Tip Top (2013)

Thursday, March 14, 2019 @ 7:00 PM
Plaza Theatre - 1133 Kensington Rd NW, Calgary, AB
$12 General | $10 Members/Seniors/Students | $40 5-Pack Punch Pass | $99 Season Pass

DIRECTED BY SERGE BOZON | FRANCE/BELGIUM/LUXEMBOURG | 106 MINS.

You may well find the opening moments of Serge Bozon’s Tip Top immediately destabilizing. Indeed, many viewers will doubtlessly find the metaphor of the sledgehammer appropriate. Some viewers and critics still don’t know what to make of the cinema of Serge Bozon. Say what you will: Bozon, himself a onetime film critic of some notoriety, would seem to have a personal system all his own, no less so than, say, a Yasujirō Ozu. Tip Top is scrupulously controlled anarchy abiding by a completely individual set of rules. Two eccentric female detectives from the Internal Affairs department are brought in to make sense of the circumstances surrounding an underworld killing in Villeneuve, a suburb in the northern French city of Lille with a large Algerian immigrant population. Topical commentary and outrageous slapstick hilarity ensue, all of it played with something like a straight face. Tip Top provides the ideal context to see Huppert flex her muscles as a comedienne. She gives a fantastically busy performance that nonetheless has something of the impression of an offhand shrug of the shoulders. You may not know what to make of it, but there will be laughter.

- Written by Jason Wierzba

SPOTLIGHT: ISABELLE HUPPERT

First appearing on screen in 1971, Isabelle Huppert has amassed more than 130 credits over the course of a remarkable and varied career. Indeed, she is considered by many to be the finest screen actress of her generation, having worked with many of the greatest directors of the postwar era. Whether in her famous extended collaborations with Claude Chabrol and Michael Haneke or in one-off partnerships with a who’s who of contemporary notables, Huppert is famous for her icy intelligence, intensity of affect, and subtlety of craft. Though her consistency is beyond dispute, it would be neglectful in the extreme to pigeonhole this fearless actress; while she can indeed be ruthless and inscrutable as she famously is in films such as Haneke’s The Piano Teacher, she is equally at home conducting amorous combat in Maurice Pialat’s Loulou or participating in the merry madcap antics of Serge Bozon’s Tip Top. Huppert, who has won and/or been nominated for innumerable awards, remains in a class of her own.

About Calgary Cinematheque

We are a non-profit film society dedicated to presenting significant, challenging, and essential works of cinema art in Calgary. During our season, which runs from October to April, we screen films weekly, in curated programs which situate each film in a thematic and historical context. We do this because we believe cinema is an essential form of artistic, social, and political expression. Audiences should be able to engage with a wide range of cinematic expression, not only with what is commercially viable. We believe in the power of sharing these experiences with other people in a theatrical setting and we strive to cultivate a community around that experience.  

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