Peep show impresario
On Tour
Burlesque comes to the big screen with 'On Tour'.
Mathieu Amalric was recently described by The Guardian as a "writer, director and unabashed ladies' man." He is probably best-known as an actor, however, although a very handsome and charismatic sort. Since his breakthrough performance in the 1997 drama My Sex Life...or How I Got Into an Argument (Ma vie sexuelle), Amalric has become a French cinema icon, beloved as much for his soulful brown eyes as his arresting performances on screen. He has a winning vulnerability and boyish charm, but several outstanding performances have ensured that Amalric is taken very seriously as an artist, including his star turn as Jean-Dominique Bauby in Julian Schnabel's critically acclaimed The Diving Bell and the Butterfly (Le scaphandre et le papillon, 2007).
In 2010, Amalric graduated from celebrated actor to celebrated auteur, winning the Best Director prize at Cannes for On Tour (Tournée), a film he wrote and directed while appearing in the lead role. He plays Joachim Zand in this deceptively ramshackle road movie, a failed TV producer who is touring France with a gaggle of American showgirls; tattooed burlesque dancers who crowd the screen with their warmth, humour and titillating striptease routines. Though Joachim is in many ways a wreck - a failed impresario, failed brother, failed dad - his love for the burlesque troupe shines through. Somewhere between his own decay and their playful, provocative depravity, an endearing harmony is struck. On Tour has more than a few dark corners, but it is essentially a very naturalistic comedy. Like the best new school burlesque, it crackles with an easy-going good humour, as "ladies' man" Amalric is buoyed and seduced by the rambunctious posse of real-life burlesque artists with whom he shares the screen.
On Tour screens as part our First Look program until Mon 16 May. Join us for a special launch screening, with live performances by burlesque artists Dolores Daiquiri, Sapphira and Sapphira's Showgirls, Lallah L'amore and Miss Lulu Bisou.
Published Thursday, 5 May 2011
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