Criterion wrote:
In her provocative first feature, Chantal Akerman stars as an aimless young woman who leaves self-imposed isolation to embark on a road trip that leads to lonely love affairs with a male truck driver and a former girlfriend. With its famous real-time carnal encounter and its daring minimalism, Je tu il elle is Akerman’s most sexually audacious film.Read More »
Synopsis:
Walerian Borowczyk’s second feature was just as original as his first. Almost entirely live action this time, it is situated on the archipelago of Goto, which has been cut off from the rest of human civilisation by a massive earthquake and has consequently developed its own arcane rules. Melancholic dictator Goto III (Pierre Brasseur) is married to the beautiful Glossia (Ligia Branice), who in turn is lusted after by the petty thief Gozo (Guy Saint-Jean) as he works his way up the hierarchy. Read More »
Quote:
Le collectionneur
La réalisation de son premier long métrage de fiction, The lost door, n’empêche pas Roy Stuart de poursuivre sa collection de Glimpses avec un nouvel opus, le neuvième de la série. Collection est bien le mot : hétéroclite et baroque, comme en un cabinet de curiosités. Ici, l’ordre des scènes importe peu. L’unité organique de l’ensemble est assurée par ce qu’il faut bien appeler la topique stuardienne. L’appartement haussmannien; les rues du quartier ; quelques villes européennes : autant d’éléments appartenant à l’espace obligé de sa dramaturgie. Le spectateur y retrouve quelques modèles déjà aperçus, des situations récurrentes se succédant de chapitre en chapitre et que sépare un sobre fondu au noir. L’action, en l’occurrence, retrouve les grands figures du cinéaste : masturbation au fauteuil, urologie, sexe sur le tapis ou dans les bois, semi exhibition dans la rue. Pas de récit – ou si peu – mais un enchaînement de l’ordre de la représentation, tant l’impression est forte pour le spectateur de se retrouver en terrain connu.Read More »
Quote:
As a movie-freak I get to see perhaps almost as many movies as an official critic and, like a critic, I am always looking for The One, the film that stands out from the (vast) crowd and makes you think you haven’t wasted any precious time in the watching. But more than that, the one that makes you feel a sense of gain, moving forward in some way, in your thinking or even in your perception of certain things. Only master film makers can make you feel like this, from Tarantino to Eastwood, from Jackson to Spielberg. Then of course you have the rogue directors, the rebels against convention who want to show you something different, not just for different’s sake but because they are themselves motivated and inspired by things most people haven’t yet approached or experienced. Bergman was such a director, as were the great Italians, Pasolini, Visconti and Fellini, and still we have Bertolucci. Now I find a New Yorker turned Parisian, whose work calls to mind some of these Masters, but through an influence that is subtle enough for it to be subconscious rather than a heavy handed copying of style and technique. Read More »
In his new book, the fifth to date, Roy Stuart hones this exploration into something more forthright, close to film. The photos “tell” short stories, like short films, and the models become actors, their movements caught in freeze frame studies, between portrait and narrative. Sex is more explicit, while retaining some of the mystery characteristic of erotic images. A DVD, which comes with the book, contains several scenes from which the photos are taken, with extracts from the “Glimpse” DVD series and Stuart’s full length feature film, The Lost Door. The overall impression produced by this work is that Stuart has introduced eroticism into pornography, or vice versa. He clouds issues, confuses codes, disorientates and takes risks, all the while behaving as an artist who is exploring a new middle road – fusional, original and hard to follow, but promising. Somewhere between simplistic X-rated films and pure eroticism, between trivial reality and abortive dreams, he seeks and finds a third way, the royal way.Read More »
Hervé Lewis is not only a mentor to many stars (Johnny Hallyday, Jean Reno, Emmanuelle Béart, and more), but also a professional photographer. After the success of many renowned advertising campaigns for Aubade Lingerie, Hervé Lewis’ first film, in which he rediscovers the lighting of his black and white photographs, is dedicated to the beauty of women. His pure and poetic images convey an uncommon sensuality, power and intensity. Through Hervé Lewis’ lens, every woman becomes a star.Read More »
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“Marguerite Duras’ Destroy, She Said seems to be a film out of time and out of space, but could only have been made after May, 1968 … Significantly, it is only this year that she has felt able to write and direct her own film-without any compromises … It explodes into life, and one is hypnotically captive until the end. The dramatic power of the film, and its way of haunting one for days, are not surprising; what is, however, is the degree of visual virtuosity that Mme. Duras achieves. In short, here is a ‘difficult’ film which more than compensates for the demands it makes on the viewer.”-Richard Roud, The Guardian (Manchester)
” …Destroy. She Said is a triumph … In my estimation its glum enchantments constitute a masterpiece.”-Elliott Stein, The Financial Times (London)Read More »
n a street called Blue in a very poor neighborhood in Paris, Monsieur Ibrahim (Omar Shariff) is an old Muslin Turkish owner of a small market. He becomes friend of the teenager Jewish Moises, tenderly nicknamed Momo (Pierre Boulanger), who lives with his father in a small apartment on the other side of the street. Monsieur Ibrahim gives paternal love and teaches the knowledge of the Koran to the boy, receiving in return love and respect.
Golden Globe Nominations (2003):
Best Foreign-Language Film
Other Awards:
César Awards—Best Actor: Omar Sharif
Venice Film Festival—Best Actor: Omar SharifRead More »
Plot Outline :
Ferdinand Griffon is married with his wealthy Italian wife and has been recently fired from the television where he worked. His wife forces him to go to a party in the house of her influent father that wants to introduce Ferdinand to a potential employer. Her brother brings the babysitter Marianne Renoir to take care of their children. Ferdinand feels bored in the bourgeois party and borrows his brother-in-law’s car to return home. He meets Marianne, who was his lover five years ago and insists to call him Pierrot, and offers to take her home; however, he spends the night with her and finds that she is involved in smuggling weapons. When Marianne is chased by terrorists, they decide to travel to the beach without any money, leaving Paris and his family behind in a crazy journey to nowhere.Read More »