Gai Dimanche is a 1935 three reel film written by and starring Jacques Tati and his friend Rhum. The pair star as down-and-outs (very much their situation in reality at the time) who try to generate funds by providing an impromptu leisure tour in a rickety bus they wangle use of for free. Released in 1935 and rarely seen today, the film offers brief glimpses and hints towards methods Tati would begin to perfect on the big screen a decade later.Read More »
Retour à l’aube is like Russian (or should we say Hungarian) dolls dreaming of each other : when the dream seems a dead-end or a nightmare, a new one begins in another tone. Danielle Darrieux being the unforgettable doll and key leading to the following dream, following film : drama, comedy, romance, musical, crime, oniric tale, etc… a perfect rainbow directed by Decoin. A film that could be compared to Pierrot le Fou for this rare quality of going through genres and tones as lightly as the air, which I tend more and more to attribute to people having penetrated the secret of cinematic life… or is it just love ? MaybeRead More »
It is June 1940. France has fallen and the Germans are posed to invade England. In this desperate hour, British Intelligence has recruited Babette, a pea-brained young woman who has just been evacuated from France. The dim blonde bears a striking resemblance to a former mistress of General von Arenberg, the man responsible for the feared invasion. The plan is that she will use her womanly charms to lure the General into an ambush. Things soon go wrong when Babette is separated from her handsome associate, Gérard de Crécy, and ends up in the hands of the infamous Gestapo chief Shultz. Coincidentally, the latter also wants to have von Arenberg out of the way, and realises that Babette is just the woman he needs…Read More »
A group of Liverpudlians goes to Middlesborough to lay a tarmac road. Without the boss around, there’s a chance for some diversions with the locals, while keeping up the spirit of free enterprise, preferably on the firm’s time.Read More »
A summer on a leisure island in the Paris region. Land of adventure, drag and transgression for some, place of refuge and escape for others. From its fee-paying beach to its hidden recesses, the exploration of a kingdom of childhood, resonating with the tumults of the world.Read More »
Wikipedia wrote:
The Lavender Hill Mob is a 1951 comedy film from Ealing Studios, written by T.E.B. Clarke, directed by Charles Crichton and starring Alec Guinness, Stanley Holloway and Sid James as gold bullion thieves. The title refers to Lavender Hill, a street in Battersea, a district of South London, in the postcode district SW11, near to Clapham Junction railway station.
Audrey Hepburn made an early film appearance in a small role as Chiquita near the start of the film.Read More »
continuing with liner notes by Michel Barthelemy :
“This is probably a good time to mention Dwoskin’s use of comedy : Outside in is a film that deals with disability but is also funny and even burlesque. Of course, only the disabled can use this mode to stage themselves as disabled characters.
Bergson states not only that “a deformity thay may become comic is a deformity that a normally built person, could succesfully imitate” but also that “the impression of the comic will be produced (…) when we are shown the soul tantalised by the needs of the body : on the one hand, the moral personnality with its intelligently varied energy, and on the other, the stupidly monotonous body, perpetually obstructing everything with its machine-like obstinacy. The more paltry and uniformly repeated these claims of the body, the more striking will be the result”Read More »
After seven years of dictatorship, a remote village in Argentina formally becomes a town with the birth of its 501st inhabitant. Hidalgo, a slick and ingratiating scion, is eager for the new post of mayor. Smelling a rat, Baldomero (a beloved natural leader with a habitually tapping digit) opposes him with his own candidacy—and soon turns up dead. His shopkeeper brother vows revenge, keeping Baldomero’s severed finger in a jar, initially as a remembrance, but eventually as an absurd icon of leadership that spurs the town to defy crooked elections, interloping powers and Hidalgo to go its own way. Based on real events, this charming dramatic comedy pokes fun at small town ways while celebrating true democratic values.Read More »
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The battle of the sexes? The forces of despair and seduction? On S. Miguel in the Azores, Rogério, a young man with old money, and his enigmatic wife Leonor host a garden party at their villa. The intriguing guests are an older unmarried couple, the philosophical and observant Irene, and Michel, a roué;. While Rogério and Irene talk, Michel and Leonor go down to the sea. The conversations upset Rogério and capture Leonor’s imagination. Five years later, the four dine at the villa. Michel and Leonor again leave the other two. Intentions and undercurrents are subtle. One of the four proves strong, one weak, and two must choose. Wind and rain bring down the curtain on both acts.Read More »