Artémis, coeur d'artichaut (2013)
Directed by Hubert Viel

Film Review

For his first feature length film director Hubert Viel offers an affectionate homage to the French New Wave with a cinema oddity that pretty well defies any rational attempt at classification.  Essentially, it boils down to a good old-fashioned buddy movie, featuring two independently minded young women who end up sharing an apartment together, in good old Nouvelle Vague fashion.  Filmed in grainy black and white, with only the vaguest of approximations to a coherent narrative, Artémis, coeur d'artichaut instantly evokes those great nostalgia pieces of the French New Wave by such directors as Jean-Luc Godard, Jean Eustache, Jacques Rivette, Agnès Varda and Eric Rohmer.  One film that it particularly calls to mind, with its humorous depiction of a female friendship, is Luc Moulle's innovative 1966 film Brigitte et Brigitte.

Viel originally conceived this as a short film (running to about thirty minutes), but it ended up as a sixty-four minute feature when it became apparent at the editing stage that it needed a longer run-time to tell its story effectively.  The film's author also provided the film with its omniscient narrator, abusing this hackneyed device to great comic effect.  Artémis, coeur d'artichaut is a grasshopper, patchwork quilt kind of film that comes together before our eyes and reveals itself to be a gloriously unfettered celebration of friendship and independent filmmaking.

The glue that holds this crazy concoction together consists of two talented young actresses, Frédérique Barré and Noémie Rosset, who have a jolly time as two feisty arts students who get up to all the things that all arts students get up to.  Far from being a dry and formulaic exercise in imitation, as tributes to the French New Wave often are,  Artémis, coeur d'artichaut is a satisfying oddball film in its own right, bubbling with vitality, wit and charm.  Hubert Viel followed this up with a second feature, Les Filles au Moyen Âge (2016), a homage of sorts to Éric Rohmer's Perceval le Gallois (1978).

Film Synopsis

After bidding her fond farewells to Mount Olympus, the goddess Artémis finds herself reincarnated as a mere moral, living in present day France and attending university in Caen.  At first she lives a solitary and melancholic life, preferring the company of animals and children to that of grown adults.  But then she meets Kalie Steaux, a trendy fun-loving girl with whom she has an immediate rapport.  Kalie invites Artémis to live with her and within no time the two women have become the closest of friends.  Their wild exploits are only just beginning...