With: Jorge Jellinek, Manuel Martinez Carill
Running time: 63 minutes
SET fittingly in an art house cinema in Montevideo, Federico Veiroj's drama is for those in the mood for hard core art house fare.
In short, it's obscure, gabby, and rather dull for long stretches, the kind of thing that gets art house cinema a mixed name.
At the centre of the fuzzy tale is Jorge, who helps run a cinema that's on its uppers. With final demands for rent arriving and the end looming, Jorge retreats to the world where he feels most comfortable.
It's beautifully shot by Veiroj in black and white, hence the two stars. Otherwise, frankly, if Jorge's cinema showed this kind of film all the time it is no wonder the old place is going out of business.
Filmhouse, Edinburgh, from tomorrow-February 2.
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