SCFZ

twodeadmagpies wrote: ↑Mon Mar 01, 2021 10:24 pm

ooh thanks, that was one of the first ones i came across that i couldn't locate anywhere...from my crafty process of going 'what films did serge bozon do in 2015, those i will watch'

up in the normal spot. looks like the vecchiali (w/bozon) has subs, will try to post that one if i get a chance to watch it

nrh wrote: ↑Mon Mar 01, 2021 10:43 pm

twodeadmagpies wrote: ↑Mon Mar 01, 2021 10:24 pm

ooh thanks, that was one of the first ones i came across that i couldn't locate anywhere...from my crafty process of going 'what films did serge bozon do in 2015, those i will watch'

up in the normal spot. looks like the vecchiali (w/bozon) has subs, will try to post that one if i get a chance to watch it

awesome thanks! didn't imagine the vecchiali would have subs so didn't even look at it

am putting my 2015 watches here? or there?

lost and beautiful, pietro marcello 2015

loved this. something something language (boo!) belongs to man, beasts and gods inhabit the silence, the reality of myths & stories from flesh to institutions etc etc etc but really i just love movies where people dress up pretending to be magical figures (à la finisterrae) and this film bungs them straight into that documentary 'real' pastoral porn aesthetic that irritates me so much. the film is gorgeous.

cousin cousine (jean-charles tacchella) inigo montoya gets it

The Awful Truth. Not all the way through, but I've watched it plenty of times before. 30's McCarey was a force of nature. Since I'm never going to choose a filmmaker for the director's poll, somebody, please, pick this guy.

Searchlike wrote: ↑Wed Mar 03, 2021 8:56 pm The Awful Truth. Not all the way through, but I've watched it plenty of times before. 30's McCarey was a force of nature. Since I'm never going to choose a filmmaker for the director's poll, somebody, please, pick this guy.

i'm surprised we haven't polled mccarey already! he'd clearly work. you're probably aware of this, but everyone gets a chance to nominate provided they post a ballot, so if you are interested in making a nomination, you should have a chance. but i'd bet someone will pick mccarey before long either way.

flip wrote: ↑Wed Mar 03, 2021 9:40 pmyou're probably aware of this, but everyone gets a chance to nominate provided they post a ballot, so if you are interested in making a nomination, you should have a chance.

Got to be quick, though. I need to practice my ballot posting skills. Hopefully someone does pick him. I don't want to have to start an Oscar type For Your Consideration campaign, but I will if I have to.

Searchlike wrote: ↑Wed Mar 03, 2021 11:39 pm Got to be quick, though.

that's true near the start of a round, but we're nearer to the end of a round now, so most people have made a pick recently and have to wait to pick again. so you might get a shot soon even if you're not too quick!

some 2015 watches
tale of tales: what was the point
ana yurdu: miserable well-shot festival fare with one good scene and a silly ending
marguerite & julien: at some point thru this my head announced 'truffaut', and also, slightly more loudly, someone is fucking someone here. and lo, afterwards discovered that truffaut did indeed toy with making this, so there must have been something respectful towards him, but that clashed with the more stylised historical images of MdO, monteiro or rita azevedo gomes that this film cried out for, and as a result were only hinted at in embryo. also lo, lead actor (way too clean & pretty) was dating director...how could it not be incestuous. nothing offensive about this but nothing i'm going to remember either. unsurprisingly only time i perked up was when the action moved to a french fishing village on the coast

I think 'forgettable europudding' was my assement of Tale of Tales at the time, which proved to be correct as I remember nothing about it.

I CARE A LOT -- via Netflix, a wannabe movie that winds up being TO DIE FOR by way of GONE GIRL, even recycling Rosamund PIke's dead-eyed soulless cunt from hell performance note for note. Some flickers of life from Chris Messina, Peter Dinklage and Dianne Wiest, but the tone is scattershot, the lecturing on capitalism tone-deaf. Useless.

1.5/10

Claude Charbrol & 3 of Those 4 Films He Made in the Early 1960s Critics/Academics Often Don't Include in the French New Wave



So, I went on a mini-binge here ...

I have long wondered why Chabrol is often written out of the French New Wave canon so early - despite being a Cahiers du cinema writer (theoretically giving him instant inclusion) yet films like Wise Guys (which JLG listed as one of the 6 best post-WW2 French films back in '68), Landru and Ophelia - made in 1961, 1962 and 1963 respectively - before Godard even did Bande à part - are generally not mentioned.

After seeing them, the main reason is clear: they're just not very good.

They honestly feel closer to works from the low-tier new wavers no one talks about, like Pierre Kast and Jacques Doniol-Valcroze (he even co-founder Cahier du cinema - but his films are so mediocre people still don't want to talk about him).

Anyhow, these films do deserve to be included, and they do actually - despite being among his worst films - and certainly among the weakest of the movement - all have something interesting about them.

Let's dive in, shall we.

Les godelureaux / Wise Guys (1961)



Now - Wise Guys is a thoroughly bizarre film that seems a bit like 40s Jacques Becker meets low-brow Pierre Étaix (ok, just barely) ...

Ok, no, it is rather like he wanted to do Jules and Jim or Bande à part before his colleagues.

The base elements are actually there - an outlandish duo/trio muck about Paris - have fun - play tricks and something more sinister occurs.

It has the same freshness of just being out on the street - it has the bits of choppiness and shakiness of the earliest new wave films. It has the play - and it has Paris! In fact, the film starts with Paris, and a group of jokers carrying a car onto the pavement so they can part. Their spot they say - only trouble is - the overly rich and mischievous Roland (Jean-Claude Brialy) decides to get payback.

The results are outlandish grooming and practical jokes, as he establishes himself in the perpetrator's lives - especially that of Arthur - who he sets up with a woman designed to break his heart - Ambroisine (early Chabrol regular Bernadette Lafont) - and so - as in a nihilistic, long joke - we watch it all unfold.

The problem is - it just feels silly - including Roland's bizarre-looking butler/servant - and the entire set-up (now this is where I see a pinch of Étaix). Honestly, the film is tonally confused - attempting to play callous, sinister humour - too an extent - but feeling too mild. It just has no power. The characters are flat or uninteresting - and while well shot and made from a technical perspective - thereæs neither life - not a kind of nihilistic coldness - in the frames. It just exists.

Pondering over the elements of the plot - one ray of light was the possibility of metaphor.

Roland comes from the left bank, and drives into Paris (not his terrain) where people thinking they own the spot throw him out - lead of course by Arthur (I have seen it claimed that Godard later used Arthur as a pun on auteur in Bande à part - this could be the case here too). If that is the case the film is really enjoying some beef between Left Bank and Cahiers du Cinema - and how they went on to cause rockus together. There's even some American allusions there. No idea if this reading really holds up - but it would give it some added value. 5/10.


Landru (1963)



Landru is based on the live of real-life serial killer, Henri Désiré Landru - the same story Chaplin covered in Monsieur Verdoux - and as a fascinating trivia both films were disasters to the point that they could have ended the directors' respective careers (or at least, so the film trivia goes).

The similarities so end there, though I will say Landu is the best of these 3 films.

Shot in colour (Chabrol's second - first being '59s À double tour) - the visuals are often lavish. Chabrol seemed to want to work with as many colours as possible - especially in the apartments. Stylized, yet stripped back - Chabrol clearly tries to do something interesting with the tale - and to an extent - he does succeed.

Our lead, Charles Denner, has nowhere near the charisma of Chaplin - and stikes a bit of a silly picture at first - but as the film grows on he does start to fill in the role quite well. A large part of that is due to Chabrol and his editor and how they decide to cut. At one point we see Landru go through a long set of victims - and it is done with a degree of callous play.

The murders themselves are entirely written out - only alluded to - and again with stripped back elements that slowly becomes humorous.

All the same, it is neither a strong black comedy - nor a striking drama or thriller. It is solid, good, but nothing more - and a large part of this is once again on Chabrol. The visuals are just a little off - they don't have magnetism - yes, perhaps we can blame cinematographer Jean Rabier - who worked on all these 3 films - and perhaps the lack of experience in colour - but it really seems to set itself up for mediocre compositions - even when the colours are striking.

Note: Jean Rabier would do The Umbrellas of Cherbourg the next year, and did Cleo in between.

The way WW1 is worked in is also quite off tonally, feeling as if it is played for comedy - but not really hitting any marks for me. The latter parts of the film also loses a little steam, but it is decent/good enough until the end. 5.5-6/10.


Ophelia (1963)



Ophelia is a surprisingly clever and playful take on Hamlet - setting it to present day - and making it fairly genius in that the lead character is both in a similar situation to Hamlet and is interpreting the situation - to an extent through Hamlet - more specifically Laurence Olivier's 1948 film. This could have been the set-up for a masterpiece - especially as it replaces the play Hamlet puts on to showcase his theory - with a short film. Film on film - an unstable reality - and an Ophelia that is not Ophelia but Lucy - makes the film jump out of the page.

But: what on earth has happened to Chabrol?

Again we see perfectly solid compositions - but it is the tone, how the actors deliver their lines - the atmosphere and life - that is bringing it all down. This simply does not feel like the work of an experienced and talented director. True, this was still in his first 6 years as a filmmaker, but it was his 9th film ...

Don't get my wrong - most is adequate - though theatricality, weak acting, etc. does bring it down. It feels a little too comical, even when it would seem like it should seem serious. Just as with Wise Guys, there appears to be tonal confusion - but again - a perfectly adequate film. 5.5/10.


Final note:

It is important for the context that even though The Good Time Girls is often the last film included among Chabrol's new wave efforts, the above three films - along with The Third Lover (1962 - which I also rated 5/10) were films that Chabrol specifically wanted to make. It was only after the financial failures of almost all of his 60s films (including his wonderful The Good Time Girls) - which then forced him to do the adventure film An Orchid for the Tiger in 1964 - which I have not yet seen - but would be a much clearer point of diversion from the path of his Cahiers du cinema colleagues.

St. Gloede wrote: ↑Sat Mar 06, 2021 12:17 am Claude Charbrol & 3 of Those 4 Films He Made in the Early 1960s Critics/Academics Often Don't Include in the French New Wave
Anyhow, these films do deserve to be included, and they do actually - despite being among his worst films - and certainly among the weakest of the movement - all have something interesting about them.

i'd say godeluraux and landru are genuinely great, and ophelia fascinating but a near miss. but i suspect if you don't like these you don't particularly like chabrol very much.

some good writing on landru and ophelia by chris fujiwara here - http://www.movingimagesource.us/article ... 1-20101012

and godeluraux here - http://www.movingimagesource.us/article ... 3-20101111

Thanks. Will give these write-up, a look.

Chabrol is actually one of my favourite directors (granted, extended list) and La cérémonie is on my all-time top 100.

I do think he was one of the less interesting new wavers (in the period itself) and it is his later work that solidified him for me - though his early work is all good-great, especially Good Time Girls. (Les cousins has some of the issues of the above, but is still stronger).

St. Gloede wrote: ↑Sat Mar 06, 2021 9:47 pmGood Time Girls

OMG, is that what they're calling Les bonnes femmes? In America we always use the French title as far as I know.

I’ve seen it as both. During its brief stint streaming on Netflix, it was definitely the French title.

UNDERWORLD -- von Sternberg's 1927 proto-gangster drama, handsomely produced in luscious black and white. More impressive for the cinematography and performances than the storyline, which apparently watered down Ben Hecht's original considerably. Hecht recycled elements from this into the far more savage SCARFACE for Hughes and Hawks. 6/10

I saw Anne-Marie Miéville's 4 solo features over the last few days, and wanted to share my views on her two best.

Nous sommes tous encore ici / We're Still Here (1997)



We're Still Here is simultaneously intimate - and obfuscating - and a film I may fall in love with even more on future rewatches.

Let's start with the obfuscation - as this is in a way where it all starts: Cars are driving, and a phone conversation is stating that things are changing, and they can no longer get funding of their project. It feels biographical - as a commentary on this film's very existence.

We then get two establishing scenes.

The first is incredible - Aurore Clément - likely (or rather obviously) filling in for Miéville - enters a friend's home and start discussing philosophy - or rather - her friend (played by Bernadette Lafont) is berating her for her overt focus on philosophy - especially at her age.

However, something is a little off, their words, the way they are speaking: something different is going on. It quickly becomes clear that it is a dialogue between Socrates and Calliclès. It is witty, but odd, especially as Socrates (Lafont) keeps doing household choirs by delivering her lives. We are left wondering if this is a modern-day retelling or a scene from a play or film (the project that may not be funded perhaps) that they are running through for fun.

We then see Godard himself walk down a street - he is preparing a stage - Hanna Arendt's face is projected, and he starts reading her work.

Philosophy and theatricality has so far confounded and teased us - but what we see next is of a very different pace: The homelife of Clement and Godard - their strained love - petty squabbles - and the prospect of a vacation. It is bare, funny, earnest and human - with lots of light, dark and intricate jokes - much play - and a lot of atmosphere.

It was a great experience - but a surprising, and to an extent a bewildering one. I wonder how much can be read into their relationship from the early sections - and there may be much to decipher. On this viewing, I was mostly caught in their actual relationship, the chemistry, the jokes, the bickering and the emotions - but it really feels like it has so much more to offer. 8.5/10.



Après la réconciliation / After the Reconciliation (2000)



After the Reconciliation is undoubtedly Mieville's greatest film - and manages to subvert all expectations - while following a very similar pattern to We're Still There.

It opens with an earnest essay, tieing in the production of We're Still There - Miéville playing herself - assessment of the construction of this very film. We get philosophy, personal observations, home footage and a large degree of fantastic playfulness - cutting together work footage and Miéville showing off her actual whipping skills - she's been practising - and thus, camera gliding onto a stage and with Miéville and costar Claude Perron cracking the whips under the spotlight - and then the title cards comes up. 

Frankly, I was a little disappointed that we'd move into another narrative effort, as what I had been seeing so far felt like the set-up for her magnum opus: but it still was.

Once more reality and fiction may seem ever so close - with Míeville and Godard practically starring as themselves - but with additional tension from other possible love interests - and largely confined to an apartment where emotional games start to run wild. This is an incredibly active and dynamic film - playing with space - having fun - but also being driven by characters and dialogue as what could be a love triangle becomes a love quadrangle and things get mean-spirited.

The way Miéville manages to make small spaces come to life - and bring in so much creative tension is just wonderful - and more so - enjoyable. We are witnessing 4 contrasting characters go at it with everything they have - from wit to intellect, to petty insults to their bodies. It is great being in these rooms observing the characters go off on each other in all their pretensions - and I'm further impressed by how she actually cast herself, practically as herself - holding together an actual feature for the first (and only time) and doing so brilliantly. Clever, intelligent and ever-spinning - full of creative touches and surprises.

A new favourite for sure.

9/10

(I'd also make the rather first claim that After the Reconciliation is better than everything she directed with JLG, though a few come close)

So ... I happened to put on the Yugoslav Black Wave film Early Works (1967) by Želimir Žilnik.

This is a complete coincidence.

wonderful coincidence!

i wonder if back then when someone mentioned it they immediately heard 'but when is it men's day?'

the trial (orson welles) i like orson more the older i get. syntactically, this was delirious, a wall of dialogue to get lost in; though contrasted with very controlled mise en scene. in those ways an exacting adaptation, aurally opaque, with meaning bleeding through visually. and as with much of his post-citizen kane work, it seems somehow autobiographical in the context of his own career vis a vis that particular film and how the powers that be treated him thereafter

fleshpot on 42nd street (andy millgan) this milligan man guy is good. even though the version of fleshpot that i saw was apparently trimmed of the more hardcore sex stuff, it didn't matter. termite art to a t. beautifully grungy in the way that only honest-to-goodness artifice could be. rec'd for lota (who's maybe seen it) and wba (maybe not)

the outlaw josey wales (clint eastwood) pretty good half the time, but pretty great the other half. maybe overstays its welcome a little bit, or maybe i'm just a sleepy old man. but mostly i appreciated how it really recontextualizes unforgiven (as a viewer who saw unfor before tojw). the supporting cast in this film is just as indispensable/integral as the supporters in unfor. clint was always more of a physical presence than an acting one, and he smartly seemed to be aware of that early on. sidenote: tabacky is nasty

thoxans wrote: ↑Tue Mar 16, 2021 2:01 am rec'd

Thanks for the nudge; I've been meaning to check this out for quite some time.

DEATHDREAM aka THE NIGHT WALK aka DEAD OF NIGHT -- Bob Clark's little horror movie that can, about a family that receives the bad news that their beloved only son Andy has died in Vietnam, whereupon the really seriously devoted mother refuses to believe it, and it isn't long before her beloved Andy returns, but he's not quite the dear boy they remember...

Lowbudget, sure, often amateurishly made, sure, the attempts at humor don't come off, right, and the ideas about the terrors of domestic America breeding monsters are a little underbaked, okay, but there's some good serious creep going on here, especially with Richard Backus's Andy, who does a lot by not doing very much. I'll remember him rocking back and forth, back and forth, back and forth, long after that foolishness with Rosamund Pike has faded from my memory.

Roscoe wrote: ↑Tue Mar 16, 2021 1:39 pmDEATHDREAM

that sounds great! clark was such an unassumingly enigmatic filmmaker. made staples in multiple (sub)genres, horror (black christmas), xmas flicks (a christmas story), teenage sex romps (porky's). not to mention rhinestone and baby geniuses. the dude singlehandedly wreaked havoc on whatever standards there are of auteurism

Clark had a good run until Rhinestone. That film ruined him. Terrible film, and he never recovered from it. Black Christmas is one of the greatest horrors of all time. Deathdream is an unusual little film about the traumas of war disguised as a horror film. It's basically a family drama with horror elements.

Fellini's Roma: Disjointed, but the closest Fellini ever came to an essay film. Has some brilliant sequences, and it's better than I remembered. I wish there were more directors like him today. 7.5/10.

Cleo From 5 to 7 (1962, Agnès Varda) Rewatch



Cleo From 5 to 7 is arguably Varda's most structurally impressive film - depicting the real-time 90-minute journey of a woman awaiting medical results. She is restless, always moving, either on her own, in absolute solitude or with friends, acquaintances and strangers. (And yes, it should really be called Cleo from 5 to 6.30 ...).

It is divided into chapters, but not in any traditional way. There are no stark cuts - rather a text comes up - with the time in which this chapter takes place - for instance, Cleo from 5.13 to 5.18 - and as such it may be the very first film which is not only itself hyper-aware of being in real-time but wants you to be hyper-aware as well. Furthermore, it gives you a hint that something has changed, and something else will change again in 3, 5, 7+ minutes.



You are there with Cleo (not even her real name) every second of the way - and besides being beautifully shot and made - it is an exercise that is thoroughly impressive in and of itself.

But let's back up a little bit - as frankly, to me, the very greatest scene is the very beginning - Cleo at the fortune-teller - for a while no faces are shown - and this is the only sequence in colour. All we see are the cards, presenting a future of change and disease. It is not only beautifully accomplished, but, it provides so much insight into Cleo's character, and key people we see throughout - it also sets up a foreboding sense of doom. The transition, or shall we sat transitions, to black and white are sharp. It is the faces. The disbelief, and the command. Cleo and the fortune-teller - and the fear and pain of illness. It is a perfect set-up, and leaves us with a fragile Cleo and a ticking clock until her worst fears may be confirmed.




And yet, Cleo From 5 to 7 (or again ... 6.30) is not an unnecessarily bleak, stark or cold film - far from it. There is a sense of frivolousness, even lighter touches of comedy - these 90 minutes largely consist of Cleo wanting to do or think about anything else - and taking the strip through Paris, by cab, car, bus - goes really smoothly (besides one sequence at a slightly faster frame rate (likely to ensure the real-time element overall). The character gallery and dialogue is quite strong, and give a sense of really just being in the here and now.

It is a wonderful film, though quite far from Varda's best. I was really hoping that this rewatch would push it up to masterpiece status for me - but I simply had the exact same experience as last time. I'm not quite sure what could have been done to bring it to a level similar to Le bonheur (my 2nd favourite film) - perhaps if it had a slightly harder punch - or decided to either invite more empathy for Cleo - or alternatively taken it in a more playful or more cold and mocking direction - or perhaps if it had been made more socially relevant - or maybe just changed some of the encounters - but, regardless - a great rewatch of a great film. 8.5/10.



Les créatures / The Creature (1966, Agnès Varda) Rewatch



Les créatures is perhaps the "oddest" film Varda would ever make and confounding in a long set of ways. Luckily, the new Criterion restoration is breathtaking, and gives what was the odd one out a degree of visual prowess and life I could not have expected - turning the whole will into a positively trippy, semi-surreal nightmare that must be the closest Varda ever came to horror.

The plot is simultaneously easy and hard to decipher - so is reality and fiction. I kept wondering what made her follow up her previous successes with something this "rough" - and when I say rough I mean that she gives Godard a run for the money in terms of inserts and cuts. It is almost a little choppy - but so much of what we cut to is spellbinding - including some spectacular shots of the sea at a high frame rate.

Above anything though, what struck me, was the degree to which it reminded me of French expressionism and silent cinema - large sections entirely silent with loud, eerie, scratching music - glittering sea - long piers - and actual use of red and purple tints - which get inserted into the actual story.




I'm really not sure if this is a case of Varda continuing to aim for new heights, riding on the success of Cleo and Le Bonheur - or if she considered this a light effort. I see evidence of both. Structurally - rhythmically - this really is something else - but the mix of comedy is odd, Deneuve is horribly underused and the writing is thin - but then - is that on purpose? Piccoli is after all a writer - and his sloppy novel - which he describes to talking animals - YES, TALKING ANIMALS - is inserted entirely into the film's reality to the point that we don't even know what to think. 

It was really good to revisit it. The new print really elevated it, and added all the atmosphere harmed by previous releases - but, just as last time, I'm really not sure if I missed something. If there is, even more, to be discovered - and that's pretty exciting. 8/10.

i'm halfway through humoresque and it is a BIG MOOD



and yes i am watching it because of 'my dinner with turhan bey'

one of my favorite movie posters.

humoresque is such fire. ahhhh we need a joan crawford poll

St. Gloede wrote: ↑Sat Mar 20, 2021 10:17 pmI was really hoping that this rewatch would push it up to masterpiece status for me

If there's any way I can help push it up the final notch, I'll be happy to try.

I believe Cléo is summed up nicely by the short film starring Jean-Luc Godard and Anna Karina that she watches at 6:00, two-thirds of the way through. Godard's character puts on dark glasses and instantly sees the world differently - everything starts to go wrong. When he removes his shades the world looks happy again. Likewise, Cléo from 5 to 7 traces an arc from Cléo's initial dark view of life to a healthier outlook. (As a rule, whenever a film inserts a seemingly unrelated story like this film-within-the-film, it's likely to be a key to the whole picture.)

The movie opens with unpleasant forebodings at the fortune teller. Cléo's in a foul mood, anxious about her upcoming diagnosis, burdened by superstition (the tarot cards, the hat, the unlucky taxi number, the mirror, etc.), and looking inward, thinking too much of herself. Leaving the fortune teller she looks in a mirror and reassures herself that as long as she's beautiful she's alive. Her vanity is so great that at one point she says she's glad the prospective tumor is in her stomach where it won't affect her beauty. Superstition itself is a kind of vanity, imagining that the world turns around yourself - and her friend Dorothée deflects her superstition nicely when she suggests the broken mirror is for someone else, a man they pass who's been killed on the sidewalk.

As Cléo takes her impossible journey through Paris (try covering the same ground during rush hour, even without visiting a café, stopping at home, watching a film, and talking with strangers!) she keeps finding omens of death: Angèle's story in the café, the frogs, grotesque statues, the murder scene, the Algerian War, the coffin-like incubator, a funeral parlor. But look closely at her taxi ride home - the cab stops three times in a row, each time aligning Cléo's window with masks. The first two times she sees frightening voodoo masks or primitive death masks, but the third time they're surrounded by student revelers wearing joyous masks. The movie follows the same pattern - the first two half-hours she's obsessed with mortality, but in the last third her world brightens.

Her turning point - where her figurative dark glasses come off - is wondrously uplifting, but it's done so quietly that most people don't notice it consciously. In the taxi to Parc Montsouris she gives her unlucky hat to Dorothée. This gift-giving is her first real selfless gesture, and as soon as it happens there's a surge of music as the taxi courses lyrically through majestic tree-lined squares and boulevards. Now the park's name makes her smile... she'll enjoy a beautiful walk, meet Antoine (note the Anthony & Cleopatra reference), and get good news from her doctor. Life is good again.

The use of color in the tarot card scene is fascinating, because most people think of color film as being more "realistic" than black and white. But except for the "talkative young man" the fortune teller proves wrong on all counts. All the truth is in the black and white photography, which has the advantage of not pretending to show unfiltered reality.

One of my favorite topics is the variety of ways movies present time, and the title hints (in the words "5 to 7") that time itself will be a big factor. In my experience most great films have a developed sense of time - how it's used, what it means, how it colors experience. Like many great movies Cléo begins with one idea of time and ends with another. After getting her fortune told, time weighs so heavily on Cléo that she's virtually counting the seconds until her doctor's news. She imagines she has only days or weeks to live, but she's not really living. As she comes down the stairs, listen how the music ticks to her steps like a clock. The whole movie is filled with clocks and other reminders of time, not to mention the intertitles that keep us aware of elapsed film-time. Later when she rides the taxi into Parc Montsouris, she's reminded of the 1001 Nights, the classic story of Scheherezade counting off the nights until she can free herself from fear of death. But once she starts walking through the park, the clocklike tick-tock of her footsteps is drowned out by birds singing and the murmur of a waterfall. She's entered a totally different vision of time.

Lastly, there's a cleverly subtle feminist element to the movie. On one hand, the fortune teller, Angèle, and Cléo herself encourage a passive attitude - putting herself in the hands of fate, of her manager, of her own beauty. But along her journey she encounters three brave and independent women: the woman in the café who stands up to her boyfriend, the first taxi driver who works fearlessly at night and chases down customers who don't pay, and Dorothée, whose modeling is for her own pleasure rather than for men. When Cléo gives up her hat, she's not only becoming selfless, she's also doing something active for the first time.


As for Créatures, you and I seem to be in the minority that actually likes the film. Varda herself was disappointed with it, though I don't know why. Maybe she was overcome by the negative reaction to such a quirky and surreal movie. I think it makes sense if you view it as a study in the ways people try to play God. Michel Piccoli and the man in the tower want to control people like chess pieces, and as a writer he wants to control his characters, but only Catherine Deneuve, in giving birth to a baby, knows the "right" way to "control" life. Again it's a feminist idea, presented fairly I think... and I love all the playfulness.

That is a great read, Umbugbene. I was looking at the short as a key as well, but I couldn't quite make it fit - as to me she seems as concerned by the end - the doctor not even straight out telling her she has cancer but that she'll be fine after radiation treatment - and her companion telling her he wishes he could stay. I also didn't see the fortune teller being that wrong - she even spotted cancer - leaving room for the further statement that she is doomed as well.

The smaller notes you picked up were missed by me however, such as the selfless act - that is a great spot, and does change the film a little - as one of my main issues with becoming fully empathetic with Cleo was the more frivolous part of her character, almost subtly mocking on Varda's part (such as the fact that she always had some ailment, and the way she revels in luxory) - not that I can't have empathy with the rich or the selfish - but the choice to have a well off singer rather than a regular working class woman seemed very conscious and a clear part of the narrative - but I didn't quite get a pay off from it. I also thought it was notable that it was the soldier pushing her to be active, rather than it being her own initiative - which would have given us a clearer character journey. I'll look for these smaller hints and changes in outlook next time I rewatch it, and it may have that extra impact needed to push it up another notch.

(very nice take on Les creatures)