Queen of Montreuil (2012) User Reviews

An idiosincratic but very endearing film

[roman-15 · 8/10 · 27 April 2019]

No doubt this is a relatively minor film. But it's touching, endearing, quirky and often funny. Loved the way the storyline develops, specially as regards Agathe, the recently widowed film director.

Very simple, very lovely. Thanks to MUBI for the opportunity to see this film and the excellent work of its director

Mourning does not become Agathe

[guy-bellinger · 8/10 · 16 September 2020]

An eccentric Icelandic poetess and her son coming all the way from... Jamaica, a friendly crane operator working cheerfully at the top of the world, a laundromat that also serves as an Internet cafe, an otter in the main character's bathroom, you would think these are the words poem by Jacques Prévert or Charles Cros. They are in fact features of Solveig Anspach's offbeat sweetly loony little film, "Queen of Montreuil". One thing is sure, burlesque as they are, these incongruities will make you smile - more than once. But make no mistake, "Queen of Montreuil" isn't just a comedy, or let's say it is a bittersweet comedy, whose main subject is death (here the one, sudden, of Agathe's spouse) and its bitter aftermath, grief, mourning and the problematic return to life. Death is indeed a theme present in most of Anspach's fiction works. And she did know her subject since she herself had been confronted to the Grim Reaper two decades before making this film. Suffering from breast cancer during her pregnancy, she overcame the disease and gave birth to her baby girl against all odds. In 2011, when she made "Queen of Montreuil", she didn't know it yet but she would eventually die of her cancer four years later following a relapse, not without having shot in between two singular and therefore engaging films "Lulu femme nue" and "L'Effet aquatique". But if the shadow of Death is present in several of her films ("Haut les coeurs!", which tells about her own grappling with the Crab, "Queen of Montreuil", about the sudden death of a young life partner and the trauma it ensues), Sólveig Anspach never resorts to the violins of melodrama or to raw realism, let alone to Bergman's twisting-the-knife-in-the-wound style. On the contrary, she opts for a light and offbeat tone. Thus the poor heroine of this "serious comedy" (Florence Loiret-Caille, excellent) is confronted - as mentioned before - with a completely crazy Icelandic woman (the amazing Didda Jónsdóttir), her irresponsible son, a sea lion in her bathtub and a neighbor who is in love with her... Thanks to this clever choice, laughter alternates with tears, lightness with gravity, the tangy taste of life with the pasty taste of death, both suffered and desired. Rarely has one's heart been so light-hearted when faced with the evocation of a work of mourning.It is all the less surprising when one remembers that Sólveig Anspach had managed to make bearable and even endearing the spectacle of a woman suffering from breast cancer in "Haut les Coeurs". Well, do not hesitate to enter the personal and endearing world of Sólveig Anspach: your heart will sink and at the same time you will laugh. Supreme elegance!

Florence Loiret Caille reigns

[septimus_millenicom · 9/10 · 13 January 2024]

I have wanted to see _Queen of Montreuil_ for so long; it is certainly worth the price of the Amazon Prime "France" channel!

It stars a boyish Florence Loiret Caille (one of my favorites French actresses) as Agathe and features Samir Guesmi as Samir.

Their characters in director Solveig Anspach's _The Aquatic Effect_ have the same names, which made me think this is a prequel. It isn't. Here Agathe is a documentary maker who has lost her husband; bringing his ashes back to France she runs into the hippie Icelandic poet Anna and her hapless son Ulfur, and invites the stranded pair back to her apartment complex in a seemingly unphotogenic suburb of Paris full of graffiti.

In Anspach's uplifting vision the place is a 1970s Scandinavian socialist commune with little money, social boundary, or rancor.

The colorful multi-ethnic residents include a Greek guarding a disused zoo with a leftover seal; the best scene of the film has Loiret-Caille reacts wordlessly with horror at the seal in her bathroom, enacting some Icelandic ritual I won't spoil here. She is such an amazing actress, and could easily have been a mime artist. The deadpan tone reminds me of Aki Kaurismäki, but the warmer hue of the screenplay and the beautiful compositions that somehow arise out of the chaotic interpersonal relationship are pure Anspach. Agathe has her own bit of wistful superstition about her possible Icelandic roots. In fact the main themes might be forging adoptive families out of our rootlessness, letting go of past trauma. The screenplay may seem like a collection of non sequiturs but everything comes together in the end, including the seal, and Anna smoking weed while operating a towering crane that towers over the "ugly" suburb, which casts such a spell on you at nighttime. Anna is the true queen of Montreuil. This is an even better film than the _Aquatic Effect_; too bad Solveig died young.