I'm old enough to remember when we didn't have phones or internet and I've quite often existed without television ... so when did I get so dependent? By day four of my enforced abstinence from technology, I was wondering if I'd have to do something drastic like a bit of housework ...
So I took myself off to the cinema - alone, when I realised that I'd have had to walk round to the house and knock on the door if I wanted a friend to come with me. (No phone, no e-mails.) And I ended up at this French film Rosalie Blum which was showing - one night only - as part of this week's French film festival. I had no preconceptions. I'd barely heard of it. And I loved it.
It's a great shame that it's clearly going to have a very limited release in the UK. It is based on three   bandes dessinées, shifting to retell events from three points of view. Vincent is a painfully shy, 30-something hairdresser living with his domineering mother when his eyes lock with a frumpy, older woman in a corner shop and he feels that he's seen her before. He becomes a benign stalker - but who's stalking whom? It's hard to believe that this is a first film for director Julien Rappeneau because it's so deftly constructed. (His father directed Cyrano de Bergerac with Gérard Depardieu and I'm guessing from the large French audience in the cinema that the film has been well reviewed over there.)
It's sad and quirky and funny. Absolutely the nicest kind of French film. But it really is a limited release - I've just checked - Edinburgh, Newcastle and Chichester. Here's the sound track There's a review here, and the trailer.