Alix Delaporte's THE LAST HAMMER BLOW -- another winner screens at FIAF's CinéSalon

With a single exception so far, Burning Bright -- the new series from FIAF's CinéSalon that introduces the next generation of French auteurs -- is proving to be every bit as good as is that popular yearly series from the FSLC, Rendez-vous With French Cinema. This week's film is another little gem: THE LAST HAMMER BLOW from a filmmaker, Alix Delaporte (shown below), with whom TrustMovies is only now getting acquainted.

Ms Delaporte has written for French television and co-written and directed two movies, the latest of which is this 2014 film, which tackles the tale of an adolescent boy named Victor (played by a simply terrific newcomer, Romain Paul, above and below) in the French provinces finally coming into contact with his birth father, whom he has never met.

Dad  (played by Grégory Gadebois) is a fairly famous orchestra conductor, who may not even know he has a son. Victor's mom (the always fine Clotilde Hesme), who wants nothing to do with his dad, is recovering (well, we hope she is) from what looks like a bout with cancer of some sort, and when Victor learns that his father is guest conducting the local symphony in a performance of Mahler's Sixth, he determines to meet the man, come hell or high water.

That's the set-up, which sounds interesting enough but perhaps nothing we haven't seen previously. But how Ms Delaporte chooses to tell her story -- in swift, sharply observed scenes in which the exposition is mostly buried within the actions and behavior of the characters -- is something else.

This means we have to stay quite alert for fear of missing any telling moments, of which there are plenty. But the filmmaker makes this easy to do, via her casting of the three leads, each of whom shines, and all the subsidiary characters, as well. (That's Spanish actress Candela Peña, above, left, with Ms. Hesme; also in the cast is noted Spanish actor Tristán Ulloa.)

The lead performances -- that's M.Gadebois, above, and Ms Hesme, below -- are so immediate and real, without ever being "showy," that the film often appears to be something close to a documentary. (Gadebois rather resembles a French answer to our own Peter Sarsgaard, if a little heavier, and he gives a most interesting performance here.)

While her film unfurls in logical, first-this/then-that order -- no back-and-forth flashbacks or anything super-stylish here -- Ms Delaporte instead chooses to give us scenes that may seem almost random but are actually very well chosen to further her story and build her characters, while avoiding the typical and sentimental.

Characters grow and perhaps change, but only in small increments. All this makes what happens in the course of the film seem both believable and "earned." Consequently the joy we experience at the finale comes from a place much deeper and more genuine than often happens in stories like this one.

Young Monsieur Paul is quite a find. He has one of those wonderful faces that seem to want to hide feelings yet can't. They keep seeping through, as much as he tries for disguise. The IMDB does not show any further acting work for him post this film, but I do hope we'll see more of this young man as he grows up.

Gadebois and Hesme give performances of wonderful specificity and emotion. Though we never learn specifics about what happened between their characters, this seems yet another smart choice on the filmmaker's part. And the actors bring such depth to their roles -- they make their quite different situations seem understandable -- that we don't miss, even one tiny bit, the more standard exposition many moviemakers would offer. (The scene, above, in which Dad has his son come up and watch the orchestra from the conductor's standpoint is fascinating and rich. I've never seen anything quite like it in a film before.)

The way the movie handles music -- the love of it and the making of it -- seems to me exemplary. Combining Mahler, soccer, cancer and parenting, The Last Hammer Blow weaves all this together with such spirit and grace that we can only sit back and marvel. And care. And enjoy.

This film really ought to have been picked up for U.S. distribution, so FIAF's bringing it to us now can only be seen as a gift. It plays this coming Tuesday, July 5, at Florence Gould Hall in Manhattan, twice only at 4 and 7:30 PM. Click here to learn more and/or purchase tickets. And remember: FIAF members attend free of charge.

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Alix Delaporte, cancer, CinéSalon, coming-of-age tales, FIAF, Gustav Mahler, movies about music, parenting, soccer, THE LAST HAMMER BLOW,

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New on VOD--Matt Creed and Amy Grantham's LILY covers recovery from cancer treatment

Cancer at any age can be devastating, but for a young woman who looks to be in her early twenties, it's hard to imagine the shock to the system that dealing with something like this might entail. We pick up on our heroine, Lily, the main character of the eponymously titled LILY just at the close of her treatment for what looks like maybe breast cancer, when she is just finishing her radiation sessions and still has the underarm burns to show for this. The movie opens with an extraordinarily beautiful shot of our girl (Amy Grantham, below, who both co-wrote and stars in the movie) going through one of her final radiation sessions. Though you concentrate on her beautiful face, you're also aware that you can see the pulse actually beating in her delicate neck.

The film's director, Matt Creed (shown below), wisely concentrates on Lily (Ms Grantham) for just about the entire movie, since the actress has a splendid face for the camera, as beautiful in repose as in action. If only the rest of the project were up to this level.

Lily's problem -- the character's and the movie's -- is that her life is currently shit. But the more we see and learn of it, and her, it's clear that her life was exactly that before the cancer hit. Yet she doesn't seem to know or care. She just moves, often rather trance-like, from bad event to bad event, with the camera following so that we see, as in the photo at bottom, that hugely expressive feature known as "the back of the head." Yes, it's that kind of movie. It is also, I must say, quite smart about its use of exposition, of which there is little. Very quickly, we're asking, Whose kids are those? And who's this older guy (below, left) -- their daddy? Or is he her father? Or Grandpa? (He's old enough.) Omigod -- they're getting into bed....

Eventually we learn the answers. We even get a smidgen of conversation about that incredible Cuban art school we first learned of in the fine documentary Unfinished Spaces. We meet Lily's mom, and eventually her dad, and note that one's a bigger asshole than the next. As is her husband/boyfriend. Her friends (some of them, anyway) seem a little less annoying. (Though the standard scene in which they all insist to her that she looks fabulous without her wig, as below, is something we knew the second she removed it several scenes back.)

I am told that the movie is loosely based upon the real-life experiences of its star, Ms Grantham. So it is difficult not to feel something for this young woman and her truly horrible life, at least as it appears here. But this is nowhere near enough to make a worthwhile movie. (The only positive thing here seems to be that, even without a job or any prospects of one, money is not a problem for Lily.)

We tag along as Lily visits a thrift shop, buys a pair of tap shoes and then practices at home until her neighbor complains, after which she does this outside (below), attracting, as you might guess, some attention. And then we watch as metaphor rears its head and our girl views a street vendor creating a very large bubble (above) that finally bursts.

At film's close, Lily visits an art dealer whose help she needs. Her actions appear to be every bit as clueless and unprofessional as ever, all of which makes what I suspect was supposed to be a feel-good finale for Lily (and Lily) seem a few levels less than promising.

After several film-festival appearances, the movie will make its VOD debut this coming Tuesday, December 9.

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Amy Grantham, breast cancer, cancer, late-coming-of-age movies, LILY, Matt Creed, NYC-based movies,

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