bjarias
Most films are make believe, not documentaries.. so when you view them, you are doing it with a great leap of imagination and a blind eye at times. Americano is an interesting film, well scripted and acted. At forty-six Selma Hayek.. bit.ly/18K8d2A ..is still undoubtedly an exceptionally beautiful woman, and here once again she performs well in what is a fairly basic role... one that might easily have not been taken as serious by many actors of her stature. She's well know, but in truth is under-appreciated for just how good and dedicated an actor she really is. She's a very smart and interesting woman, continuing to please audiences with her ever expanding body of work.
specialuse117
I wanted to like this film, it started nice with good characters but then it just went nowhere. The director did nothing with the most interesting characters (the father, Linda the friend, and the owner of the bar. No sense of believability or rational thought. Parts of the film really ask you to suspend all belief.SPOILER the Frenchman just happens to run into a kid who has a connection to the bar where Lola works - c'mon.Selma walked through her part and was totally unbelievable as the whore. I wish I could talk of the plot holes but there really was not plot to pull together.
zif ofoz
this movie should be retitled 'the masochistic frenchman' - what a self destructive character Demy portrays. truly this story (which is very interesting in concept) is just torn to pieces by the main character stealing every scene and turn in this story! i didn't believe in his characterization at all.i understand his feeling of abandonment by his mother and the resentment he expressed in having to deal with her estate. but there is not enough background into his personality to support his deep hatred complication. (example - his tossing away of everything in the apartment without care). and just why would he care so much about Lola? a person he has not had contact with for decades! again - not enough character development to support the obsession and misery he endured on her behalf. it's just wasn't believable. and why would he steal the automobile? the telephone conversation he has with his father in which the father psycho analyses his son is just pointless by the time it shows up in the story.the only shining actor is geraldine chaplin! she is marvelous as the caring but dominating neighbor and not enough of her side of the relationship with the mother is made clear. the writer is too mysterious with his implication that Lola and the mother had something going in their 'friendship'. then the little Mexican boy - what? was that suppose to be Lola's son? not made clear. and the cemetery scene - again - what? sorry this flick is just too full of who, what, when, where, holes; and then he goes back to his lover in France. if you are a person that likes incomplete plot lines - check this movie out!
Ion Gabriel Stoica
I saw AMERICANO to the International Film Festival 2012 La Rochelle, France. I had the opportunity to speak directly to the author, the marvelous MATHIEU DEMY. I asked him about the idea to make this film... His answer fascinated me! In fact the film is talking about how a man must go in a different ( and ugly ) country as USA, taking a false route and finishing by understand that memory, the real life, is not but an illusion, like the Cinema... Using old recording with himself and his wonderful and great artist, mother AGNES VARDA!!!, it was really fantastic! I love this film and "c'est tout" ! Mathieu Demy started as a child actor in Agnès Varda's films : One sings, the other doesn't, Documenteur, Murs, murs, then Kung-fu Master. Demy's work as an actor ranges from romantic comedy to drama. His breakthrough came in1998, when he was cast as Olivier, a young man with AIDS, in the musical Jeanne and the perfect guy, directed by Olivier Ducastel and Jacques Martineau. In 1999, he started company Les Films de l'Autre to produce his own short films. He produced and directed in 2000 his first film Le Plafond (35'), adapted from a short story by Tonino Benacquista. The film received the audience award at the Angers film festival Festival Premiers Plans and the Uppsala International short film Festival, and additional awards in Pantin, Rennes, Dignes, Mamers. In 2001, Mathieu Demy worked for director Benoît Cohen for the first time, in the film Les Acteurs anonymous. They reunited for Our precious children, in which he plays Martin, a thirty-year-old man who meets his great love again as he's about to become a father. Mathieu Demy received in 2001 the award for best actor at the Festival de Paris, for Quand on sera grand directed by Renaud Cohen. The Festival Européen Cinessone awarded him twice for acting: in 2003 for Mister V. by Émilie Deleuze and in 2004 for Le Silence by Orso Miret. In 2005, Les Films de l'Autre produced Mathieu Demy's second short film, La Bourde (20'), an experimental comedy. Mathieu Demy reprised his role as Martin for the TV adaptation of Nos infants chéris, which aired on Canal+ in 2007 and 2008. He was cast by Pascal Bonitzer for Le Grand Alibi, and worked twice for Philippe Barassat, in films Folle de Rachid en transit sur Mars and Lisa et le pilot d'avion. In 2009, he also starred in André Téchiné's La Fille du RER and in TV drama Mes chères études directed by Emmanuelle Bercot and dealing with a students' prostitution. In 2011, Mathieu Demy appeared in Céline Sciamma's Tomboy, and was cast as the lead in the romantic comedy L'Art de seducer by Guy Mazarguil. The same year, Mathieu Demy wrote, directed and produced his first feature film, Americano. Demy also stars in the film, along with Salma Hayek.
