July 30th 2026
Bon Voyage Marie
The Blue Trail
Puzzle (streaming on Netflix)
Again this week, three highly recommended films. One French, one Brazilian, and one set in the USA. Two of the three deal heavily with issues of ageing, but more in an uplifting than depressing way!
Bon Voyage Marie
Dir: Enya Baroux
 |
© Potential - heatwarming, heartbreaking
and ultimately joyous and uplifting |
80-year old Marie is played by veteran French actress Helene Vincent, who is 83. An authentic start! We meet Marie as she discovers her cancer has returned. She decides to travel to Switzerland for an assisted suicide, but hasn't the courage to tell the truth to her son Bruno (David Ayala) and 15-year-old grand-daughter Anna (Juliette Gasquet), pretending she is going to collect an unexpected inheritance. Caregiver Rudy (Pierre Lottin) is the reluctant driver of the battered old campervan that takes them on their chaotic adventure. The basic underlying theme of assisted dying is naturally heavy, but the director manages to give the film a lightness, plenty of humourous moments, yet all infused with poignancy and deep emotion. Although it is essentially Marie's story, each character in the quartet reveals their own personal struggles; we care about them all, and the four individual performances are strong and memorable. A story like this could have descended into mawkishness, but it never does - it remains a homage to family, connectedness, and the small, important joys in life, as well as the need for people to be able to make their own decisions about how their lives will end.4 - highly recommended
The Blue Trail
Dir: Gabriel Mascaro
 |
© Palace - never too late to learn to
drive a boat |
Winner of many awards and nominations, including the Ecumenical Jury Prize and Silver Bear at last year's Berlin Film Festival, this quirky Brazilian film is an odd mish-mash of genres, but one that works really well. In a near-futuristic Brazil, the government demands that all people over the age of 75 be removed from their homes and sent to colonies where they will, supposedly happily, live out their final years. (Some are carted off ignominously in the "wrinkle wagon".) 77-year-old Tereza (Denise Weinberg) is fit, active and still working, but the government catches up with her and prepares to ship her out. Through a few devious tricks Tereza escapes and makes her way to the river, where she pays a boat captain Cadu (Rogrigo Santoro) to take her down the Amazon to a village where she hopes to catch a ride in a plane, something she's always wanted to do. Her adventures along the way are unexpected, yet uplifting - ranging from discovering dodgy casinos, a snail whose blue slime creates halluncinations, to an independent woman captaining her own boat and selling digital bibles. Tereza is anything but the typical "old fogey" of so many films about ageing. She is determined to age on her own terms, and to stick it to the oppressive government.Weinberg gives her character a quiet resolve, compassion for others, and a willingness to make new discoveries late in life. Cinematographer Guillermo Garza honors the vast beauty of the Amazon waters and forests with his sublime sweeping shots. Between the beauty of the surrounds, the captivating nature of the main character, and the salutory message about resisting ageism, this is an intriguing and uplifting gem of a film.4 - highly recommended
Puzzle
Dir: Marc Turteltaub
Length: 103 min
 |
© Who thought a jigsaw puzzle could
change your life? |
I reviewed this excellent film eight years ago, when it showed only at Cinema Nova. Now you can all see it from the comfort of your couch, and I re-run my review. Agnes (Kelly McDonald) lives life the way her European parents taught her - be a good wife and mother, go to church meetings, and put the needs of your husband and two sons above yours. When she is given a jigsaw puzzle as a gift, Agnes discovers she is really good at it, travels to New York to buy another, and answers an ad for a partner to enter into the National Jigsaw Championships. Her partner is wealthy, reclusive inventor Robert (Irrfan Khan, known to western audiences from Life of Pi and The Lunchbox). Agnes begins to discover there is another side to life from what she is used to. I love this film, not the least because I love jigsaws. No, really, it is insightfully scripted, careful to avoid cliches, and simply beautiful in a way that avoids demonising any of the characters. David Denman as Agnes' husband Louie is particularly noted as the redneck husband also trapped in the only stereotyped role he knows, but it is McDonald and Khan who steal the show.4 - highly recommended!
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