After a relatively quiet long weekend we just spent, things were looking to get busy again with the visit of my brother Janne and his girlfriend Katja, who were coming over this weekend.
We kicked things off in style with a lunch at La Reserve with Janne, Katja and the folks. La Reserve is the new dining establishment of the Riviera’s most famous (only?) Finnish chef, Mr. Jouni Törmänen. I visited his original Nice venue, simply known as “Jouni”, a couple of years ago, with my parents. The original place really was great (it well deserved its Michelin star) – but was somewhat “hidden away” near the port of Nice (which really isn’t very conveniently located). The new place, La Reserve, is even further away from the town centre than the old place, but has a great location, overlooking both Cap de Nice and the port. La Reserve is actually divided into two parts; the top floor houses the fancy star-endowed restaurant, whereas the bottom floor is occupied by the “cheap and cheerful” brasserie, where one can have a three-course lunch for an altogether reasonable price of 30 euros. We decided to go for the brasserie ;-).
So what’s the verdict then? I certainly have no complaints about the quality of the food – although it has to be said that it’s not quite at the same standard as the full-blown affair we had at Jouni’s. The thing that mostly sets the brasserie apart from the old place (and the upstairs restaurant at La Reserve, I guess) is probably the service – sometimes you get the impression the waiters haven’t quite completed their training… What’s best about La Reserve, though, is location, location – the views over the port and Cap de Nice are simply stunning. So all in all, a very nice way to start off a family reunion ;-)
The Cannes film festival had kicked off just a couple of days before, so a couple of films were naturally on the agenda. The Cannes film festival actually has several parallel festivals – the most important one being of course the “Selection official” – and naturally it’s impossible to get tickets for those screenings for us mere mortals (I guess we just don’t know the right people). Thankfully, Mathilde could get some cheap tickets for “la Quinzaine des Réalisateurs” – one of the less glamorous festivals at Cannes - through her school. Normally the films of the “quinzaine” are not very well known – mostly coming from up and coming directors, rather than established auteurs. This year, however, the latest film from none other than Francis Ford Coppola was part of the quinzaine… Unfortunately, though, we were not able to attend that one, due to the inconvenient screening times.
On Saturday, after a coffee & cake session at our place in Cagnes (the folks brought the cake, we served up the coffee), we headed off to Cannes, where we decided to chance upon “Go get some Rosemary”, from quinzaine stalwart directing brothers Ben and Joshua Safdie (I say “chance upon”, since as I mentioned before, the films at the quinzaine are not very well known – which means the quality is a bit uneven. The film we saw last year – Monsieur Morimoto, was downright crap). This film was certainly better than Monsieur Morimoto, but although the original story about an irresponsible father’s adventures in New York with his kids had a quite quirky charm, the film just didn't quite work for me. After the film, we rushed through Cannes, dodging paparazzi and celebrities (well, more like wanna-be’s, actually…) on the Croisette to make it for our table booking at 10PM (it might’ve been a good idea to book a restaurant a bit closer by…) at our favourite Cannes restaurant – Le Bistrot Gourmand. After a typically tasty dinner, we rushed back to catch the last train back to Cagnes….
On Sunday, we decided to see “Eastern Plays” by Kamen Kalev (again, no particular reason for choosing this particular film, other than that it seemed interesting based on the short summary I read about it). This movie we liked much better than Saturday’s effort. “Eastern Plays” is a touching Bulgarian movie about racism, brotherly love and growing up in Eastern Europe (I wonder if I could get a job writing cheesy one line summaries for the quinzaine next year?). The bitter-sweet story was made all the more poignant by the fact that the main actor of the film, Christo Christov, died just after completion of the film.
All in all, then, Cannes was a mixed bag for us. One good film and one so-so film – an improvement over last year, then ;-) We didn’t see anybody famous this year – but then again we didn’t really put in a lot of effort on the celebrity-spotting this year (come to think of it though – we didn’t see anybody famous in Cannes during the last two years either – I’m starting to suspect you need to be famous to actually see anybody famous at Cannes). I slightly regret not having a go at seeing the Coppola film – apparently the grand master himself made an appearance at the opening screening – and apparently the film was very good as well (which would make a nice change – considering the quality of Coppola’s last few films…)
We kicked things off in style with a lunch at La Reserve with Janne, Katja and the folks. La Reserve is the new dining establishment of the Riviera’s most famous (only?) Finnish chef, Mr. Jouni Törmänen. I visited his original Nice venue, simply known as “Jouni”, a couple of years ago, with my parents. The original place really was great (it well deserved its Michelin star) – but was somewhat “hidden away” near the port of Nice (which really isn’t very conveniently located). The new place, La Reserve, is even further away from the town centre than the old place, but has a great location, overlooking both Cap de Nice and the port. La Reserve is actually divided into two parts; the top floor houses the fancy star-endowed restaurant, whereas the bottom floor is occupied by the “cheap and cheerful” brasserie, where one can have a three-course lunch for an altogether reasonable price of 30 euros. We decided to go for the brasserie ;-). 
So what’s the verdict then? I certainly have no complaints about the quality of the food – although it has to be said that it’s not quite at the same standard as the full-blown affair we had at Jouni’s. The thing that mostly sets the brasserie apart from the old place (and the upstairs restaurant at La Reserve, I guess) is probably the service – sometimes you get the impression the waiters haven’t quite completed their training… What’s best about La Reserve, though, is location, location – the views over the port and Cap de Nice are simply stunning. So all in all, a very nice way to start off a family reunion ;-)
The Cannes film festival had kicked off just a couple of days before, so a couple of films were naturally on the agenda. The Cannes film festival actually has several parallel festivals – the most important one being of course the “Selection official” – and naturally it’s impossible to get tickets for those screenings for us mere mortals (I guess we just don’t know the right people). Thankfully, Mathilde could get some cheap tickets for “la Quinzaine des Réalisateurs” – one of the less glamorous festivals at Cannes - through her school. Normally the films of the “quinzaine” are not very well known – mostly coming from up and coming directors, rather than established auteurs. This year, however, the latest film from none other than Francis Ford Coppola was part of the quinzaine… Unfortunately, though, we were not able to attend that one, due to the inconvenient screening times. 
On Saturday, after a coffee & cake session at our place in Cagnes (the folks brought the cake, we served up the coffee), we headed off to Cannes, where we decided to chance upon “Go get some Rosemary”, from quinzaine stalwart directing brothers Ben and Joshua Safdie (I say “chance upon”, since as I mentioned before, the films at the quinzaine are not very well known – which means the quality is a bit uneven. The film we saw last year – Monsieur Morimoto, was downright crap). This film was certainly better than Monsieur Morimoto, but although the original story about an irresponsible father’s adventures in New York with his kids had a quite quirky charm, the film just didn't quite work for me. After the film, we rushed through Cannes, dodging paparazzi and celebrities (well, more like wanna-be’s, actually…) on the Croisette to make it for our table booking at 10PM (it might’ve been a good idea to book a restaurant a bit closer by…) at our favourite Cannes restaurant – Le Bistrot Gourmand. After a typically tasty dinner, we rushed back to catch the last train back to Cagnes….
On Sunday, we decided to see “Eastern Plays” by Kamen Kalev (again, no particular reason for choosing this particular film, other than that it seemed interesting based on the short summary I read about it). This movie we liked much better than Saturday’s effort. “Eastern Plays” is a touching Bulgarian movie about racism, brotherly love and growing up in Eastern Europe (I wonder if I could get a job writing cheesy one line summaries for the quinzaine next year?). The bitter-sweet story was made all the more poignant by the fact that the main actor of the film, Christo Christov, died just after completion of the film. All in all, then, Cannes was a mixed bag for us. One good film and one so-so film – an improvement over last year, then ;-) We didn’t see anybody famous this year – but then again we didn’t really put in a lot of effort on the celebrity-spotting this year (come to think of it though – we didn’t see anybody famous in Cannes during the last two years either – I’m starting to suspect you need to be famous to actually see anybody famous at Cannes). I slightly regret not having a go at seeing the Coppola film – apparently the grand master himself made an appearance at the opening screening – and apparently the film was very good as well (which would make a nice change – considering the quality of Coppola’s last few films…)
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