Sugar and Stars
Cinema St. Louis brings films from around the world to the Gateway City every Fall for the annual St. Louis International Film Festival, but for the last 17 years, they’ve also highlighted the country of France with a separate annual French Film Festival, sponsored this year by the Jane M. and Bruce P. Robert Charitable Foundation. The festivities kicked off on April 4th (forgive your poor, beleaguered editor-in-chief for his tardiness!), but there’s still a heaping helping of screenings coming up this weekend centered around what France is, of course, best known for: the food.
Friday’s feature is Sébastien Tulard’s 2023 film À la belle étoile, whose name literally means “under the stars” but is released in English as Sugar and Stars (04.11, 7:00pm). The film follows Yazid (Riadh Belaïche), a young man who has been bounced around foster homes his entire life but who dreams of working with the greatest pastry chefs that Epernay, Paris, and Monaco have to offer to become a pâtissier par excellence himself.
Saturday opens with a matinee of the perfect family film for the theme, Brad Bird’s 2007 modern classic animated feature from Pixar, Ratatouille (04.12, 1:00pm). Comedian Patton Oswalt stars as Remy, a rat with a penchant for cooking who teams up with the hapless young chef Alfredo Linguini (Lou Romano), Remy hiding under Alfredo’s hat and controlling his movements to help him cook the most delectable meals imaginable and, if he’s lucky, win over Anton Ego (Peter O’Toole), a notoriously vicious food critic. On the more adult end of the spectrum, Claude Chabrol’s 2002 thriller Merci Pour le Chocolat (04.12, 4:00pm), starring Isabelle Huppert in one of the icy roles that has long been her stock in trade. “Filmmakers seem drawn to [Huppert] because of her mysterious detachment,” Roger Ebert wrote in his 3-star review of the film. “While many actors seek out the secrets of their characters, Huppert keeps such secrets as she may have discovered, and invites us to figure them out for ourselves.” This time out, Huppert plays a woman who has remarried her ex-husband after the mysterious death of his second wife. The family is rocked by revelations of his family history, but as it all unfolds, why exactly is she giving everyone hot chocolate? Saturday night closes out with Gabriel Axel’s 1987 drama Babette’s Feast (04.12, 7:00pm), an Oscar-winner for Best Foreign Language Film about a young Frenchwoman named Babette (Stéphane Audran) who flees France for Denmark and volunteers as a housekeeper and cook of unbelievably succulent meals before her past from back in France starts to rear its ugly head.
All of the above screenings will take place at the Hi-Pointe Theatre (1005 McCaulsand Ave.). Tickets are $15 for general admission and $12 for students as well as Cinema St. Louis members. For more information or to purchase tickets, visit cinemastlouis.org. | Jason Green
