THE PAGE TURNER
Unrated, 85 minutes

Denis Dercourt’s “The Page Turner” is what last year’s critically beloved “Notes on a Scandal” could have been — an edgy, scandalous battle between tiger and apparent tiger lily. But instead of the battle playing out over notes in a diary, here it is over musical notes in a recital.

Beneath the classical music cage-match is the relationship between a famed piano player and her less-acknowledged pageturner, between the celebrity and the unsung hero. Sitting behind the keys is Ariane (Catherine Frot), once a famous musician who today suffers from a severe case of stage fright stemming from a violent car crash. She’s also the mother of an aspiring pianist. As she resumes her recital career, sitting to her left is Mélanie (Déborah Francois), a young blonde who was hired by Ariane to watch her son but has since become a friend, confidant, and maybe much more.

The movie begins years earlier with a heartbreaking scene in which a younger Mélanie auditions for admittance to a renowned music conservatory. A few feet away, a younger Ariane sits in judgment, more concerned with signing an autograph for a fan than with listening to the prospective student — a distraction that leads Mélanie to fail the audition and abandon her passion for piano.

But back in the present, the tables are turned. Ariane now depends on Mélanie to get through her concerts, and the aging performer seems jealous of her younger, more attractive counterpart. As the two grow closer, a sexual tension brews, threatening to explode.

Beyond the pageantry, “The Page Turner,” which opens today at Lincoln Plaza and the Angelika Film Center, is a straightforward story of a power struggle between the famous prima donna and the unknown woman at her side who so desperately wants a slice of fame for herself. As Ariane plays and Mélanie waits to do her part, we realize how much power the young music-school reject wields with each flip of the page — how much damage she could inflict with the mere flick of her wrist.

Who knew the recital hall could host such great theater?

S. James Snyder

AIR GUITAR NATION
R, 82 minutes

To air is human. To air-guitar, divine. Anyone who doubts this essential truth need only spend about five minutes with this slight but surprisingly effective documentary about, yes, the world air guitar championship. They’ll come away a believer.

Long categorized as one of those ephemeral “sports,” such as hotdog eating, air guitar turns out to be something quite profound in the hands of its masters, self-invented mock stars who go by such names as Björn Turoque, C-Diddy, and Roxy McStagger. These reallife Walter Mittys of heavy metal mime are the citizens of “Air Guitar Nation,” a witty and generous account of the road to the 2003 summit in the remote village of Oulu, Finland.

That was the first year air guitar fans in America mounted a competition to field a contender for the global title, dispatching the eventual winner to do battle with the mostly northern Europeans who formalized the mindless leisure activity into an official art, and state-sanctioned tourist draw.

Director Alexandra Lipsitz is as modest in her intentions as her subjects — Guns N’ Roses and Eddie Van Halen wannabes, every last one — are theatrical and grandiose. She just lets the camera roll, and revels in the playful contrast of personalities. Luckily, there’s an inherent drama in the rivalry between the two top American air guitarists. Turoque is a purist, a shaggy white dude who epitomizes a minimalist approach in which physical intensity is everything, matched with a curled upper lip. C-Diddy, a Korean comedian and actor who performs with a Hello Kitty purse strapped to his chest like a bra, is all about flair — he mugs ceaselessly and animates his fingers as if he’s having a seizure. In the end, the movie is about a battle of yin vs. yang, Apollonian vs. Dionysian, right brain vs. left brain.

It’s also about how virtually anything imaginable can accrue an aesthetic philosophy. As the air guitar version of a Zen master comments, in a moment that might have come from a Christopher Guest mockumentary, it’s impossible to co-opt air guitar by commercializing it, “because it’s invisible.” “Air Guitar Nation” pays heed to the evidence of rock unseen.

Steve Dollar