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AT THE MOVIES
Two New Pictures: A French Bagatelle and an Old School Western by Mike Canning
“The Rose Maker” Arriving just in time for spring comes a new French crowd-pleaser, all about roses ‒ and the people who love and grow them. Timely, too, because “The Rose Maker” (“La Fine Fleur”) is a sweet, deadpan comedy offering a delicate distraction from our current and caustic political and international environment. Its star is a paragon of French stage and screen, Catherine Frot, last seen in the US in a wonderful French paraphrase of the life of the deluded singer Florence Foster Jenkins. (The film, now in area cinemas, is rated PG-13 and runs 95 minutes.)
in hopes of producing a new hybrid which will jumpstart their business for the next season and get even with the company, headed by Lamarzelle himself (Vincent Dedienne), that wants to buy Eve out. They do everything they can to produce this unique hybrid, only to have their transplants fail, both in strength and fragrance (a hailstorm doesn’t help). Eve is distraught and looks to sell her operation, yet a horticultural miracle arrives when the unassuming Nadege discovers, in the nick of time, a pot of overlooked practice roses that will give Vernet Flowers a new lease on life. The small cast does a fine job of realizing their characters, with Fred leading the league as a rough-hewn tough who wakes up to smell the flowers, led by his nose (pardon me) for the blossoms. An actress now in her 60s, Frot (who has made 100 films in the last 50 years) is a great choice for Eve, a rose-obsessive who lives on the edge of her passion but comes through in the end. As a film about roses, the production stands out for its vivid rows of colors and sun-draped flower fields, shot by Guillame Deffontaines ‒ a balm for the eyes, especially in luxurious close-ups. “The Rose Maker” is hardly a movie to startle or move one, and there is little risk in its outcome, but it is sweet and charming, making it, as the French say, a lovely bagatelle.
“Hostile Territory” “Hostile Territory” returns to an old trope of American westerns, that of the trek or the search, here depicted with tension and grit. It tells the story of a family torn apart by war which struggles to reunite through a perilous landscape. It incorporates familiar (From left) The cast of “The Rose Maker”: Marie Petiot, Catherine Frot, Fatsah Bouyahmed and Manel Foulgoc. Photo: Music Box Films elements of the genre: battles with hostile Indians in tough terrain while Indian-style pipe music quavers on the soundtrack. (Rated R for serious violence, the The story is simple. Frot plays Eve Vernet, dedicated but smalltime rose film runs 153 minutes and opened in theaters April 22; it will be available latbreeder, who has inherited a beautiful but modest nursery which is no longer er in the month on VOD.) economically viable. The highpoint of her year is an annual rose competition “Hostile Territory” is set in the aftermath of the Civil War. Returning home outside Paris, where she regularly places second to the Lamarzelle company, after having been a POW, former Union soldier Jack Calgrove (Brian Presley) a corporate outfit that cares more about mass rose production than individual learns too late that his wife has died and his three children, presumed orphans, rose quality. To invigorate her output and save the farm, her loyal long-time ashave been shipped on an “orphan train” to a new life farther west. Crushed, sistant Vera (Olivia Cote) hires three released prisoners to learn the trade and Jack searches for his children. Unfortunately, the train is heading deeper into do the scutwork. The new workers are a mixed trio: Wazir (Fatsah Bouyahmed), dangerous country where it will cross old enemy lines. Calgrove and another the oldest, a complainer desperate for a “permanent contract,” Nadege (Marie former soldier are joined in their search by a troop of Native American sharpPetiot), a painfully bashful young woman, and Fred (Manel Foulgoc), an ex-felshooters and a freed slave. on who turns out to be a natural cultivator. Meanwhile, Calgrove’s oldest son, Phil (Cooper North), must act as head As the newcomers blend into the work under Eve’s tough but tender guidof the family, which picks up other orphans and exiles on the way, whom Phil is ance, the Vernet team purloins two special roses from the Lamarzelle complex 74 H HILLRAG.COM
