France

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After Calderón and Proust, Comédie de l’innocence is another literary adaptation, this time from the little-known Italian surrealist Massimo Bontempelli. Updated from the last fin de siècle to this more recent time of uncertainty, Comédie de l’innocence’s plot is small but perfectly formed. With Aristotelian rigour it moves from the opening conundrum (a child torn between two mothers), through the complication (the confrontation between the mothers and Ariane’s brother Serge), to a satisfying conclusion. Ruiz, who takes a co-credit as scriptwriter with Françoise Dumas, keeps up the tension, however, with laconic and enigmatic dialogue. When Ariane visits the empty flat of Isabella, a nosy neighbour remarks: ‘I really don’t want to know.’ Ariane replies: ‘There is nothing to know.’Read More »

“La Cérémonie” de 2014, est donné en complément de “Change pas de main” dans l’édition La Traverse. C’est un film tourné en parallèle au dernier long “Nuits blanches sur la Jetée” ; une sorte de rêverie incestueuse construite sur la permutation ludique des deux interprètes, Astrid Adverbe et Pascal Cervo, à nouveau fils et fille de fiction tendrement fantasmés du réalisateur.
“The Ceremony” (2014), is featured as an extra to “Change pas de main” in the La Traverse release. It is a film shot in parallel with the feature film “Nuits blanches sur la jetée”; a sort of incestuous reverie built on the playful permutation of the two performers, Astrid Adverbe and Pascal Cervo, this time again as fictive son and daughter , tenderly fantasized by the director.Read More »

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Venice Film Festival winner RAJA is the March selection in The Film Movement Series. Raja is a nineteen year old orphan literally and figuratively scarred by life. Fred is an emotionally bankrupt westernet living amid his plush gardens and palm trees. Set against the backdrop of contemporary Marrakech, RAJA is a cross-cultural drama about a wealthy middle-aged Frenchman’s complex relationship with a local youth. Fred’s attempt at seduction, and their mutual attempt at manipulation, are fractured by their gross disparity of income and cultural sophistication. The New York Times wrote “What distinguishes Raja from every other movie to contemplate the treacherous intersection of passion, avarice and power is its unsettling emotional honesty. Read More »

Diary of a housewife, going mad. Armelle is nearly 30, with a husband and two sons. It’s the early 80s in France, unemployment is high, and she’s not worked (outside the home) since she was a dancer at age 20. She cooks, cleans, shops, takes her boys to school, and her guilty pleasure is to have her hair shampooed, an addiction she tries to hide from her husband. An architect in her building leers at her. She becomes depressed and tries to find a job. When the brakes on the family car go out as she’s taking it to a garage and she narrowly misses several pedestrians, she snaps. The architect assaults her, and desperation sets in. Has she any options or any hope? -Written by jhaileyRead More »

Ignatiy Vishnevetsky wrote:
Is there a more pathetic object of desire than Captain John (Thomas E. Breen), the one-legged American who becomes a figure of romantic fantasy in The River? Breen was all of 26 at the time of filming, though like so many of the World War II generation, he seems a good decade older. His red hair is gelled back in sticky waves, his pants are belted mid-abdomen, and his shirts and jackets are cut baggy. His clothes drape awkwardly over his body, and at the pivotal moment of the film—the moment when Captain John’s false leg gives out from under him—they seem to drift an inch behind him, like parachutes unfurling too late.Read More »

Sea-farer Burt Brickford is engaged to captain the yacht of the wealthy Henery Legrand, ostensibly for a pleasure trip in the Gulf of Mexico. From the outset, Brickford suspects that something is amiss. Sure enough, he discovers several cases of dynamite in the ship’s hold and his paymasters are forced to admit that they are planning to recover the lost treasure of a sunken galleon. Yet this turns out to be just another smoke screen. Just what are Legrand and his entourage up to…?Read More »

A memorable depiction by one of the great French film-makers of the last 67 days of Vincent Van Gogh’s life. Deliberately steering away from sensationalism, the film covers the period after Van Gogh (Jacques Dutronc in a César-winning performance) comes to stay in Auvers-sur-Oise, near Paris and not far from his supportive brother Théo, to be treated by the physician Dr Paul Gachet. Beset by self-doubt, financial worries, and increasing signs of depression, Van Gogh feels himself attracted to the world of brothels and cabarets even as he pursues an intense, fluctuating relationship with Gachet’s much younger daughter Marguerite. He paints furiously as the depression takes hold and those around him must reassess their feelings for him….Read More »

Synopsis:
A young Jewish boy living in Nazi-occupied Paris is sent by his parents to the countryside to live with an elderly Catholic couple until France’s liberation. Forced to hide his identity, the eight-year-old, Claude (played delicately by first-time actor Alain Cohen), bonds with the irascible, staunchly anti-Semitic Grampa (Michel Simon), who improbably becomes his friend and confidant. Poignant and lighthearted, The Two of Us was acclaimed director Claude Berri’s debut feature, based on own childhood experiences, and gave the legendary Simon one of his most memorable roles in the twilight of his career.Read More »

Synopsis:
In the second of Rohmer’s moral tales, he examines the relationship between two friends and a girl who at first appears easily exploited. It is a complex tale of feelings and misconceptions, acted out within the head of the main character, as part of Rohmer’s attempt to more easily simulate the mindscape quality of literature within a film.Read More »