Late August, Early September

With intimacy and immediacy, Olivier Assayas plunges us into a group of friends, thirtyish Parisians of literary bent, as they react to the illness and death of one of their number. But this is not exactly a Gallic Big Chill. There’s a headlong, off-hand quality to the filmmaking, that catches the marvelous performances on the fly and makes them seem not like acting at all. Nothing is spelled out but a compelling group portrait emerges, from four discrete chapters set over the year-and-a-bit of the title. This is just what you want a French film to be: smart and sexy, with a look and style of its own. And therefore, not to everyone’s taste. (1998, dvd, n.) *8-*