La Patinoire is about a film director who is shooting a highly symbolic film called 'Dolores' at an ice rink. He has hired a Lithuanian ice hockey team with which he is having enormous communication problems. His actors all have inflated egos, his film crew is made up of fools, and there is a politician on his back. But he must finish the film, no matter what, in time for the Venice Film Festival.
Direction
Toussaint's deadpan satire of his own pretentious literary reputation.
Acting
Bruce Campbell playing a pretentious actor is delicious meta-casting.
Production
The actual ice rink becomes a character—slippery, cold, indifferent.
Director
Jean-Philippe Toussaint
Tom Novembre
Director
Mireille Perrier
Assistant
Marie-France Pisier
Producer
Jean-Pierre Cassel
Ice Rink's Manager
Bruce Campbell
Actor
Dolores Chaplin
Actress
Gilbert Melki
Stand in of the Actress
Dominique Deruddere
Cinematographer
Jean-Loup Horwitz
The Sound Engineer
Éva Ionesco
The Editor
Paolo De Vita
Italian Festival Manager Assistant
Trivia, insights & behind the scenes
Director Jean-Philippe Toussaint was already a celebrated novelist; this was his arrogant, self-aware debut.
The Lithuanian hockey team had never acted; their genuine confusion mirrors the film's themes perfectly.
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