France

Very curious old movie. The quality is not that great, of course, but it’s interesting to see things flow and some animation appearing on an 1909 film.Read More »

Another little gem from Emile Cohl. This short animated film seems to be about booze and delusions.
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Review
By the early ’90s, it was finally possible for filmmakers working in the former Soviet Union to deal honestly with the horrors of the 1930s, when Stalin and his regime “reassessed” the contributions of many heroes of the Revolution, resulting in mass imprisonments and death for many millions. Nikita Mikhalkov’s brilliant film about those dark days is ironically set at a sunny summer retreat where Serguei Petrovich Kotov (Mikhalkov), an officer who has been honored for his contributions to the success of the state, and his family are enjoying an idyllic summer’s day. The film’s deliberate pacing for a full half-hour (we might think we’re watching the Russian equivalent of Renoir’s Partie De Campagne) lulls the viewer into a false sense of serenity. When Dimitri, an old lover of Kotov’s young wife and now a government official, arrives, Mikhalkov allows our suspicion that Dimitri’s visit isn’t merely personal to accumulate slowly. The film flirts with sentimentality, especially in casting Mikhalkov’s real-life daughter as Kotov’s irresistibly cute little girl, but after all, the filmmaker’s goal is to show the toll that a repressive political regime can exact on the lives of individual citizens. (AMG)Read More »

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Lost in a maze of his philosophizing while trying to write a book, a retired math teacher is forced to deal with the real world when he must rescue a young woman from the clutches of a thug outside his Paris apartment. What the teacher doesn’t know is that this woman may be his muse, a mystical agent or an angel of death. Stars director Brisseau and Virginie Legeay. Winner of the Golden Leopard, Locarno film festival 2012.Read More »

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Sylvie Rousseau, a scientist working on a cancer vaccine, is informed by her brother Paul of the death of their father, Pierre-André, head of the world-leading armaments company Pax Industries. At first, the cause of death was believed to be an accident, but Sylvie learns that her father was instead pushed off a train by his colleague Walser. Seeking vengeance, she becomes a modern-day Electra, austere and energetic, acting in place of her brother, a weak and unwilling Orestes. But nothing goes according to plan.Read More »

At 25, Helena (Mimsy Farmer) is “middle-aged” for a prostitute. When 15-year-old Julien’s callow friends try to pick her up (not knowing that she is a prostitute), she allows Julien (Pascal Sellier) to win her favors. Something about him appeals to her, and she sees him from time to time. Bespelled by his first sexual and romantic experiences with her, he is at first blind to the nature of her profession but gradually understands it. Meanwhile, she has come to care for the boy more than she planned to, and to keep from causing him further harm, she breaks off with him. Even though Julien is devastated, his father, an understanding man, is able to help.
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Writer and pedagogue Fernand Deligny influenced a number of artists and French intellectuals. His work on autism influenced Deleuze and Guattari’s theory of the rhizome. Francois Truffaut turned to his ideas to complete Les 400 Coups. Throughout the film Deligny plays with the possibilities of the camera to live and think closer to the human subject, offering with Le Moindre Geste a unique film to the world, one of most fascinating in French cinema. Situated [visually] between mountain western and integral neorealism, the film tells the story of two teenagers, escaped prisoners of an asylum, running away through the Cevennes.Read More »

It’s summer. Sébastien loves the singer Sheila. Lucia loves boys. And all Frédéric wants, is to get a nice tan…Read More »

Jonathan Rosenbaum wrote this :

In his finest work, including this masterful 1938 noir, the remarkable French filmmaker Jean Gremillon (1901-1959), trained as a composer and musician, used mise en scene, script construction, editing, and dialogue delivery to explore the complex relationship between film and music.

Raimu, one of the greatest French actors, plays the “strange” title hero, a respectable Toulon merchant who secretly operates as a fence for local thieves; after he murders a potential blackmailer, an innocent local shoemaker (Pierre Blanchar) is sent to prison for his crime.

Seven years later the fall guy escapes, returns to Toulon to see his son, and, unaware of Victor’s guilt, persuades the merchant to shelter him, then becomes involved with his wife.
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