If more fascists slept with Baya Benmahmoud, there would be fewer fascists. That is her theory, anyway, and a good many fascists allow her to test it during The Names of Love, a wacky French satire about the supercharged political climate in France. Baya (Sara Forestier) is the child of a gentle Algerian father and a fervently political French mother. Sexual abuse by her childhood piano teacher has inspired her, somewhat obscurely, to use sex as a weapon of political persuasion. The Names of Love swims in the waters of French politics, which are a good deal more diverse than our own, spanning communists on the left and neo-fascists on the right. The Socialist Party of Dominique Strauss-Kahn, in this company, is close to the center. Baya s evangelical recruitment is further eased by her freedom in defining fascist, which for her seems to embrace anyone even slightly shy of the activist left.
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What s it about?
Based on a true story, a young girl (Mynster) is torn between her conscience, religion and passion when she is forced to make a choice between her faith and her feelings for a man (Asbæk) who does not belong to her family s church, the Jehovah s Witnesses. Directed by Niels Arden Oplev (
The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo.)
Streaming after broadcast at SBS On Demand:
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Who was left out in the cold this awards season?
Enjoy a selection of the 2021 Latin American Film Festival at SBS On Demand
New Latin American films are launching every day from 1 - 5 February, in a special joint presentation with the Latin American Film Festival (LAFF).
Paris Countdown is a middle-aged bromance tucked inside a French crime thriller, a slick and brutal B-action picture that finds writer-director Edgar Marie channeling Nicolas Winding Refn channeling early Michael Mann.
That s a lot of stuff going on at once, all of which feels rather familiar but none of which the film ever truly gets right. Remember how Paula Abdul used to remark on American Idol that a contestant took a song and really made it her own? Marie, in his feature filmmaking debut, borrows a lot of elements but never really makes them his own.
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Even by the gritty, trashy standards of this genre, Paris Countdown is rather unremarkable and, ultimately, forgettable.