Potiche

Francois Ozon - 2011
Liked this a lot. Ozon's camera has some sweeping moves, often to start scenes; it threatens to look like Assayas for a second, with movements in and around. Then it very much calms down, partly surely due to the melodrama (of a sort; I'll call it melodrama) it is playing off. So lots of SRS and moves in on this, for emphasis (accompanied by music).
The colours and the decor are showy, their, in a way, as indications of the real horror of the bourgoise household. The clothes, the ridiculous facial hair, the colour schemes. It all rather goes with the almost absurd performances of Deneuve and Depardieu. Of course, they aren't, especially Catherine, absurd; just growing older, like we all do and will.
So what is Ozon doing with this stylization? At first, and this is the bit I really liked, he problematises the genre by attacks from outside; discomfort from the usine and from the locations visited, the problems that come up. This is as opposed to the use of the genre from inside to deal with social issues we have in a Sirk, and perhaps Fassbinder.
Ozon probably does settle into this second position, making it more of a family saga. Or rather, one to do with feminism (the factory becomes rather too happy for my tastes... though it, and a number of other issues, are cheerfully unresolved), and feminist issues are ones the genre can deal with, in a sense, by simply extending its own logic. Nevertheless, the subversions going on with the nymphomania, and the coming into power of Deneuve, are well put across.
Ozon presumably uses the screaming settings he does to get across his messages in a way people will listen to. This is though surely combined for a understanding of that genre as well. I'm not sure about all of Ozon's messages, the idea of politics being a respite, and the aformentioned factory, are slight cop-outs. What I did really like about this film was ; the early bits of the factory, and the sights of Depardieu and most particularly Deneuve, graceful and beautful as ever, simply going about their lives. This isn't mawkish about her, our memories of her (umbrellas!) but remembers wonderful things that we can take up in a way now, with memories of the past. Like Depardieu says about his socialism. Not incisive, I know, but I've seen few modern commerical pictures that even mention it, and in such an accomplished manner here.