It was just the other day that I was flipping thru the last edition of Film Comment, checking out their annual Cannes coverage roundup and I was semi-surprised to see Alain Resnais’ Les Herbes Folles, or what will be affectionally known as Wild Grass here in the U.S., was a first or second place standing with film critics Les Inrockuptiles’ Jean-Baptiste Morain, U.K critic Jonathan Romney and Film Comment’s own Gavin Smith – hailing the light drama as the best film of the festival. My after-thought was…this hasn’t been picked up yet.
Sony Pictures Classics have announced the pick up of the film rights for the U.S., Australia and New Zealand markets, thus becoming another impressive title that the distributor picked up from Cannes. Co-written by Resnais and Laurent Herbiet, adapted from Christian Gailly’s L’incident, this retraces the encounter between a dentist and amateur pilot (Azéma) whose bag is snatched and its contents thrown across a car park, and a solitary man with a troubled past (Dussollier) who retrieves her wallet. The unlikely chance meeting of these two characters leads to a certain romantic dithering that unfolds in eight phases, corresponding to the rules of flying, and in particular the safety procedures before take-off.