French

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In Correspondences, Eugene Green returns to his familiar themes of interconnectedness, communion, and transcendent love (most recently illustrated in Green’s sublime feature Le Pont des arts) to create a tale of young love in the digital age. Presented as a series of emails read offscreen that are juxtaposed against isolated frontal shots of the anonymous lovers and the (interior) spaces they inhabit, the film also subtly evokes Alain Resnais’s baroque, nouveau roman puzzle film Last Year at Marienbad in its interplay of memory and seduction (or more appropriately, memory as seduction).Read More »

After the generational upheaval of May ’68 and its aftermath, and the personal upheavals of drug addiction, depression, and shock therapy, Garrel made the conscious decision to turn away from the increasingly private poetry of his earlier work, at the center of which was his great love Nico. He turned to the great screenwriter Annette Wadamant, who helped him to organize his thoughts into a narrative of “things that happened to me,” and the result was this spare, elemental, devastating film about two damaged souls (Henri de Maublanc and Anne Wiazemsky) trying to build a life together as her child (Xuan Lindenmeyer) is taken away. As Serge Daney wrote, “It’s as if this autobiographical film has succeeded in holding its bearings without forgetting the trace of each stage of the journey it’s passed through.”Read More »

Former students of a boarding school meet in London to share their erotic stories: a sexual initiation of a teenage student by his ephébophile teacher, three boys inviting a young lady to discover the pleasures carnal and many other adventures lived and told by the group of women.Read More »

Synopsis:
‘In England during the Second World War, a German spy is pursued by the British secret service in a bid to prevent him from returning to France with a valuable microfilm. In a mountain chalet, two spies, one male, the other female, meet, neither knowing the identity of the other. Not knowing which side the other is on, they are powerfully drawn to one another…’
– James TraversRead More »

Kashima Paradise
Coréalisé avec Bénie Deswarte, 1973, 16 mm, 106 min 26
Entre Kashima et Tokyo, se construit vers 1970 l’aéroport de Narita : les paysans refusent de vendre leurs terres et affrontent les gardes mobiles envoyés pour les expulser

Between Kashima and Tokyo, Narita airport is built around 1970: the rural people refuse to sell their land and confront the mobile guards sent to evict them.

This 1973 French documentary explores the conflict between modern values and material comforts in Japan and the more traditional obligations (giri) and culture which are still the real backbone of the society. Among the topics touched on are the Osaka Expo, battles against pollution, and Japanese leftist movements. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie GuideRead More »

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A French young woman unexpectedly dies in Berlin, where she lives with her boyfriend. Her sudden passing ruins the lives of her famliy and partner. They struggle to find new meaning in Paris, Annecy and New York.Read More »

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La Ville bidon describes precisely the historical path, in the parisian suburbs of the seventies, from slum cities (“bidonvilles”) to silly/fake cities (“villes bidon”). The film switch es constantly from a very documentary approach to a fictional delirium in a critical way that is tending to show how crazy the documentary parts are themselves, this is to say the reality itself ! For example, those realistic moments invite us through the process of decision taking : we see the different point of view of the architect, the politic leader, the real estate developer, the sociologist, each of them is quite mad and typical of a particular time. But they also invite us in the slum cities and in the “transitory buildings” where several communities were difficultly living together (the children characters of this film could be the parents of those who are even more desperate and loose and rejected today in all the french big cities suburbs). Read More »

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Beyond a film, Icebreaker is in 1987 the first media composition, construction of 3 original works made on the Swedish icebreaker Frej, and involving the main means of expression. “Bateau Givre” by Jean Rouch (35′), carries the principles of direct cinema. Rouch discovers in his camera, without the artifice of a commentary, without the help of a third language, the work and the days of the icebreaker and the men who serve it. “Hans Majestäts Statsisbrytaren Frej” by Titte Törnroth (20′), offers a second approach, where the characters, who have acquired a mysterious presence with Rouch, evoke their work, their emotions, in their activities as well as in their moments of relaxation. This film answers the questions left unanswered in the previous one. Raoul Ruiz’s “Tales of Ice” (34′); when the viewer thinks he has gone around a reality that has become familiar, makes it tip over into a profusion of fictions; three stories weave together in this fantastic film where ice plays the central role, where the icebreaker becomes a strange vessel wandering on the edge of the world.Read More »

Synopsis:
Judge Level is investigating the death of a man named Saugeat, who died shortly after being arrested for a minor offence by two police inspectors one December morning. No one seems to want to offer any testimony, other than the prostitute Danièle Lebegue, who calls on Level as soon as she hears the news of Saugeat’s death. She tells the judge that she couldn’t come earlier because she was instructed by Chief Inspector Bertrand to leave Paris for a short while. It becomes apparent to Level that someone is trying to hide something from him…
— James Travers.Read More »