France

Description:
Bataille’s reflections on art and its relations with human inner experiences.
(Essay in English.)Read More »

From Stephen Holden review in NYT: “In his unsettling urban panorama, “The Town Is Quiet,” the director Robert Guédiguian invests the French port city of Marseille with the same epic sense of drama that infused Robert Altman’s “Nashville.” Raw, wrenching and more starkly tragic than Mr. Altman’s satire, “The Town Is Quiet” evokes a similar vision of a city as a teeming organism in violent, spasmodic flux.Read More »

Description: Couldn’t find any usable information about this lesbo-arcadian short by Michel Houellebecq around on the web, except that, following its release, endless accusation of misoginy ensued. Go figure.Read More »

Sir Remy lives in his fabulous castle, where he is haunted by the memory of his former wife, Mathilde and believes he can still smell her perfume wafting through the castle. Remy marries a young and pure virgin who is secretly provided by some of his friends. Eva, his new bride-to-be decides to do whatever she can to lift up the spirits of the master of the castle. But Remy has other plans and soon will take his revenge on all those who seduced Mathilde in the past. French starlet Draghixa plays dual roles as the young virgin about to marry the lecherous [Remy] Christoph Clark as well as the role of his first wife, Mathilda, who mysteriously disappeared. Dorcel co-directed with Jean Rollin to create beautiful imagery along with steamy sex scenes in a well developed story. Dorcel also plays the uncle.Read More »

The Italian neo-realist influence that is so evident in René Clément’s Oscar-winning 1949 film Au-delà des grilles is also felt in this quirky romantic comedy, through its use of real locations (mostly in the bustling centre of London) and fluid, documentary-style photography. Along with some of his contemporaries (notably Georges Franju and Jean-Pierre Melville) René Clément had started to trail-blaze a new kind of cinema, departing from the conventions of the quality tradition that had grown stale and predictable by the early 1950s, and laying the groundwork for the French New Wave. If you did not know that Clément had directed Monsieur Ripois, you might easily mistake it for an early offering from one of the Nouvelle Vague filmmakers – Jean-Luc Godard, Eric Rohmer, Jacques Rivette, Louis Malle or François Truffaut.Read More »

Pictures at an Exhibition by Chris Marker. Its title, like Sans Soleil, is taken from a piece by Modest Mussorgsky.Read More »

Synopsis
Down a foggy, desolate road to the port city of Le Havre travels Jean (Jean Gabin), an army deserter looking for another chance to make good on life. Fate, however, has a different plan for him, as acts of both revenge and kindness render him front-page news. Also starring the blue-eyed phenomenon Michèle Morgan in her first major role, and the menacing Michel Simon, Port of Shadows (Le Quai des brumes) starkly portrays an underworld of lonely souls wrestling with their own destinies. Based on the novel by Pierre Mac Orlan, the inimitable team of director Marcel Carné and writer Jacques Prévert deliver a quintessential example of poetic realism and a classic film from the golden age of French cinema.Read More »

“Quatre-vingt-treize (Ninety-three, 1914/1921) by Albert Capellani & André Antoine with Paul Capellani, Henry Krauss and Philippe Garnier

The story takes place in Brittany in 1793 during the Terror. While the Marquess of Lantenac (P. Garnier) joins the Chouans (royalist insurgents), his nephew Gauvain (P. Capellani) becomes a soldier in the Revolutionary army. The third character is the former priest, Cimourdain, who becomes the head of the Revolutionary army. He was the one who opened Gauvain’s eyes to the new ideas by giving him Rousseau to read. In this adaptation of Victor Hugo’s novel the destiny of the three characters are heading for collision. The film shooting was stopped abruptly by the beginning of WWI. A few years later, André Antoine took over as Capellani was unavailable to finish it as he was in America. The film didn’t came out until 1921. Obviously, in the space of 7 years, cinema had moved forward dramatically and Quatre-vingt-treize was undoubtedly dated when it came out.Read More »

Published by Fontana Paperbacks (Flamingo), 1985 (285p.)
Originally published in France as Mon dernier soupir, 1982

Quote:
‘Covers everything from his Surrealist days with Dali to his method of making the perfect dry martini, and is as elegant, wise and mischievous as his movies’
J.G. Ballard

‘My Last Breath is pure delight… It’s as funny and provocative as the old chien’s best movies: than which there’s no higher praise’
Salman RushdieRead More »