Asphalte aka Macadam Stories, written and directed by Samuel Benchetrit

Asphalte aka Macadam Stories, written and directed by Samuel Benchetrit

                Isabelle Huppert stars in this film.

                In conclusion, this is enough to make this work worth seeing.

Moreover, she is watching with a neighbor scenes from her earlier work…for she is an actress in Asphalte.

Isabelle Huppert is one of the handful of Goddesses of cinema.

Her work includes chef d’oeuvres like:

The Piano Teacher, Amour, La Ceremonie, Story of Women, Loulou, Violette, Coup de Torchon…

It is an injustice, in this film fan’s view, to have an Oscar for the young Emma Stone and none for the Artist who sits at the very top of the pyramid.

Macadam Stories offers a tragicomic view of life in a city, the glimmering, glitzy, glamorous Paris.

In the first scenes, a committee meets with inhabitants of an apartment building’s staircase to discuss…the elevator.

Funds are necessary to keep it operating, repair and maintain it and everyone is asked to contribute.

Well, they ask for a vote first.

Sterkowitz does not want to pay his dues.

The others have to make a decision on that and they allow this “rebellion”, but he will not be allowed to use the lift.

In an absurd, cold atmosphere, the mutineer stays by his door and notes down the times the elevator is used.

He later engages in a sort of outré relationship with a woman, pretending he is a photographer.

At one stage, he admits his false pretenses and explains he does not even have film in the camera…

Another story on the macadam involves Isabelle Huppert aka Jeanne Meyer and a much younger neighbor.

After she forgets her keys, this young man helps her and then they watch some of her old movies together.

One is called The Woman With No Arms.

However, the narrative that appears the most charming and comical involves an American…astronaut.

Michael Pitt is excellent in the role of John McKenzie who has a problem navigating in the orbit of the earth.

He lands on top of the apartment building that is the scene of the film and two men sitting on the roof find the scene…stupefying.

All the rest of the scenes involving this man out of space are hilarious, for he asks where they are, then he meets a confused French woman of Algerian extraction and they have to use sign language.

John McKenzie has to call NASA and together they try to understand his location so that they come and get him.

However, this will take about two days, to the dissatisfaction of the astronaut who wants the Agency to get him now.

Well, you see, we can’t exactly let the public know that this flight was a failure so we will send someone else into space and when he gets back, you will have a hero’s welcome and all will be fine…this is the gist of it.

Who is going to get this welcome? Me or the other person…and the answer is the other man, but people would not know and therefore the funds will not be in danger…you see, this decision comes from the top.

In the meantime, while waiting for his extraction, the cosmonaut watches soap opera with his host.

They do not speak each other’s language, but the result is outstanding and extremely amusing.

The guest explains with amusing gestures how various characters from the show they look at die, kill, marry in most unexpected fashion, bedazzling the French woman who says she will stop watching the series…

Oh, I forgot- the soap opera had been on American screen earlier and this is how the man from space knows the plot and ending.