Adrian Tomine is one of my favorite comic writers. His art has a Hopperesque feature. With a minimalist style, his work often focuses on the themes of urban alienation, the complexity of human relationships, identity and heartbreak. His art also frequently appears on the cover of the New Yorker.
The French movie Les Olympiades (Paris, 13th District), is loosely adapted on a few of Tomine’s stories which appeared in his collection ‘Killing and Dying’ and ‘Summer Blonde’. The love story involving a colleague, a former roommate and a cam-girl was well crafted. One of the plots revolved around a college student who gets mistaken for a cam-girl due to her resemblance. Having to leave her studies due to the humiliation, she tracks down the performer, befriends her and well, falls in love with her.
Noémie Merlant who stars in it was also acclaimed for her role in Portrait of a Lady on Fire – a queer romance set in 17th century France. Despite the cinematography, I found it a tad too slow. The movie also had a meta level interpretation of the interplay between the observed, the observer, the medium of painting and the emergence of desire. Both these movies are streaming on Mubi and Prime respectively.
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