France

“This is the story of a dog who makes films. Or a filmmaker who is a dog. In a series of return trips between Brittany and Lisbon, the protagonist tries to create a filmed animal diary. On the road to Lisbon, he talks with a Portuguese producer, to attempt to show all the sincerity of the canine gaze in his film. An extensive consideration of the thousand-year-old interdependency between humans and dogs thus develops through the prism of ethology and film. In particular, he calls on the history of cinema, from which he unearths hundreds of film excerpts featuring dogs, who become perfect heroes and actors when they find themselves alone in a shot. In this second feature-length film, Maxime Martinot makes a resolutely film-and-dog-loving animal comedy, a profound and cheerful reflection at the heart of our images of the human and animal condition. And if there had to be a conclusion, perhaps it could be this: humans do not deserve dogs.”
Aurélien Marsais, Visions du RéelRead More »

Stumbling across an uncompleted 1939 film called “Princess Marushka”, filmmaker Sam becomes intrigued with the young actor Sylvain Marceau, who last appeared in the film. Hoping to discover the mystery behind Sylvain’s disappearance, Sam decides to make a documentary and sets off to interview those who knew Sylvain, including elderly Lisa Morain. Through her interview, Sam learns the story of Lisa and Sylvain’s doomed love affair on the eve of World War II.Read More »

Synopsis (possible spoilers):

‘A port swathed in dense fog sees the coming and going of boats all day. During the night, Maloin is the man who controls the trains that transport goods to and from the port. One evening, he sees a man get off the boat from London and hand his suitcase to another man who has been waiting for him. Unaware that Maloin is watching them, the two men get into a fight, which ends with one of them falling into the water with the suitcase. As the other man flees, Maloin dives in and recovers the suitcase. To his surprise, it is full of money. Back home, he tells nothing about this to his wife and daughter but hints that they will soon have a better life. What follows will prove otherwise…’
– Willems HenriRead More »

Buster Keaton backed into feature filmmaking with this 1923 effort, which essentially consists of three two-reelers (Keaton’s accustomed format) edited together. The structure is a vague parody of D.W. Griffith’s Intolerance, with Buster fighting to win his woman from a stronger rival in the Stone Age, the Roman Empire, and modern times. It’s good but not great Keaton: the gags are chiefly basic slapstick, with little of the surrealistic refinement and visual sophistication he brought to his later features.Read More »

A handful of teenagers, boys and girls, escape from a reform school and go round town. They go to a ball, the owner asks them to pay the bill.This man is very unpleasant, he hates the youth of today and he is a racist.The incident turns into free -for-all, then into a massacre.The runaways become chased criminals. One of the boys want to take his mates to a deserted village where they would find a refuge. Policemen and farmers are hot on their heels .Read More »

Quote:
Another amazing circus film gets an Alloy Orchestra score. Until its recent restoration by Lobster Films in France, Gallery of Monsters was virtually unknown and unseen. Despite the film’s title, it’s not a horror film. It’s an exciting and sometimes tender love story that follows the lives of circus folk, and particularly the loving relationship of Riquet and his wife, Ralda. The “monsters,” as the intertitles explain, are the evil circus owner and the lion tamer, whose unwanted advances are refused by the beautiful dancer, Ralda. The cast of characters are the staples of a circus side show – a giant, a little person, a bearded lady, a woman with only half a body, and others – who are sympathetically depicted as a supportive family, and come to the aid of the couple. Excellent cinematography, surreal costumes, and a terrifying lion attack bring this intriguing story to life.Read More »

A young wife stays alone in her opulent apartment after her husband and her maid leave. Suddenly the doorbell rings. She opens it to find a strange gun-toting man who bursts in and chloroforms her. She later awakens and finds herself tied to the couch. The stranger warns her not to scream. They begin talking and the man implies that her husband is in danger. Very soon between the two begins a very strange attraction…Read More »

The film stars Mabel Karr as Irma Zimmer, a surgeon who creates a machine that turns people into zombified slaves. Ms. Zimmer is the daughter of a Professor Zimmer (a disciple of Dr. Orloff), who was hounded to his death several years earlier by four of his scientific associates. Zimmer uses the machine to control an erotic dancer named Miss Muerte (Estella Blain) who uses her long poison-tipped fingernails to murder the people Ms. Zimmer holds responsible for her father’s death.Read More »

From IMDb:
Lucienne, typist and gorgeous bathing beauty, decides to enter the ‘Miss Europe’ pageant sponsored by the French newspaper she works for. She finds her jealous lover Andre violently disapproves of such events and tries to withdraw, but it’s too late; she’s even then being named Miss France. The night Andre planned to propose to her, she’s being whisked off to the Miss Europe finals in Spain, where admirers swarm around her. Win or lose, what will the harvest be?Read More »