Haphazard travels of Sirman Deville on Roosterback

[niminy-piminy]

Top 100 French Films – SCFZ Poll ... https://letterboxd.com/fliptrotsky/list ... scfz-poll/

— — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — —

B/
Walerian Borowczyk – SCFZ Directors Poll #168 ... https://letterboxd.com/fliptrotsky/list ... -poll-168/
→ SCFZ poll: Walerian Borowczyk ... viewtopic.php?f=18&t=395
Catherine Breillat – SCFZ Directors Poll #150 ... https://letterboxd.com/fliptrotsky/list ... -poll-150/
Robert Bresson – SCFZ Directors Poll #92 ... https://letterboxd.com/fliptrotsky/list ... s-poll-92/
Luis Bunuel – SCFZ Directors Poll #45 ... https://letterboxd.com/fliptrotsky/list ... s-poll-45/

C/
Marcel Carné – SCFZ Directors Poll #151 ... https://letterboxd.com/fliptrotsky/list ... -poll-151/
Claude Chabrol – SCFZ Directors Poll #65 ... https://letterboxd.com/fliptrotsky/list ... s-poll-65/
Rene Clair – SCFZ Directors Poll #253 ... https://letterboxd.com/fliptrotsky/list ... -poll-253/
Rene Clement – SCFZ Directors Poll #261 ... https://letterboxd.com/fliptrotsky/list ... -poll-261/
Henri-Georges Clouzot – SCFZ Directors Poll #229 ... https://letterboxd.com/fliptrotsky/list ... tors-poll/

D/
Jacques Demy – SCFZ Directors Poll #121 ... https://letterboxd.com/fliptrotsky/list ... -poll-121/
Claire Denis – SCFZ Directors Poll #26 ... https://letterboxd.com/fliptrotsky/list ... s-poll-26/
Bruno Dumont – SCFZ Directors Poll #200 ... https://letterboxd.com/fliptrotsky/list ... -poll-200/
Marguerite Duras – SCFZ Directors Poll #178 ... https://letterboxd.com/fliptrotsky/list ... -poll-178/
Julien Duvivier – SCFZ Directors Poll #20 ... https://letterboxd.com/fliptrotsky/list ... s-poll-20/

E/
Jean Epstein – SCFZ Directors Poll #97 ... https://letterboxd.com/fliptrotsky/list ... s-poll-97/

F/
Louis Feuillade – SCFZ Directors Poll #177 ... https://letterboxd.com/fliptrotsky/list ... -poll-177/
Jacques Feyder – SCFZ Directors Poll #236 ... https://letterboxd.com/fliptrotsky/list ... -poll-236/

G/
Philippe Garrel – SCFZ Directors Poll #119 ... https://letterboxd.com/fliptrotsky/list ... -poll-119/
Jean-Luc Godard – SCFZ Directors Poll #7 ... https://letterboxd.com/fliptrotsky/list ... rs-poll-7/
Jean Gremillon – SCFZ Directors Poll #179 ... https://letterboxd.com/fliptrotsky/list ... -poll-179/
Alice Guy-Blaché – SCFZ Directors Poll #148 ... https://letterboxd.com/fliptrotsky/list ... -poll-148/

H/
Marcel L’Herbier – SCFZ Directors Poll #223 ... https://letterboxd.com/fliptrotsky/list ... -poll-223/
Daniele Huillet & Jean-Marie Straub – SCFZ Directors Poll #36 ... https://letterboxd.com/fliptrotsky/list ... directors/

L/
Louis Lumiere – SCFZ Directors Poll #252 ... https://letterboxd.com/fliptrotsky/list ... -poll-252/

M/
Jean-Pierre Melville – SCFZ Directors Poll #163 ... https://letterboxd.com/fliptrotsky/list ... tors-poll/

O/
Francois Ozon – SCFZ Directors Poll #144 ... https://letterboxd.com/fliptrotsky/list ... -poll-144/

P/
Maurice Pialat – SCFZ Directors Poll #120 ... https://letterboxd.com/fliptrotsky/list ... -poll-120/

R/
Jean Renoir – SCFZ Directors Poll #90 ... https://letterboxd.com/fliptrotsky/list ... s-poll-90/
Alain Resnais – SCFZ Directors Poll #112 ... https://letterboxd.com/fliptrotsky/list ... -poll-112/
Jacques Rivette – SCFZ Directors Poll #24 ... https://letterboxd.com/fliptrotsky/list ... s-poll-24/
Eric Rohmer – SCFZ Directors Poll #64 ... https://letterboxd.com/fliptrotsky/list ... s-poll-64/
Jean Rollin – SCFZ Directors Poll #213 ... https://letterboxd.com/fliptrotsky/list ... -poll-213/

S/
Jean-Marie Straub & Daniele Huillet – SCFZ Directors Poll #36 ... https://letterboxd.com/fliptrotsky/list ... directors/

T/
Bertrand Tavernier – SCFZ Directors Poll #245 ... https://letterboxd.com/fliptrotsky/list ... -poll-245/
Jacques Tourneur – SCFZ Directors Poll #46 ... https://letterboxd.com/fliptrotsky/list ... s-poll-46/
Francois Truffaut – SCFZ Directors Poll #40 ... https://letterboxd.com/fliptrotsky/list ... s-poll-40/

V/
Agnes Varda – SCFZ Directors Poll #18 ... https://letterboxd.com/fliptrotsky/list ... s-poll-18/
Paul Vecchiali – SCFZ Directors Poll #237 ... https://letterboxd.com/fliptrotsky/list ... -poll-237/

Z/
Andrzej Zulawski – SCFZ Directors Poll #35 ... https://letterboxd.com/fliptrotsky/list ... s-poll-35/
→ SCFZ poll: Andrzej Żuławski ... https://www.tapatalk.com/groups/the_aut ... t1103.html

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Haphazard travels of Sir Man Deville to the Zanzibar ... viewtopic.php?f=10&t=632&p=26092#p26092
Haphazard pursuits of Sir Man Deville for all the Shocking & Extreme ... viewtopic.php?f=21&t=664

[greennui]

You missed Vecchiali
https://letterboxd.com/fliptrotsky/list ... -poll-237/

[niminy-piminy]

thx!

[greennui]

And my man Rollin!
https://letterboxd.com/fliptrotsky/list ... -poll-213/

[niminy-piminy]

good eyes!

[niminy-piminy]

to give an intro kick to this thread (thus eventually luring the french cinephiles to the discourse on the mainstream internet), first of all, the difference between basan, aitvaras, basilisk, and cockatrice needs to be clarified.

my interest in the rooster iconography was triggered by the following...

once i was randomly doodling and to my surprise, i drew (among other things) a creature resembling a rooster, from its beak was spreading an extensive cloud/fire and his tail resembled a pineapple.
i sensed i might be dealing with something archetypal and thus i (subsequently) tried to search (in virtual space) for a pic of a rooster spitting clouds/fires.

1/ my initial discovery was these two pictures (allegedly depictions coming from Sri Lanka)...

[niminy-piminy]

2/ the resemblance of my doodling and pics from Sri Lanka was beyond random and thus i searched more and discovered a basan creature.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basan_(legendary_bird)

The Basan is a creature with origins in Japanese mythology, legend and folklore.

it resembles a large chicken and breathes ghost-fire from its mouth. It is described as having a bright red cockscomb and spits an equally brilliant-hued fire. The fire is a cold fire, a glow, and it does not burn.

the Basan flaps its wings, an eerie rustling ("basa basa") sound can be heard

The basan as depicted in Takehara Shunsen's Ehon Hyaku Monogatari

giant chicken monster with death-breath

The creature bears a passing similarity to the cockatrice, although instead of turning its victims to stone, the basan breathes out plumes of cold ghost-fire.

[niminy-piminy]

3/ despite one of the captions to basan depiction mentioned similarity/difference with cockatrice, my next step was an investigation of the creature called aitvaras (that i discovered alongside basan).

https://arjungwriter.com/2018/05/23/myt ... aWfjlXeNrM

AITVARAS
(Lithuania)
A mysterious and curious flying creature sometimes depicted as a cockerel and sometimes shown with the head of the lucky Zaltys (grass snake) and the fiery tail of a comet.

Aitvaras (Dragon/Shapeshifter)(Small/Large) – Bizarre dragons which shapeshift into different forms depending on the environment they are currently in. Indoors they take the forms of weak but fiery roosters, outdoors however they turn into fierce dragons with a burning gaze. They are the minions and creations of Baba Yaga, and most are loyal to her still. (Lithuanian)

[niminy-piminy]

4/ aitvaras' shapeshifting ability made me investigate (as next) the aforementioned cockatrice.

Heraldic cockatrice
A cockatrice is a mythical beast, essentially a two-legged dragon or serpent-like creature with a rooster's head.

Cockatrice statue at Trsat Castle in Rijeka, Croatia

Cockatrice fleeing from a weasel wrapped in rue, illustrated by Wenceslaus Hollar, 1600s

Cockatrice in Raoul Lefèvre's tome Histoires de Troyes Belgique, 1400s

Cockatrice in German Jesuit scholar Athanasius Kircher's Mundus Subterraneus, 1665

Cockatrice illustrated in a German manuscript from 1507

Cockatrice, by Friedrich Johann Justin Bertuch, 1806

Cockatrice (labelled as basilisk) and weasel, in Bestiary, Royal MS 12 C XIX, 1200-1210

A very gallinaceous faux cockatrice participating as the Basilisk of Reus in the 2016 Cercavila de les festes del Barri Gòtic, in Barcelona, Spain

[niminy-piminy]

5/ the aforementioned claims "cockatrice labeled as basilisk" or "cockatrice participating as the basilisk" make it clear that once dealing with cockatrice the crucial question that needs to be solved is "What is the difference between a cockatrice and a basilisk?".

the answer is as follows...
A/ The cockatrice is dragon-like creature, or in short it is a dragon. However, the basilisk is a pure serpent, an have nothing to do with the dragon species.
B/ The cockatrice can fly with the wings it has on it's back. But, a basilisk can't. The main reason being the point above.
C/ Killing abilities: The cockatrice can kill it's enemy by breathing fire and touching them. The basilisk, however has only two modes. It is by either through it's death stare or like a regular snake attack (through it's poisoned fangs.)
D/ And the main difference is the way it is born:
The basilisk is hatched by a cockerel from the egg of a serpent or toad.
The cockatrice is hatched from a cockerel's "egg" incubated by a serpent or toad.

The basilisk (below left) and the cockatrice (right), depictions from medieval bestiaries

Two of classical mythology's most feared reptilian monsters were the basilisk and the cockatrice.

THE BASILISK
Today, the only basilisks known to herpetologists are those very eyecatching but totally harmless Latin American iguanid lizards of the genus Basiliscus, famous for their remarkable ability to sprint bipedally across the surface of ponds – hence their lesser-known alternative name of Jesus Christ lizards. However, they derive their more familiar name from a very different, allegedly lethal reptile from the Old World, and which supposedly existed there during medieval times – the original basilisk. One of the earliest references to it appeared in Pliny the Elder's magnum opus Natural History (c.77-79 AD).

THE COCKATRICE
During the Middle Ages, the small yet deadly basilisk underwent a very dramatic transformation in mythology, metamorphosing into a much bigger, truly grotesque type of two-legged, wyvern-like dragon known as a cockatrice, However, there is much confusion and terminological interchange relating to this, with many unequivocal cockatrices often being referred to incorrectly as basilisk.

Swedish artist and film-maker Richard Svenson's vibrant, colourful representation of the intermediate, multi-limbed stage in the basilisk-to-cockatrice transformation, inspired by bestiary depictions of it (e.g. from Serpentum et Draconum Historiae by Ulisse Aldrovandi, 1640)

[niminy-piminy]

6/ last but not least, also the god Kartikeya (riding a peacock) has something to do with a rooster.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kartikeya

on the pic above you can notice a depiction of a rooster on the flag.
and the reason is as follows...

If you look at the idol of Kartikeya, in one hand He carries a spear. It is also called Vel. It is not a trident. It is symbolic of the Kundalini Shakti.

In his other hand, he carries a small flag on which there is a rooster. Demon Tarakasur was defeated by Lord. So, Tarakasur (ego) became a chicken or rooster after being defeated by Kartikeya. After having defeated Taraka (ego) in battle, Kartikeya spared his life and asked him what boon he would desire. Taraka prayed to always be at the feet of the Lord, and so Lord Kartikeya made him the emblem on his flag. This also means that ego should always be kept subdued. Ego is necessary for life but it should be kept subdued.

[niminy-piminy]

PARIS CALLIGRAMMES (Ulrike Ottinger, 2020)

https://variety.com/2020/film/festivals ... 203523128/
by Jay Weissberg

It would be a great mistake, sight unseen, to pigeonhole Ulrike Ottinger’s “Paris Calligrammes” as just another nostalgia-filled personal documentary about how amazing life was in Paris in the 1960s. Where others self-servingly wax lyrical about being in the nexus of the Left Bank’s Golden Age of hipness and activism, Ottinger takes us through this formative time of her life in a way that deftly balances past and present to paint a picture of a threshold era of both positives and negatives.

Recounted in the director’s own measured voiceover (the English version features Jenny Agutter while the French version has Fanny Ardant) and largely composed of found footage, film clips and home movies, the film reflects the director’s generosity of spirit as well as the period’s bubbling cauldron of syncretic and opposing movements. Promoted together with a handsome book tie-in, “Paris Calligrammes” should spark renewed interest in Ottinger’s work and is a natural for repertory houses.

“Calligram” signifies a text artistically arranged to form shapes that reflect the words’ meaning. Ottinger intends her title to resonate in multiple ways: first because Fritz Picard’s bookshop Librairie Calligrammes was her introduction to the city’s intellectual elite, but also because she wants her images and voiceover to act as a kind of reflexive mosaic that takes the viewer from the 1960s to the present and back again. At the start, she admits her task is impossible: How can she make a film from the perspective of a young artist when, 50 years later, she’s no longer that person? The documentary answers the question by recounting her youthful excitement while incorporating a more measured understanding of what she experienced and whom she met, narrated from the seasoned vantage point of the 21st century and the tumultuous times in between.

Like so many before her, she arrived in Paris at the age of 20, determined to become part of the city’s art scene. Picard’s shop in the Rue du Dragon was her natural destination given its reputation as the gathering place for the German-speaking intelligentsia, many still in self-imposed exile since the war years. It was there that she hobnobbed with people like Hans Richter, Raoul Hausmann and Tristan Tzara, towering figures in the art scene who (at least in Ottinger’s recounting) were open to including younger generations in their rarefied midst. From there, it was a two-minute walk to La Hune, the iconic bookshop of France’s literati; next to the latter is Café de Flore, where one could rub shoulders with Simone de Beauvoir, Jean Rouch and Simone Signoret while looking amusedly out the windows to see Isadora Duncan’s eccentric brother Raymond walking the boulevard in his customary toga.

Who wouldn’t want to have been part of that world? But then Ottinger does the editorial equivalent of dragging a gramophone needle across a vinyl record by discussing the Oct. 17, 1961 massacre, when Parisian police killed a still undetermined number of demonstrators protesting the Algerian War, for which no one to this day has been prosecuted. She talks of Jacques Panijel’s suppressed film “Octobre à Paris,” of the brutal police chief Maurice Papon, of the legacy of racism and colonialism which can still be seen today in buildings and monuments whose inherent beauty may be acknowledged at the same time that the odious agenda behind their construction is examined.

Culture as activism — a largely dormant notion in today’s world — is exemplified by the 1966 staging of Jean Genet’s “The Screens” (“Les Paravents”), starring Jean-Louis Barrault and Madeleine Renaud; Ottinger includes interview footage of the playwright and actors, reminding audiences of a time when towering performers like these successfully defied entrenched conservatism in the name of justice.

“Paris Calligrammes” isn’t just about social movements. It’s also Ottinger as flâneuse, strolling the teeming byways of Les Halles at night, listening to Barbara in the nightclubs, attending screenings at the Cinémathèque Française, sitting in on lectures by Claude Lévi-Strauss. The documentary captures the zeitgeist as experienced by a young woman eager to soak up the cultural riches around her, which she then distilled through her own sensibility to create paintings reflecting the era’s upheavals. Though her style at the time was largely aligned with Pop Art, her influences were diverse, springing from the older generation of Dadaists and Surrealists whom she met at parties characterized by equal amounts of elegance and eccentricity, but also crucial to her artistic formation were the medieval tapestries at the Musée de Cluny and the hothouse phantasmagorias of Gustave Moreau.

When things heated up in May 1968, Ottinger had to seal the windows of her garret overlooking the Sorbonne in order to keep the tear gas out, and in the following year, she returned to Germany, perhaps sensing the end of an era. She continued to paint, but in 1972, she expanded her output to include films, viewing them as a way of synthesizing and reacting to the multitude of impressions she’d been imbibing. Those early works, like Dadaist allegorical pageants, responded to the state of the world through the influences not just of her peers but the paintings of Moreau, which appear in “Dorian Gray in the Mirror of the Yellow Press,” and the Goya prints she studied in the Print Room of the National Library, which resonate in “Freak Orlando.” Her Paris isn’t the empty, rose-tinted fantasy of Woody Allen: It’s vital and contradictory, stimulating for positive and negative reasons, and her willingness to explore her experiences from multiple angles, as advised by the philosopher Victor Segalen, is what makes this documentary so enriching.

Given just how much material she wrangles, it made sense to divide it all into 10 chapters plus an epilogue. Anette Fleming does excellent work editing the multitude of visual material in various formats, and the footage, whether licensed or newly shot, steers clear of the hackneyed and commonplace. Ottinger ends with Piaf singing “Non, je ne regrette rien,” which despite its ubiquity feels deeply satisfying; then she reminds us that Piaf dedicated the song to the pro-colonialist right-wing French Foreign Legion, and suddenly what seemed merely right becomes, in a word, perfect.

[niminy-piminy]

additional side note to the rooster iconography:

PARIS CALLIGRAMMES (Ulrike Ottinger, 2020) "quotes" the following scene from FREAK ORLANDO (Ulrike Ottinger, 1981)...


whenever i travel to my off-town manor, i change train for bus in the city of Česká Třebová... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C4%8Cesk ... ebov%C3%A1

the coat of arms of the city of Česká Třebová looks like this (viz wiki)...

[niminy-piminy]

1975 poll side note

after thoroughly scrutinizing "1975 in architecture" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1975_in_architecture
the only (exaggeration!!!) noteworthy entry i see is "Les Arcades du Lac" (among the "buildings completed" ??????)...

Les Arcades du Lac and Le Viaduc housing development in Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines, near Versailles, France, designed by Ricardo Bofill Taller de Arquitectura.

tho, the whole thing was obviously "completed" somewhat later, in the 1980s... https://architizer.com/projects/les-arcades-du-lac/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Les_Arcades_du_Lac

The entire project was described by architecture critic Charles Jencks as an adaptation of Versailles as a "Versailles for the people" while noting influences of Claude Nicolas Ledoux in the detailing of the elevations. Bofill's design intention was to offer a contrast between the new housing of the 1970s and 1980s and the earlier Le Corbusier-inspired housing projects of the 1950s and 1960s.

edit: the project was started in 1975 and completed in 1980/1982.

https://www.designboom.com/architecture ... 3-24-2017/

in 1975, having already completed residential projects in the french suburbs, ricardo bofill began working on a new development in montigny-le-brétonneux — 25 kilometers (15 miles) from the center of paris. once completed in 1980, this ‘new town’ of saint-quentin-en-yvelines comprised two distinct elements: les arcades, and le viaduc. with a total floor area of 30,000 square meters, the 4-storey arcades contain 389 apartments, while the 5-floor ‘viaduc’ accommodates a further 74 units.

subsequently, i could recall (only vaguely — for the title i had to consult my past notes) i watched a short film taking place (among other places) in Les Arcades du Lac. it is called UTOPIA (Manfred Rott, 2012) and it can be seen on Vimeo (with Eng subs).

https://letterboxd.com/film/utopia-2012-1/

When two boys from different social backgrounds connect via the internet they go on an adventure into the suburbs around Paris. Lost among architectural projects from times when the future was still bright, they nourish their own personal utopia.

screencap (5:34) with "Les Arcades du Lac" in the background.

Two young French men from different social backgrounds spend time together to know each other. They explore the suburbs around Paris and visit vacated utopian architectural projects built in an era when a better future for all was still the goal of society. Inspired, they hope for their own personal utopia where they are free to love each other.

https://vimeo.com/22334066

[niminy-piminy]

1954 poll No16:
CRAZEOLOGIE (Louis Malle) 1953 1954!

https://youtu.be/9EjeaG-PheQ

[niminy-piminy]

1934 poll No9:
LADIES LAKE (Marc Allégret)



this film is a complete mystery to me.
its plot is utterly incomprehensible to my brain's configuration.
there is a cute heroine that self-styles herself as irresistible tomboyish Lolita and loves the hero passionately. moreover, she saves the hero's life (when he overestimates he proves and is on the verge of drowning). so, the hero has basically no other sane option than to fall for her madly. BUT he (incomprehensibly) falls for another heroine (one among the many (interchangeable) female admirers of his sculpted sportsman body).
i admit i watched the film being physically tired (tended to fall asleep). however, whenever i woke up from the microsleep i rewinded the film back dutifully not to miss a single moment of the plot. and despite doing so, i didn't witness a scene where the other heroine would display at least a remotely close degree of alluring paraphilic infantilism or would save the hero's life. thus the hero's romantic preferences make no sense whatsoever and a viewer can hardly follow any understandable plotline.
plus, the minor issue of the hero's fever!
it is not at all comprehensible why a scriptwriter bothers himself to inflict upon a hero a fever (a consequence of the hero's arm injury suffered while trying to remove from the amorous playground his old flame) without taking the advantage to insert into the narrative a surreal (feverish) sequence.
anyway, as i said before this film is beyond my grasp (this ladies lake has pretty murky waters).

[niminy-piminy]

AURÉLIA (Anne Dastrée, 1964)

This film is an example of ambitious, large-scale feature productions based on dreamlike or even surreal themes, often sourced from literature (besides Aurélia, they include La femme 100 têtes based on Max Ernst or La Horla by Jean-Daniel Pollet which is an adaptation of a short story by Guy de Maupassant). For her cooperation with Sandoz, director Anne Dastrée chose a challenging text – Aurélia by French writer Gérarda de Nerval which describes author's own psychotic experience. In her adaptation, the director focused on the depiction of unusual states of consciousness and the psychology of the main protagonist portrayed by famous actor and singer Serge Reggiani.

another Sandoz gem!
considering that Anne Dastrée is only rudimentarily represented on IMDb
https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0202114/
and is completely absent on Ltbxd, Mubi, or even KG
i watched the film even without Eng. subs because i expect will hardly ever get a second chance to see it.
unfortunately, it was full of dialogues and delirious monologue and thus i missed a lot.
but even without understanding a single word, it was worth watching.

the reason why the rare Sandoz flicks were featured in this year's JIDFF is probably the academic research conducted by a local filmmaker Lea Petříková.
a few years ago (in 2017 or 2018 ???) i attended her Pharm'n'Film lecture about this topic → https://www.leapetrikova.com/sandozresearch
there is also her text called "Sandoz Film production in Novartis Archives" available online → https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-03040326/document
and i just started a list of these Sandoz flicks → https://www.kinometer.com/?list=345
it is a pity big pharma companies are no longer producing experimental films with delirious heroes and heroines.

[sally]

in honour of the dandy discussion, coincidentally stumbled on jean paul gaultier's so this season cinémode

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d5hmJkPnsfE

and a film more to my inclination which was restored for the above

https://www.cinematheque.fr/henri/film/ ... kain-1923/

on demande un mannequin 1923 tony lekain

google-translated:

These small comedies are thus constructed in such a way as to promote French fashion through cinema, highlighting the latest creations of the couturiers. It is also about placing the characters in fashionable situations and places, arousing interest and allowing to attract the spectators and the rich foreign customers who will come to frequent them. These films find their interest in a spirit of influence of the French culture or at least of the Parisian wealthy class, a spirit of soft power before the hour, diffusing a little of the magic of the City of Light so necessary after the war.

i gather in 1923 big buttons were chic



and to complement the buttons accessorize with GIANT HANDS! (either that or her head is really small)

[niminy-piminy]

1962 poll No12:
SIGN OF LEO (Éric Rohmer)

https://twitter.com/jirinvk/status/1463 ... 55651?s=20

the hero of this film is a dandy for whom the only acceptable sources of income are: 1/ inheritance, 2/ smuggling, 3/ petty theft.
not even for a second, he considers getting an ordinary (commoner's) job.
he is rather ready to starve himself to death while aimlessly roaming the streets of sybaritic Paris.
this Romer's ode on radical dandyism doesn't end with a "glorious death" (as enunciated by D'Annunzio) but by inheritance from auntie.
as the dilettante encyclopedia says, Rainer Werner Fassbinder paid homage to this film in 1966 with his first short film, Der Stadtstreicher, Jean-Luc Godard put it on his top ten for 1962 (on the 5th place, just above his own Vivre sa Vie), and (as the dilettante encyclopedia doesn't mention) i am gonna include it within my 1962 ballot.

https://web.archive.org/web/20161223044 ... odard.html

(Lists are from Cahiers du Cinema via Godard on Godard.)
1962:
1. Hatari! (Howard Hawks)
2. Vanina Vanini (Roberto Rossellini)
3. Through a Glass, Darkly (Ingmar Bergman)
4. Jules et Jim (Francois Truffaut)
5. Le Signe du Lion (Eric Rohmer)
6. Vivre sa Vie (Jean-Luc Godard)
7. The Flaming Years (Alexander Dovzhenko)
8. Sweet Bird of Youth (Richard Brooks)
9. Une Grosse Tete (Claude de Givray)
10. Ride the High Country [G.B. Guns in the Afternoon] (Sam Peckinpah)

[niminy-piminy]

2009 poll watchlist:

THE SKELETON-WOMAN (Sarah Van den Boom, 2009)

Tired and bored by her graceless daily life, a young housewife mourns her lost American lover and dreams of a better life, elsewhere. Inside her, the skeleton woman, hidden into the dark, is waiting to be saved.

IN OTHER WORDS...

a heroine, married to an SCFZ regular (who is busy doing year polls), is utterly frustrated with her married life and daydreams about her pre-internet old flame (without admitting her old flame might have joined SCFZ and started with the year polls as well meanwhile and thus might not really be an alternative to her useless hubby).

https://vimeo.com/92025730

[sally]

aw jiri, that's a very.......specific....interpretation. maybe 1946 coming up next won't be so intensive

[niminy-piminy]

2009 poll watchlist:

FULL COUNTRY / LE PLEIN PAYS (Antoine Boutet, 2009) ... in Res!

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1569454/

A man has been living a secluded life for the past thirty years in a forest in France. He digs deep underground galleries adorned with primitive carvings. They are supposed to outlive to the forecast planetary catastrophe and enlighten the future inhabitants.

https://youtu.be/ut6HBsCc-Pw

a girl with no sex
gastric juices that taste good
and let's not reproduce
if one reproduces, it's the end
the beginning of cemeteries
all over again
and burying corpses
and domino mis cum
and amen
it's a bit too easy
it's time to stop all that
abolish motherhood altogether
adopt and vanish completely
or let extra-terrestrials bring us eternity
otherwise, it's not worth it
and let's not reproduce anymore
let's always be the same
remake body with the soul
my little Brigitte Bardot, I'm singing with you
at least you're clean
you don't have any children
you prefer your dogs
I think that's better
you don't have all the stains of childbirth
stay a virgin all your life
I'm singing with you...
"take me to the edge of the earth"
"take me to the wonderland"
"it seems to me that misery"
"would be less painful in the sun"

[sally]

how on earth do you find these films.

i never realised there were so many people in the world doing this kind of thing. (one of my main pre-sexual childhood fantasies that i spent years and years elaborating in my head only, was digging and inhabiting deep underground tunnels, and the invention of the many gadgets and structural innovations required to live comfortably there)

will definitely watch this (that song! it's me at 9) since i didn't find any stupid rom coms yet

[niminy-piminy]

this one i grabbed long ago, already forgot i grabbed it, and only discovered it deeply buried in my hoarding depot thanks to this year poll!

i am still in the middle of the film so gonna proceed while projecting juvenile you on the guy!!

[niminy-piminy]

btw. it is cool to know the girls on this forum are mostly prepperesses (or what is feminine from a "prepper"?)!
one digging mental underground caves already in pre-adolescence and living in the mids of the moors, the other living in the mids of the desert.
one feels safer in such a company!!
especially these pre-apocalyptic days!

[sally]

i can't speak for R, but after a millisecond of reflection, i think the feminine form of prepper is 'misanthropist'

(also i've lost my moor mojo lately, they're too oppressive for me to enjoy the isolation - due to shit uk infrastructure there's no mobile signal and if i'm up there on my own and break my ankle (much more likely now i'm old & brittle-bonier) or get trampled by the herds of psychotic bullocks that started appearing everywhere last year, then i'm fucked. and going up there with other people and spraying 'conversation' & awkward, incompatible pacing all over the silence is sacrilege)

i'm afraid rischka is the sole empty sky queen at the minute...

[sally]

i also watched claire simon's 1993 récréations (a doc about children 'playing' during recess at school) as part of my DtC viewing and for gods sake abort them all before birth. children are ghastly, no clue where this idea of innocence comes from, it's just permanent chaotic sadism and brutality. and little sticks. (hello finisterrae ghosts!) a stressful watch.

[niminy-piminy]

1946 poll:

SYLVIA AND THE GHOST (Claude Autant-Lara, 1946)

first of all, let's pretend it's 1946 and we have no clue yet about Claude Autant-Lara's later political affiliation with the far-right National Front.
and let's believe that ghosts/phantoms appearing in this film (who are dressed as members of the KKK) don't foreshadow his later political career.
thus, embalming the unpalatable personal trivia of the author into a shroud/veil (disclaimer: not a reference to Simone Veil!) of sweet nescience, i can start to review this comedy.

its opening is bursting with nonsense which makes it highly enjoyable.
however, as it proceeds (and a "plot" starts to unfold) it is 1/ either losing steam 2/ or i am (purposefully) losing the "string".

i have to admit that whenever dealing with the works of dramatic art and encountering anything resembling a consistent plot (tied with a logical sequence of events) i always start to feel someone is trying to involve me in a conspiracy theory.
these theories are usually characterized by a high degree of logic and consistency and thus my "natural instinct" while facing a "plot" is a deconstruction, misinterpretation, recontextualization, and alike.


so, all i can say about the plot of this (in sum enjoyable) travesty called SYLVIA AND THE GHOST is this...

heroine of the film is Sylvia (a 16 yrs old girl).
she has got two mortal (i.e. made of flesh and bones) suitors.

one is self-loathing (i hate my name!)...


the other is a nihilist (what's the point?)...


however, all her romantic passions are aimed at an incubus called Alain de Francigny (lovely name, isn't it?).
before turning into an incubus, Alain fornicated (in flesh) with Sylvia's grandma.
in Sylvia's days, his "physical" existence is limited to an image (the painting).



btw., while watching this comedy, two (other) local (middle of the Middle) films came to my mind.
1/ because SYLVIA AND THE GHOST is an odd coming-of-age story, "naturally" VALERIE AND HER WEEK OF WONDERS (Jaromil Jireš, 1970) can be (eventually) associated.
2/ but due to a setting (a labyrinth-like castle full of secret passageways and hidden rooms) and a wide variety of odd characters (inhabiting this castle and entering all kinds of silly interactions) it rather (in the first place) reminds me of THE PHANTOM OF MORRISVILLE (Bořivoj Zeman, 1966).
thus (in my book) SYLVIA AND THE GHOST is a mixture of VALERIE AND HER WEEK OF WONDERS and THE PHANTOM OF MORRISVILLE.
anyway, (i guess) i am revealing too much?!
no more spoilers!


in any case, (as i already said) the film is pretty enjoyable.

[sally]

how delightful! thank you for watching this film i never intend to watch due to the as mentioned above disgusting director

[greennui]

New restoration

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PcGDHCjYlwI