 |  | Enchanting tragi-melodrama. |  |
'Mina Tannenbaum' charts the prickly relationship from birth of the title character, the precociously-talented artist child of Jewish concentration camp survivors, and her friend, plump, pretty bookworm Ethel. They first meet at a ballet class reluctantly attended by a pubertal Mina who sabotages it, and we watch them at significant turning points in their lives - as love-struck adolescents agonising over their first romances, Mina falling for a renowned Lothario in her art class, and Ethel smitten by a smooth-talking restaurant pianist; as young adults at the outset of their careers, Mina staging her first post-student exhibition hoping to attract dealers, and Ethel resorting to underhand means to further her jounalistic ambitions. These personal dramas seem to be played out against key dates in French and European history - e.g. 1958 (the year of de Gaulle's return to power), 1968 (students' and workers' strikes and demonstrations); 1989 (fall of Communism). The film signals the changing times through the usual signifiers (hair, clothes etc.), but also the differing social expectations of femininity (e.g. overweight Ethel becomes pencil-thin, mini-skirted and bottle-blonde in the 80s).
But the most important historical context is the girls' Jewish heritage as probably the first generation not to directly experience the Holocaust, but living under its debilitating shadow. Both girls have complex relationships with their mothers, Mina's especially devastated by her experience in the death camps; both at different times try to cast off their Jewishness, shown in their dissatisfaction with their looks and appearance. One of the film's running themes - centring on authenticity, imitation, reproduction, presence/absence - connects all these disparate elements: the girls' friendship and identity crises, their careers and relationships, the historical milieux (the move from history to postmodernity), the media/marketplace, family and Jewishness.
In order to capture the complexity of the girls' personalities, and the various external and internal pressures exerted on them, the film adopts a complex mode of narration. It is framed as a parodic documentary about Mina the famous artist, narrated by a bimbo cousin who pops up throughout the film, bridging chronolgocial gaps, explaining unstated motivations etc. (other figures act as Greek choruses throughout too). Within the narrative, however, the girls' own subjectivity filters the storytelling, breaking its linear movement with visualisations of their emotions (for instance a teenage argument in a bar is shadowed by the girls' self-idealised projections in forties finery catfighting behind them) or by interweaving through time, meeting previous/future selves. Further, their paralell stories are often narrated by one to the other, which they often correct, elide or gloss, with the viewer allowed to see various conflicting versions of the same event. Add to this the other media of representation that may or may not express various emotional states - paintings, TV shows, pop songs etc. This conflict between word and image plays out the drama between the writer and the artists, and the betrayals of their respective arts.
In its mix of whimsy and subjectivity, of a mythical vision of Paris and special effects projecting interior states unavailable to realism, of its tuneful melancholy score and arch narration, 'Mina' seems to prefigure 'Amelie'. This film is much less comfortable in tone, however, its manipulative charm often turning sour, its soap opera always teetering on tragedy, its romantic verve darkening into a sense of Jewish anguish striving for the Kafkaesque, the glossily-imagined present haunted by the crippling past. 'Mina', with its Chinese-box examination of a great figure's life through the biased witness of those who knew her, is also a female-centred 'Citizen Kane', similarly finding its Rosebud in a once-cherished token of childhood discarded in an artwork-crammed dumping ground. Agnes Varda's polemical folly 'One Sings, The Other Doesn't' is more realistically updated too. It doesn't always work, but all these tensions make for fascinating and captivating viewing, and if the director is particularly unfair on Ethel, ditching the complex earlier character for 80s caricature, the extraordinary acting keeps you hooked throughout. May 13, 2002
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Martine Dugowson's film about 2 French friends is cluttered with arthouse stylistics which work against the great heart of the characters. What begins as a slight and offputting experience gathers weight as the film progresses and reaches a touching climax. There is nothing queer about these two women's relationship but there is purity and truth in the performances. Romane Bohringer from Savage Nights is the painter Mina, who identifies with Bette Davis' Mildred from Of Human Bondage, and Elisa Zylberstein is Ethel, who identifies with Rita Hayworth's Gilda. Dugowson intercuts footage from these classic films to demonstrate both her film school mentality and an identity metaphor. The women's friendship continues in their lifetimes and is the constant when lovers, jobs and hairstyles come and go. The film is also an exploration of being Jewish since Mina's mother is a Holocaust survivor and Ethel's wants her to marry in faith. In an amusing cafe scene fantasy Mina is Yentl and Ethel is a whore. This is the kind of film that you want to view straight away again because by the end you've become so fond of the characters, which is both a compliment and an insult to the director. (An insult because one viewing is satisfying enough). We get a swirling black sea which is revealed to be coffee, and a character walking by garbage before we are shown the teardrop-shaped facial disfigurement they have suffered.
June 1, 2001This movie is great, the actresses are wonderful, Bohringer does an amazing job as Mina, especially with her final scence. The soundtrack to the movie is great too. I was moved to buy a Dalida CD after hearing "Il venait d'avoir 18 ans" in the movie (its in the scene where Ethel is lip-synching as well as Mina's final scene). This movie makes a person think long and hard about just how important friendship is. Anybody who either speaks French or loves foreign movies owes it to themselves to see this film.
June 30, 2000 | | Best French Film on Female Friendship | |
Like others, I accidentally stumbled upon this movie on a WorldView/PBS type channel. It is such a powerful story of the truth of female best friends. We love them, we fight with them, and we cannot possibly live without them. Sometimes, as this movie points out, to the extreme. When the rest of the world falls away, Mina and Ethel had each other. Mina was the talented and difficult artist and Ethel was the once chubby, later ascerbic hopeful writer. Their friendship began as children and the movie takes us through their twenties and into their early thirties. Including many tender moments of togetherness and bitter moments of being apart. In each character you will find something of yourself, even on the unpleasant side, and you cannot help but become endeared to each one. Sometimes our friends are the only honest and constant thing in our lives and often when we realize how much they mean, it is too late and they are gone.
January 4, 2000I too accidentally watched this movie on a public international channel as I was switching through television stations.
I was very moved by this movie. I enjoyed how the director delved into the friendship and the changes the women went through. I laughed throughout the movie and cried a lot as the movie ended. December 11, 1999
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Daily Birthdays
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