France

Quote:
When you think of art house directors you probably think of some of the more famous filmmakers like Werner Herzog (Aguirre, the Wrath of God), Peter Greenaway (The Cook, the Thief, His Wife & Her Lover) or Alejandro Jodorowsky (Holy Mountain). Someone you may not know is French writer and filmmaker Alain Robbe-Grillet. Robbe-Grillet was part of the “nouveau roman” novelist movement which diverted from the classical style of writing and deviated from the norm with experimental prose. The same could be said with his film Glissements progressifs du plaisir (literal translation is “Gradual shifts of pleasure”) aka Successive Slidings of Pleasure where he blends dreamlike visuals with eroticism and, oddly, nunsploitation.Read More »

A frothy French farce, The Tall Blond Man with One Black Shoe is a classic madcap comedy about espionage, surveillance and mistaken identity. When Francois (Pierre Richard), an unsuspecting violinist, is misidentified as a superspy by national intelligence, outrageous antics ensue. As everyone (including Mireille Darc, playing a knock-out henchwoman) falls over each other in their misguided attempts to discover the tall blond man’s secrets, his best friend complicates matters even further when he overhears a salacious recording of Francois with his wife. The whole merry-go-round comes crashing to a halt in one final showdown, pitting spy versus supposed spy with hilarious results. Elegantly filmed and accompanied by a memorable score, The Tall Blond Man with One Black Shoe is one of the most seminal comedies of the 1970s.Read More »

A famous French documentary director has chosen to match his talents with those of a powerful subject who talks on his youth, his formative years, his life and work. Reichenbach on Welles on Welles, one might say.

These recollections help to explain something of the creative processes of film making, comparing the behaviour of Welles the director and Welles the man. Orson at home, Orson interviewed at the Cannes Festival, Orson shooting a scene with Jeanne Moreau… Orson in portrait. No less. (MIFF)Read More »

Interview in Copenhagen with Dreyer (speaking French). Also features Anna Karina, Preben Lerdorff Rye, Henrik Malberg, Lisbeth Movin, Jørgen Roos, and Bendt Rothe. First aired 8 April 1965 on ORTF (2?).Read More »

Following a long prison term, 30 year-old Céline must find a place in society. Hiding her past, she introduces herself with a new identity to get work for a trial period in a hotel. Céline finds herself endlessly walking a tightrope between truth and fiction. When she meets Idir, despite the threat of being unmasked, Céline falls in love and finds herself a prisoner to her own lies. But how can one live without taking risks?Read More »

A dirty deal between cowboys. The fight between the Texan Benz, head of a gang of assassins, and Captain Mort, his right-hand man.

La Zone – the poor, dangerous quarters of Paris (George Lacombe, 1928); the administrative zone where Orpheus looks for his lost Eurydice (Jean Cocteau, 1950); Interzone – the working title for Naked Lunch (W.S. Burroughs, 1959). In 1983, Ossang created a synthesis of all these territories of unrest under a banner of dead colours.Read More »

Flicker Alley says…

Quote:

Never before released in the United States, this monumental French film is one of the most extraordinary achievements in the whole history of cinema. Written and directed by Abel Gance (Napoleon, J’Accuse), three years in production, and for its time unprecedented in length and complexity of emotion, La Roue pushed the frontiers of film art beyond all previous efforts. Said Gance, “Cinema endows man with a new sense. It is the music of light. He listens with his eyes.”Read More »

Synopsis
The story about gladiators against a German background. One of them, Ettore, has become a star of the underworld. He ends up breaking down, caught in a role he can no longer fulfill. His last betrayal is to spill the beans to the press.Read More »

Coincoin and the Extra Humans review: Bruno Dumont raises a stink in a small town

| Sight & Sound

Ben Nicholson 15 August 2018

There was something rotten in the soil of northern France in Bruno Dumont’s blackly comic mini-series, P’tit Quinquin (2014). A four-episode television mystery that was also released as a single feature film, it was a confounding and macabre parody of a procedural police drama filled with unexpected (for the famously serious filmmaker), and often uncomfortable, laughs. It followed a bumbling duo of gendarmes as they investigated a sequence of grisly deaths in the environs of a small town as a group of mischievous kids, led by the eponymous Quinquin, watched on.Read More »