Chicken with Plums | |
---|---|
Directed by | Marjane Satrapi Vincent Paronnaud |
Screenplay by | Marjane Satrapi Vincent Paronnaud |
Based on | Chicken with Plums by Marjane Satrapi |
Produced by | Hengameh Panahi |
Starring | Mathieu Amalric Edouard Baer Maria de Medeiros Golshifteh Farahani Eric Caravaca Chiara Mastroianni |
Cinematography | Christophe Beaucarne |
Edited by | Stéphane Roche |
Production companies | Celluloïd Dreams, TheManipulators |
Distributed by | Le Pacte |
Release dates |
|
Running time | 94 minutes |
Countries | France Germany Belgium |
Languages | French 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]
After Faranguisse (Maria de Medeiros) becomes enraged at her musician husband Nasser-Ali (Mathieu Amalric) for failing to take care of his children, and 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 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 that appeared over her grave. As it turns out, Nassar-Ali's youngest son is praying for him.
On the sixth day he sees the angel of death. Though he tells the angel he 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 excellent, his music lacked soul. Later Nassar-Ali saw Irane walking in the street and followed her to her father's clock store. After buying a clock from her father, he damaged it multiple times so he could return to the store and bump into her. Nassar-Ali proposes to Irane and she accepts. Her father forbids the 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, has a child, and 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.
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 (DFFF, The German Federal Film Fund), medienboard Berlin-Brandenburg, Cinémage 5, uFund, Cinéart and Prokino.
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]
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, Woman, Life, Freedom and the Marie Curie biopic Radioactive.
Persepolis is a series of autobiographical graphic novels by Marjane Satrapi that depict her childhood and 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, Persepolis has been translated to many other languages. As of 2018, it has sold more than 2 million copies worldwide.
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.
M. Nassar is an Indian actor, director, producer, dubbing artist, singer and politician who mainly works in the Tamil, Telugu and Malayalam film industries. He has also worked in few Kannada, English, Hindi and Bengali films. He is the incumbent president of the Nadigar Sangam.
Morning Raga is a 2004 Indian English-language 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 the Godavari dialect of Telugu language.
Rahavard Farahani, known professionally as Golshifteh Farahani, is an Iranian and 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), Extraction (2020) and its sequel Extraction 2 (2023), and Invasion (2021–present). She was nominated for the Most Promising Actress Award for The Patience Stone at the 2014 César Awards.
Babelsberg Film Studio, located in Potsdam-Babelsberg outside Berlin, Germany, is the oldest large-scale film studio in the world, producing films since 1912. With a total area of about 460,000 square metres (5,000,000 sq ft) and a studio area of about 25,000 square metres (270,000 sq ft) it is one of Europe's large film studios.
Persepolis is a 2007 adult animated biographical drama film written and directed by Marjane Satrapi and Vincent Paronnaud, based on Satrapi's autobiographical graphic novel of the same name. 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.
Santouri with the previous name of Ali Santouri is a 2007 Iranian musical 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.
Vincent Paronnaud, a.k.a. Winshluss, is a French comics artist and filmmaker.
Éric Caravaca is a French actor, film director and screenwriter.
Rona Hartner was a German-Romanian actress, painter and singer who was born in Bucharest. As an actress, she was best known for her role in Tony Gatlif's film Gadjo dilo. Hartner focused on her music career, specializing in Gypsy music. After a battle with lung and brain cancer, she died in Toulon on 23 November 2023, at the age of 50. She had lived in France for over two decades at the time of her death.
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.
The Voices is a 2014 satirical psychological horror comedy film directed by Marjane Satrapi, written by Michael R. Perry, and starring Ryan Reynolds, Gemma Arterton, Anna Kendrick and Jacki Weaver. It had its world premiere at the 2014 Sundance Film Festival on January 19, 2014. The film was released in a limited release and through video on demand on February 6, 2015, by Lionsgate. It received generally positive reviews from critics, with many highlighting Reynolds’ performance.
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.
Madeline Fontaine is a French costume designer.
El Ostoura is an Egyptian television 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.
Radioactive is a 2019 British biographical drama film directed by Marjane Satrapi, written by Jack Thorne, 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.