Russian Hearts, US Art and a couple of legends

Well I finally finished the BBC's 70s adaptation of Anna Karenina - quality, quality stuff. Stuart Wilson as Vronsky got good towards the very end, I have no complaints whatsoever about the series, all the cast contributed well and it stands up very well today. It doesn't have the artistry of the finale of the Vivien Leigh version but it is SO much better than that film was as it has the time to tell more than half the story.

I managed to catch Art School Confidential online the other day, which I wanted to see mainly because of Terry Zwigoff (who made the wonderful Ghost World a few years ago) and also because I liked Sophia Miles in Tristam & Isolde. She doesn't have much to do here and obviously it was never going to live up to Ghost World (it's written by the same guy as well) but I still liked it. Bit messy towards the end, little bit predictable but funny enough throughout to keep me entertained.

Now, I also saw what can only be described as one of the finest screen debuts - it may not be big in many other countries but Stella is considered a classic in Greece and it launched the film career of the irrepressibly magnetic Melina Mercouri. I'd seen her before in the likes of Topkapi and The Victors, but most notably in Never on Sunday, for which she was BAFTA and Oscar nominated and won Best Actress at Cannes. In this film though she may be even better.

The set up is very simple (and VERY Hellenic ) - Melina is a dancer who all the guys want but she bolts at the first sign of marriage. To begin the film she's seeing a very nice guy but she soon gets her head turned by a local footballer who is the epitome (in both positive and negative ways ) of Greek masculinity. It's nothing revelatory, it's a very simple film but despite being a tad predictable it's told about as well as anyone could have. I'd seen director Mihalis Kakogiannis's work before in A Matter of Dignity, which I really thought was fantastic. Stella isn't *quite* as good but it's not far off and much though I loved Ellie Lambeti, she's not as good as Melina is here.

It just has to go down as one of the finest debuts it is possible to name, she's utterly brilliant. Someone equally brilliant, but who took a lot longer to quietly get people to realise is the French actor Daniel Auteuil. Over the past 15 years he has done absolutely everything and when thinking about the most complete actor in the world, he is the obvious answer. He can do it all - comedy, drama, modern, period, biopic, art-film, commercial, thriller, action, any combination of the above and do it all to a standard so high it's actually amusing.

He has no parallel in foreign cinema, he has 12 Cesar nominations (French Academy film awards) and 2 wins, won a BAFTA for Jean de Florette, won Best Actor at Cannes for The Eighth Day, 2 European Film Awards (for Caché and Un coeur en hiver) and critics awards in France too. So it is not a couple of great performances, he's been consistently recognised by a wide range of award-givers and these only scratch the surface of the man's versatility and talent. The only person in awards terms who can touch him is probably Sean Penn (who has won Best Actor at AMPAS, BAFTA, Cannes, Venice and Berlin film festivals) but Penn doesn't have the range Auteuil does or the artistic success in obviously commercial ventures.

One of those commercial ventures was the extremely successful Le placard (The Closet). I literally cannot believe it hasn't been remade because the subject is so universal. Basically, Auteuil plays a boring divorcee who is about to be fired from his job. In a fit of despair he contemplates suicide but is talked out of it by his new neighbour who suggests that if Auteuil pretends to be gay then he will save his job as the company (a condom manufacturer, no less) couldn't risk the negative P.R. Hijinks ensue.

This is a very funny, consistently laugh-out-loud film. The supporting cast are all spot on (especially Gérard Depardieu as the bigoted, homophobic rugby coach in Personnel) and the film whips along at a cracking rate. It's a short film but is very pacey and while not high art or unexpected it's extremely entertaining and well worth the watch.