Jardins en automne (2006)

Director:

Otar Iosseliani

Writer:

Otar Iosseliani (scenario)

Release Date:

6 September 2006 (France)

Genre:

Comedy

Awards:

1 win & 1 nomination

Cast

Séverin Blanchet	...	Vincent, le ministre
Jacynthe Jacquet	...	Barbara, la balayeuse
Otar Iosseliani	...	Arnaud
Lily Lavina	...	Mathilde, la rousse
Denis Lambert	...	Gégé, le bistrotier
Michel Piccoli	...	Marie, la mère de Vincent
Pascal Vincent	...	Théodière, le deuxième ministre
Salomé Bedine-Mkheidze	...	L'ex-fiancée
Christian Griot	...	L'huissier
Mathias Jung	...	Le chauve
Albert Mendy	...	Le chef africain
Muriel Motte	...	La maîtresse
Mouna Ndiaye	...	Delphine
Emmanuel de Chauvigny	...	Le pope (as Manu de Chauvigny)
Jean Douchet	...	Le père de l'huissier
Jacques Amalric
Pascal Aubier
Jeanine Besson
Gilles Briselance
Kevin Darchy
Louis de Raffin de la Rafinie
Chiara Dimberton
Avari Firiel
Radslav Kinski		(as Radoslav Kinsky)
Eric Lamberger
Solène Le Pechon
Tewodros Markos
Valérie Menguy
Claire Mortreux
Thamaz Naskidachvili
Maria Nistratova
Yuri Rost		(as Youri Rost)
Lasha Shevardnadze
László Szabó
Mathias Vogt
Vato Andguladze
Lou Wenzel
Madeleine Baratier
Yves Breton
Yannick Carpentier
Alain Debiossat
Emmanuel de Véricourt
Pierre Étaix
Olivier Fourcade
Antoine Illouz
Salomé Kikaleichvili
Alexis Konovaloff
François Lemonnier
John Lvoff
Martine Marignac
Pierre Meunier
Laure Monbellet
Junichi Nishimata
Monique Perrault
Berkan Rouissi
Ireneusz Spiewak
Séverine Tardy
Vladimir Vojnovich

Directed by
Otar Iosseliani

Writing credits
Otar Iosseliani		(scenario)

Produced by
Roberto Cicutto	....	co-producer
Sam Klebanov	....	co-producer
Martine Marignac	....	producer
Luigi Musini	....	co-producer
Maurice Tinchant	....	producer

Original Music by
Nicholas Zourabichvili

Cinematography by
William Lubtchansky		(director of photography)

Film Editing by
Otar Iosseliani
Ewa Lenkiewicz

Production Design by
Yves Brover-Rabinovici		(as Yves Brover)
Emmanuel de Chauvigny

Costume Design by
Maira Ramedhan Lévy

Makeup Department
Evelyne Byot	....	key hair stylist
Evelyne Byot	....	key makeup artist

Production Management
Christian Lambert	....	production manager
Jean-Christophe Meneec	....	production manager
Valérie Menguy	....	production manager

Second Unit Director or Assistant Director
Marie Aubert	....	second assistant director
Denis Kralj	....	assistant director: location
Paolo Trotta	....	first assistant director

Art Department
Carine Demongueres	....	assistant art director
Yannick Heuveline	....	assistant decorator
Nana Ioseliani	....	storyboard artist (as Nana Iosseliani)
Arnaud Roth	....	first assistant decorator
Romain Scavazza	....	assistant art director
Nugzar Tarielashvili	....	storyboard artist
Wouter Zoon	....	property master

Sound Department
Vasiliy Filatov	....	sound re-recording mixer
Michel Filippi	....	adr supervisor
Judith Guittier	....	assistant foley artist
Emmanuelle Labbé	....	sound (as Emmanuèle Labbé)
Anne Le Campion	....	sound mixer
Laurent Lévy	....	foley artist
Georges-Henri Mauchant	....	sound editor
Antoine Mercier	....	boom operator
Jérôme Thiault	....	sound

Special Effects by
Philippe Hubin	....	special effects

Camera and Electrical Department
André Atellian	....	key grip
Nicolas Blampain	....	electrician
Jim Howe	....	gaffer
Irina Lubtchansky	....	first assistant camera
Nico Tarielashvili	....	second assistant camera
Raphael Van Sitteren	....	electrician

Music Department
Elisso Virsaladze	....	musician

Other crew
Lydia Bigard	....	script supervisor
Geoffroy de Boissezon	....	production assistant
Monique Eydan	....	administrator
Sara-Maries Perset	....	administrator

Thanks
Elisso Virsaladze	....	thanks (as Elisso Wirssaladze)

Production Companies

• Pierre Grise Productions (France)
• Cinemaundici (Italy)
• Cinema Without Frontiers (as Cinema Without Frontiers LLC [Russe])
• FM2B Productions (participation) (as FM2B Films)
• Centre National de la Cinématographie (CNC) (participation)
• Federalnoe Agentstvo po Kulture i Kinematografii (as Agence Federale de la Culture et de la Cinematographie [Russie])
• Canal+ (participation)
• TPS Star (participation)
• Eurimages (with the support of)
• Programme MEDIA de la Communauté Européenne (with the support of) (as MEDIA)
• Cofimage 17 (with the support of)
• Procirep (with the support of)
• Nafta Moskva (with the support of)

Distributors

• Les Films du Losange (2006) (France) (theatrical)
• Asociace Ceských Filmových Klubu (ACFK) (2008) (Czech Republic) (theatrical) (subtitled)
• Asociácia slovenských filmových klubov (ASFK) (2007) (Slovakia) (theatrical)
• Filmmuseum Distributie (2007) (Netherlands) (theatrical)
• IFA (2009) (Argentina) (theatrical)
• JMH Distribution (2006) (Switzerland) (theatrical)
• Artificial Eye (2008) (UK) (all media)
• Eesti Televisioon (ETV) (2008) (Estonia) (TV)
• Transeuropa Video Entertainment (TVE) (2009) (Argentina) (DVD)

Other Companies

• La Poêle à film  catering

Also Known As:

Gardens in Autumn (USA) (festival title)
I giardini in autunno (Italy)

Runtime:

France:115 min | Argentina:115 min (Mar del Plata Film Festival) | USA:115 min

Country:

Italy | France | Russia

Language:

French

Color:

Color

Certification:

Switzerland:10 (canton of Vaud) | Switzerland:10 (canton of Geneva) | Argentina:13 | Netherlands:AL | Czech Republic:U

Filming Locations:

France

Company:

Pierre Grise Productions

Quietly humorous manual for living

Iosseliani's Weltanschauung is one where ideology, commerce and religion are mistrusted. His language however, is not the language of despair or anger. He emphasises the importance of friendships and artistic endeavour. For him there really is a point to living and although he clearly finds typical human preoccupations absurd, there are appropriate ways to live in his world. The only really black part of the movie is a vignette at the start of the film where three gentlemen visit a coffin factory to pick their final receptacle. They all settle on the same one seemingly at the same time and then have a to-do about who will have the privilege of purchasing it. Jorge Luis Borges would be smiling. Such is the futility of competition and machismo. Those who grasp, grasp only nettles.

In this movie we follow Séverin Blanchet playing Vincent, a cabinet minister. He has luxurious offices and is sent on ridiculous ministerial visits, we suspect he may be an agriculture minister. He opens what appears to be some pathetic petting zoo, pins a medal on a non-entity, and goes to shoot animals with an African potentate. His favourite knickknack in his lavish gilded offices is a back scratcher, which bears an uncanny resemblance to an item in Ingres' famous portrait of Napoleon, only there as a symbol of state held as a sceptre, the allusion is perhaps intentional, and shows the ministerial position in an absurd light. Perhaps if Iosseliani did a movie with Napoleon in, he would have Napoleon get up and scratch his arse after Ingres had finished a session.

Notre cher ministre signs whatever papers he is given without looking at them. At one point he ignores an appointment in order to play some elaborate form of solitaire with his assistant, whilst a visitor waits in an antechamber. He even has a bench press set up for when he's really at a loose end. Eventually his resignation is forced, he is made a scapegoat out of, and his materialist wife leaves him for a more senior mandarin who doubtlessly will fulfil her burgeoning desire for baubles, gewgaws, fashionable clothes and pretentious statues. This is portrayed to us as the best thing that could happen to him. He spends more time with his friends, getting drunk and chinwagging, meeting old flames, finding new flames, playing the guitar. These scenes take up a large proportion of the film. It's difficult to describe this section, except that it's a manual on how to live. Red wine, the company of scoundrels, good eating, carousing, spending time with the angelic nieces, planting trees etc.

This is not the most practicable advice say to a denizen of the chaotic comfortless Europe of the Dardenne Brothers. It helps to have well-heeled family members, inheritances and privileges in this film. Gardens in Autumn doubtlessly plays very well to the high bourgeois close to retirement. However even a quarter-life steppenwolf such as myself can take solace that someone else out there is aware of the ridiculous commodification of life, the banality of officialdom, the futility of grasping ambition and the meaninglessness of materialism. A peaceful park bench, tapering rays of light, a little rustling waltz of dry leaves, and a hipflask offer more than the purse of Mammon can hold.

The last images of the film are shots of rustling autumn trees, not soon until the leaves drops, Carpe Diem is the message! One thing that I forgot to say and which is truly ludicrous, but is reflexive to the message of the film, is that Iosseliani has Michel Piccoli playing Vincent's mother. He's just enjoying himself, and the happiness rubs off.

There's a Georgian nod in here from ex-pat Iosseliani with some Pirosmani prints or reproductions on the walls of various apartments (a primitive Georgian artist of whom director Giorgi Shenegalaya made a masterpiece biopic).

William Lubtchansky did the cinematography for this movie, his credits are a litany of great movies of the last forty years, working with Rivette, Garrel, Godard, Varda, Straub, and Lanzmann, no fool in other words. So the film is shot well. At one point Vincent is returning to his flat, which he hasn't visited since becoming monsieur le ministre, he is clearing out his room and flings open the shutters to let some light in, this opens up to us the placid image of a young woman serenely dressed in a cloud of white at her writing table in the building across the way. Really there was thought put into the imagery here.

This movie played almost nowhere in 2006, in the US I think it was limited solely to the New York Film Festival. And it's still played pretty much nowhere. I had to make a pilgrimage to London to see it as it wasn't showing in the regions. At least a small bunch of us folks remember it and were comforted by the wonderful Gardens in Autumn.