88 KEYS TO ENDING HIS DUBIOUS WAYS.Byline: Bob Strauss Film Critic JAMES TOBACK'S movies can always be made better. Jacques Audiard's ``The Beat That My Heart Skipped'' proves the point. A French update of the sometimes brilliant, sloppily indulgent American filmmaker's first feature, ``Fingers,'' ``Skipped'' presents the main themes of the piece - artistic longing vs. soul-killing livelihood, fathers and sons shifting roles, sexual deception - much more succinctly and in a more credible setting. And in Romain Duris (``L'Auberge Espagnole''), Audiard has found an actor at least as intense and palpably conflicted as Harvey Keitel Harvey Keitel (born May 13, 1939) is an Academy Award-nominated American actor. Biography Early life Keitel was born in the New York City borough of Brooklyn to Miriam and Harry Keitel, Jewish immigrants from Romania. was in the 1978 movie. Handheld cinematography cinematography: see motion picture photography. cinematography Art and technology of motion-picture photography. It involves the composition of a scene, lighting of the set and actors, choice of cameras, camera angle, and integration of special , subjective editing and an award-winning, driving soundtrack that jumps from Eurometal to trance-pop to classical played well and badly all add to the jittery sense of spending the whole movie inside the hero's dissatisfied, striving head. Duris' Thomas Seyr is a 28-year-old real-estate ... well, not exactly swindler SWINDLER, criminal law. A cheat; one guilty of defrauding divers persons. 1 Term Rep. 748; 2 H. Blackst. 531; Stark. on Sland. 135. 2. Swindling is usually applied to a transaction, where the guilty party procures the delivery to him, under a pretended , but he's hardly an ethical businessman. He and some investment partners work the margins between big Parisian capitalists and derelict buildings that often require strong-arm squatter removals. An early scene shows Thomas and company on a typical midnight mission, emptying sacks of live rats in a tenement A comprehensive legal term for any type of property of a permanent nature—including land, houses, and other buildings as well as rights attaching thereto, such as the right to collect rent. corridor. Thomas also helps his aging slumlord slum·lord n. An owner of slum property, especially one that overcharges tenants and allows the property to deteriorate. [slum + (land)lord.] father Robert (Niels Arestrup) collect rent from deadbeats. Thomas' late mother, however, was a concert pianist, and a chance meeting with her former agent triggers dreams of pursuing the musical talent he abandoned long ago. Thomas becomes obsessed ob·sess v. ob·sessed, ob·sess·ing, ob·sess·es v.tr. To preoccupy the mind of excessively. v.intr. with preparing for an audition, much to his business partners' frustration. Also perplexed by the volatile young man's burning need to succeed is Miao-Lin (Linh-Dan Pham), a Chinese prodigy who speaks no French but understands music in a way that Thomas never will. Coaching him delicately but strictly, she can't believe she's falling for this jumpy wacko. He's so desperate to grasp a creative lifeline out of his degraded life that he doesn't even notice. Though the character is insufferable and self-absorbed in many ways, Duris is so in tune with his issues that he's always a sympathetic figure - and becomes a grandly tragic one in the long run. Audiard, whose previous films include ``A Self-Made Hero'' and ``Read My Lips,'' once again works a vein of French crime cinema that uniquely draws us into the deepest passions of its unsavory protagonist. Toback should take a lesson. Bob Strauss, (818) 713-3670 bob.strauss(at)dailynews.com THE BEAT THAT MY HEART SKIPPED - Three stars (Not rated: violence, nudity, language, drug use) Starring: Romain Duris, Niels Arestrup, Linh-Dan Pham, Aure Atika. Director: Jacques Audiard. Running time: 1 hr. 47 min. Playing: Laemmle Playhouse 7, Pasadena; Laemmle Sunset 5, West Hollywood West Hollywood A community of southern California northeast of Beverly Hills. It is mainly residential. Population: 36,600. ; Edwards University Town Center 6, Irvine. In a nutshell: Engrossing engrossing, in English law, practice of acquiring a monopoly of goods in order to sell them at an inflated price. The offense was ordinarily limited to monopolies of foods. Related practices were forestalling, i.e. study of a shady Paris real-estate investor who longs to be a concert pianist. In French with English subtitles sub·ti·tle n. 1. A secondary, usually explanatory title, as of a literary work. 2. A printed translation of the dialogue of a foreign-language film shown at the bottom of the screen. tr.v. . CAPTION(S): photo Photo: Romain Duris is a shady real-estate pro who becomes consumed by the piano in ``The Beat That My Heart Skipped.'' |
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