France

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La mort de Danton
Un film de Alice Diop

2011 • documentaire • 64 minutes

auteur-réalisateur Alice Diop • image Blaise Harrison • son Pascale Mons • montage Amrita David • montage son et mixage Ludovic Escallier • étalonnage Eric Salleron

Steve a 25 ans, la dégaine d’un « loulou des quartiers » ceux-là même qui alimentent les faits-divers sur la violence des banlieues. Il faut dire que « petite racaille », il l’était encore il y a quelques mois. Avec ses potes, compagnons d’infortunes, il « tenait les barres » de sa cage d’escalier, rêvant d’une vie meilleure entre les vapeurs des joints qu’ils se partageaient entre amis.Read More »

Once upon a time, in the middle of the last century, a great warrior named Babatou. Nigerian jumper from the region Dounga Gurunsi invaded the country and settled there. The brave prisoners were integrated into the army, women espoused. For fifty years, the adventurous young people from Niger Babatou went to live in the epic.Read More »

Synopsis:
“The film is an intentionally elementary meditation on certain primary functions of film, that could be said to be at the roots of film editing as such – expectations, exploring the picture, perceptual memory, relationships between on-screen and off-screen space – all explored in a series of free-standing sequence shots of perfect simplicity.”
— Noel BurchRead More »

A coming of age story centering on the exploits of a young girl during summer vacation.

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★★★½ Watched by Once upon a Tom in Hollywood 30 Jul 2020

In the land of soft-focused 70s erotica, David Hamilton reigns supreme. This is a well-told coming-of-age sexual awakening story featuring lovely cinematography and a cohesive narrative (which is more than 95% of its cinematic peers can claim). It does wander a bit into pure titillation at times, especially during the early part of the film. But if you’re interested in exploring erotic films of this time period, this is about as cinematic an example as you’re going to find.Read More »

Actually the comedy of unemployment, which is defined as possibly the worst, or maybe the best, thing that ever happened to this film’s group of protagonists: a middle-aged loan officer, his successful wife, a champion of professional joblessness (and mountain-climbing enthusiast), and the employment agency professional who falls passionately in love with him. This film’s honest work involves potatoes, ditch-diggers, a wheelbarrow, doomed love, jam in bed, and gunfire involving dueling employment agencies. Winner of the Prix Jean Vigo at the 1988 Cannes Film Festival.Read More »

The Art of Love is composed of several chapters, which follows several Parisian couples. Isabelle (Julie Depardieu) has not had sex in a year. She declines an offer from her friend Zoé (Pascale Arbillot) to “borrow” her husband and instead winds up impersonating Amélie (Judith Godrèche), another friend who cannot bring herself to sleep with her buddy, Boris (Laurent Stocker). The singleton Achille (François Cluzet) thinks his prayers have been answered when his svelte new neighbour (Frédérique Bel) knocks on his door wearing a negligee and suggests they have an affair. In another chapter, a middle-aged couple’s marriage is threatened when wife Emmanuelle (Ariane Ascaride) finds herself lusting after every attractive man she lays eyes upon and a pair of young lovers (Elodie Navarre and Gaspard Ulliel) discover the pangs of jealousy.Read More »

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Perhaps what’s most refreshing about actor/writer/director Emmanuel Mouret’s latest effort Caprice is how equally unlikely it presents the maddening scenario of a nebbish male romantic lead courted aggressively by two incredibly attractive women. A lighter, Gallic equivalent of the type of masculine steered ménage a trois we’ve grown accustomed from Woody Allen, this treatment manages to feel equally effortless but not entirely effervescent. A series of coincidences sets off a sexual comedy of errors involving a quartet of enjoyable performers, though all is eventually for naught since none of them are exactly likeable, a problem considering they’re trapped in a romantic comedy paradigm necessitating we grow interested or even attached to at least one of their outcomes.Read More »

LESSON BY PIERRE BOULEZ (A) + SUR INCISES (concert) (2000)
Directed By Andy Sommer
With warmth, modesty and infectious enthusiasm, Boulez explains the hidden architecture of his most recent work, Sur Incises, to a non-specialized young audience. On a number of occasions, Pierre Boulez has shown that he can come up with the right words and gestures to throw a light on complex musical scores. Here he demonstrates his teaching talents in talking about his work as a composer: after conducting the nine soloists of the Ensemble Intercontemporain, who follow him with visible pleasure through the mysteries of a spectacular score, he offers a witty exposition of the musical movements that make up its construction.Read More »

A fantasy about a woman’s attempts to exorcise the influence of her sexually domineering father.

“What began as a documentary on sculptress Niki de St. Phalle finished up as a fantasy about a woman’s attempts to exorcise the influence of her sexually domineering father. It provides an excuse for a whole ragbag of Freudian neuroses, six-foot phalluses in coffins, nubile girls in nun’s habits stripping in front of altars, masturbation, some obvious jokes, pretty photography, abysmal acting, and a commentary that reads and sounds like a Home Service children’s story for adults” (Chris Petit, Time Out)Read More »