Chicken with Plums (film)

Last updated

Chicken with Plums
Poulet-aux-prunes-film-post.png
Theatrical release poster
Directed by Marjane Satrapi
Vincent Paronnaud
Screenplay byMarjane Satrapi
Vincent Paronnaud
Based on Chicken with Plums
by Marjane Satrapi
Produced byHengameh Panahi
Starring Mathieu Amalric
Edouard Baer
Maria de Medeiros
Golshifteh Farahani
Eric Caravaca
Chiara Mastroianni
Cinematography Christophe Beaucarne
Edited byStéphane Roche
Production
companies
Celluloïd Dreams, TheManipulators
Distributed byLe Pacte
Release dates
  • 3 September 2011 (2011-09-03)(Venice)
  • 26 October 2011 (2011-10-26)(France)
Running time
94 minutes
CountriesFrance
Germany
Belgium
LanguagesFrench
English
Budget$9.7 million [1]
Box office$3.3 million

Chicken with Plums (French : Poulet aux prunes) is a 2011 internationally co-produced drama film directed by Marjane Satrapi and Vincent Paronnaud. [2] It is based on Satrapi's graphic novel of the same name. The film premiered in competition at the 68th Venice International Film Festival on 3 September 2011. [3] It was released in France on 26 October through Le Pacte. [4]

Contents

Plot

After Faranguisse (Maria de Medeiros) becomes enraged at her musician husband Nasser-Ali (Mathieu Amalric) for failing to take care of his children, she takes his violin and smashes it. Nasser-Ali then goes on a quest to find a new violin, but after purchasing a Stradivarius and attempting to play it, he realizes that he has lost his will to play and therefore to live. After contemplating various methods of suicide he finally decides to take to his bed and simply die there.

While in bed, he reflects on his life and images from his past and future play out before him. In a vision of the future his eldest daughter Lili marries a man her mother approves of, divorces him, and then has a passionate affair with an actor. After the actor dies of a heart attack Lili smokes, drinks and becomes addicted to gambling, eventually suffering three heart attacks and finally dying after the third. His younger son, meanwhile, ends up in America with multiple children and becomes a grandfather after his overweight daughter goes to the hospital with stomach pains and gives birth to a son she names Jimmy-Nassar.

In the midst of his attempts to die, Faranguisse, finally concerned, cooks Nasser-Ali his favourite dish of chicken with plums. It is revealed that Faranguisse was in love with Nasser-Ali from the time she was a child, and waited for him as he became a famous musician and toured the world. Upon his return, his mother (Isabella Rossellini) pressured him into marrying Faranguisse. Faranguisse attempts to feed Nasser-Ali the chicken with plums but he rejects it, reiterating that he will never forgive her for destroying his violin.

On the fifth day, finding himself still alive, he remembers that when his mother was dying she asked him to stop praying for her as his prayers were keeping her alive and she was in pain. When he stopped praying, her soul became a cloud of smoke which appeared over her grave. As it turns out, Nassar-Ali's youngest son is praying for him.

On the sixth day he hallucinates that he sees the angel of death. Though Nassar-Ali tells the angel he has changed his mind and no longer wishes to die, the angel tells Nassar-Ali it is too late.

On the final day of his life, Nassar-Ali dreams of Irane (Golshifteh Farahani). Nassar-Ali met Irane when he was studying the violin and was told by his teacher that while his technique was beautiful, his music lacked soul. Later Nassar-Ali saw Irane walking in the street and followed her to her father's clock store. Buying a clock from her father, he damaged it multiple times so he could return to the store and bump into her. After falling in love, Nassar-Ali proposes to Irane and she accepts. Her father, however, forbids their marriage on the grounds that Nassar-Ali will be unable to financially take care of his daughter. Irane eventually complies with her father's wishes. His music teacher tells Nassar-Ali that the heartbreak he has undergone has finally transformed him into a great musician, a musician with soul, and gives him a violin that belonged to his own teaching instructor. Nassar-Ali begins a twenty-year tour of the world, while Irane marries and has a child and eventually becomes a grandmother just as Nassar-Ali returns, marries and begins having children.

After buying a replacement for the violin that Faranguisse broke, Nassar-Ali runs into Irane who is walking with her grandson. After calling her name and asking if she remembers him, Irane replies that she doesn't, leaving him heartbroken. Irane does, however, remember him and after turning the corner she begins to cry.

Nassar-Ali finally dies on his eighth day in bed. Irane attends the funeral in secret.

Cast

Production

The film was produced in Germany in 2010 at the Babelsberg Studios in Potsdam. The backlot provided the setting for all the interior and exterior scenes in the film. [5] [6]

The film is a French-German coproduction between Celluloid Dreams (Hengameh Panahi) and TheManipulators (Joint Venture of Studio Babelsberg (Potsdam), Celluloid Dreams (Paris) and Clou Partners (Munich)). Partners are uFILM, Studio 37, ZDF, Arte, with the participation of Canal+ and Cinécinéma. The film was sponsored by Deutscher Filmförderfonds  [ de ] (DFFF, The German Federal Film Fund), medienboard Berlin-Brandenburg, Cinémage 5, uFund, Cinéart and Prokino.

Reception

Jay Weissberg wrote in Variety that "The same winning balance of seriousness and humor that made Persepolis such a hit works equally well in Chicken With Plums", and elaborated: "What Satrapi and Paronnaud have really achieved is an evocation of a lost world, much as they did in Persepolis. They've beautifully re-created the fiercely proud, Western-leaning life of the Persian middle class of the 1950s, all constructed in Berlin's Babelsberg studios with the kind of atmospheric quality of Fellini's Cinecitta-constructed Romagna[.] ... Though comparisons may be made with the exaggerated stylings of Amélie , the people in Chicken With Plums eventually lose that sense of artificiality, or rather it becomes superseded by real emotion." [7]

The Washington Times said it had "too much erotic content to make it past Iranian censors," but it did justice to the "subversive poetry of the Iranian cinema." [8] The New York Times said it was "captivating, but not exactly moving" and "more anecdotal than epic". [9] The Los Angeles Times said the tone and style lacked coherence, moving from "fairy tale to sitcom grotesquerie, silent comedy to Expressionist chiaroscuro." [10]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Marjane Satrapi</span> Iranian-French graphic novelist, cartoonist, illustrator, film director, and childrens book author

Marjane Satrapi is a French-Iranian graphic novelist, cartoonist, illustrator, film director, and children's book author. Her best-known works include the graphic novel Persepolis and its film adaptation, the graphic novel Chicken with Plums, and the Marie Curie biopic Radioactive.

<i>Persepolis</i> (comics) Graphic novel series by Marjane Satrapi

Persepolis is an autobiographical series of bandes dessinées by Marjane Satrapi that depict her childhood up to her early adult years in Iran and Austria during and after the Islamic Revolution. The title Persepolis is a reference to the ancient capital of the Persian Empire. Originally published in French, the graphic memoir has been translated to many other languages, including English, Spanish, Catalan, Romanian, Portuguese, Italian, Greek, Swedish, Finnish, Georgian, Dutch, and Chinese. As of 2018, it has sold more than 2 million copies worldwide. Persepolis was written in 2000 and Persepolis 2 was written in 2004.

<i>Chicken with Plums</i> 2004 film by Marjane Satrapi

Chicken with Plums is a 2004 graphic novel by Iranian author Marjane Satrapi.

Ali Ashraf Darvishian was an Iranian story writer and scholar of Kurdish descent. After finishing teacher-training college, he would teach at the poverty-stricken villages of Gilan-e-Gharb and Shah Abad. This atmosphere is featured in most of his stories. His own life situation, as well as the experiences that he had from his teaching in those poor areas, was the inspiration for his literary works and also made him a critic of the political and social situation of Iran. Later, he moved to Tehran and continued his studies in Persian literature.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Nassar (actor)</span> Indian actor and director

M. Nassar is an Indian actor, director, producer, dubbing artist, singer and politician who mainly works in the Tamil and Telugu film industries he has also worked in few Malayalam, Kannada, English, Hindi and Bengali films. He is the incumbent president of the Nadigar Sangam.

<i>Morning Raga</i> 2004 film

Morning Raga is a 2004 Indian musical drama film written and directed by Mahesh Dattani, and produced by K. Raghavendra Rao under Arka Media Works. It stars Shabana Azmi, Prakash Kovelamudi, Perizaad Zorabian, Lillete Dubey and Nassar. The film has an extensive use of English dialogue, in addition to Godavari dialect of Telugu language.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Golshifteh Farahani</span> Iranian-French actress

Rahavard Farahani, known professionally as Golshifteh Farahani, is an Iranian-French actress. She is known for her performances in M for Mother (2006), Body of Lies (2008), About Elly (2009), The Patience Stone (2012), Paterson (2016), Girls of the Sun (2018), and Extraction (2020). She was nominated for the Most Promising Actress Award for The Patience Stone at the 2014 César Awards.

<i>Persepolis</i> (film) 2007 film

Persepolis is a 2007 adult animated biographical drama film based upon Marjane Satrapi's autobiographical graphic novel of the same name. It was written and directed by Satrapi in collaboration with Vincent Paronnaud. The story follows a young girl as she comes of age against the backdrop of the Iranian Revolution. The title references the historical city of Persepolis. The film was an international co-production made by companies in France and Iran. It premiered at the 2007 Cannes Film Festival, where it co-won the Jury Prize, alongside Silent Light. It was released in France and Belgium on 27 June 2007, earning universal praise from critics. The film was selected as the French entry for the Best Foreign Language Film category at the 80th Academy Awards, and was nominated for Best Animated Feature.

<i>Santouri</i> (film) 2007 Iranian drama film

Santouri with the previous name of Ali Santouri is a 2007 Iranian drama film directed by Dariush Mehrjui dealing with the life of a santour player named Ali Bolourchi. The film's title, "Santouri" refers to one who can play the santour instrument. In Persian "playing the Santour" is also the euphemism for injecting heroin into one's veins; thrashing, for instance, one's arm for causing the main artery of the arm to swell, in preparation for the injection, is reminiscent of playing the santour.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Vincent Paronnaud</span> French comic artist

Vincent Paronnaud, a.k.a. Winshluss, is a French comics artist and filmmaker.

<i>Thavasi</i> 2001 film by K. R. Udhayashankar

Thavasi is a 2001 Indian Tamil-language action drama film directed by K. R. Udhayashankar starring Vijayakanth in dual lead roles, with Soundarya, Vadivelu, Jayasudha, Prathyusha, Nassar, Ponnambalam playing other pivotal roles. The film released on 14 November 2001 and received mixed reviews from the critics but was a hit at the box office. It was also dubbed in Hindi as Aaj Ka Krantiveer. The film was remade in Kannada as Mallikarjuna.

<i>Pandi</i> (film) 2008 Indian film

Pandi is a 2008 Indian Tamil-language masala film written and directed by Rasu Madhuravan. It stars Raghava Lawrence and Sneha, while Namitha, Nassar, Saranya Ponvannan, and Sriman play supporting roles. The film was released on 23 May 2008. It was a hit in B&C centres. The film was also later dubbed into Hindi as Ek Dulara in 2011.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Éric Caravaca</span> French actor, film director and screenwriter

Éric Caravaca is a French actor, film director and screenwriter.

<i>Devathai</i> 1997 film

Devathai (transl. Angel) is a 1997 Indian Tamil-language fantasy film written, directed and produced by Nassar. The film stars himself, Keerthi Reddy and Vineeth, while the film's score and soundtrack are composed by Ilaiyaraaja. The film released in June 1997 to positive reviews, however it ended up becoming an average grosser at the box office. The film's story was loosely based on 1992 American movie Bram Stoker's Dracula and novel of the same name.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Rona Hartner</span> Romanian actress, painter and singer (born 1973)

Rona Hartner is a French-Romanian actress, painter and singer, of German ethnicity. She is best known for her role in Tony Gatlif's film Gadjo dilo. Hartner currently focuses on her music career, specializing in Gypsy music.

<i>Just like a Woman</i> (2012 film) 2012 film directed by Rachid Bouchareb

Just Like a Woman is a 2012 English-language film directed by Rachid Bouchareb, starring Sienna Miller and Golshifteh Farahani. The narrative follows an American housewife and a North African woman who travel from Chicago to Santa Fe to participate in a bellydance competition. The film is a co-production between companies in France, the United Kingdom and the United States. Bouchareb intends it to be the first in a trilogy about the relation between North America and the Arab world.

Under the Skin of the City, also released as Under the City's Skin, is a 2001 Iranian drama film directed by Rakhshan Bani-E'temad. It was entered into the 23rd Moscow International Film Festival where it won the Special Golden St. George.

<i>Paterson</i> (film) 2016 drama film

Paterson is a 2016 drama film written and directed by Jim Jarmusch. The film stars Adam Driver as a bus driver and poet named Paterson, and Golshifteh Farahani as his wife, who dreams of being a country music star and opening a cupcake business.

El Ostoura is an Egyptian TV-Series that was aired during Ramadan on 6 June 2016 on MBC Masr. El Ostoura is derived from an Arabic word, which means "The Legend". The series stars Mohamed Ramadan, who played the role of two brothers; Refai El Deskouy, and Nasser El Desouky. The genre of this series is Action Drama. The story was written by Mohamed Abd El Moati, and directed by Mohamed Sami.

<i>Radioactive</i> (film) 2019 film by Marjane Satrapi

Radioactive is a 2019 British biographical drama film written by Jack Thorne, directed by Marjane Satrapi and starring Rosamund Pike as Marie Curie. The film is based on the 2010 graphic novel Radioactive: Marie & Pierre Curie: A Tale of Love and Fallout by the American artist Lauren Redniss.

References

  1. "Poulet aux prunes (Chicken with Plums) (2011) - JPBox-Office". Jpbox-office.com. Retrieved 9 February 2019.
  2. Ian Hayden Smith (2012). International Film Guide 2012. p. 120. ISBN   978-1908215017.
  3. "Venezia 68: Poulet aux prunes - Marjane Satrapi, Vincent Paronnaud". Venice Biennale . Archived from the original on 17 October 2011. Retrieved 28 August 2011.
  4. "Poulet aux prunes". AlloCiné (in French). Tiger Global . Retrieved 28 August 2011.
  5. A Vivid Parable About The Ends of Things Mark Jenkins, NPR, 7 January 2014
  6. David Hudson Venice and Toronto 2011. Paronnaud and Satrapi's "Chicken with Plums" 3 September 2011, 7 January 2014
  7. Jay Weissberg (3 September 2011). "Chicken With Plums". Variety . Retrieved 3 September 2011.
  8. Adam Mamzanian, Movie Review: ‘Chicken With Plums’: Film’s allegory rooted in history of Iran, The Washington Times , 13 September 2012
  9. A. O. Scott, Strings Coming Loose for a Violinist in Tehran: Movie Review: ‘Chicken With Plums,’ About Contemporary Iran, The New York Times , 16 August 2012
  10. Sheri Linden, Review: 'Chicken With Plums' is half-baked, Los Angeles Times , 30 August 2012