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Månen är en grön ost [The Moon Is a Green Cheese] (Mai Zetterling, 1977)
Aug
21
violet
A woman in a violet dress and sunhat, plays a harp in the middle of a lake (via). DP: John Bulmer.
Violet in food or fashion. If in doubt, pick a title with ALL the colours of the rainbow!*
During their stay in the family summer house, two sisters imagine themselves as adults, once for every colour of the rainbow.
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Guide [The Guide] (Vijay Anand, 1965)
Aug
20
fasting
A scruffy looking Raju (Dev Anand) wearing the orange shawl of a holy man. DP: Fali Mistry.
Ramadan [on the ninth month of the Islamic calendar, not mid-August]: someone atones or fasts*
“These people have faith in me, and I have faith in their faith.”
– Swami Ji
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Le Horla [The Horla] (Jean-Daniel Pollet, 1966)
Aug
19
violet
The narrator enters a violet-blue room via a lavender-purple corridor (via). DP: Jean-Jacques Rochut.
Violet: a building or structure *
“Is it the form of the clouds, or the tints of the sky, or the colours of the surrounding objects which are so changeable, which have troubled my thoughts as they passed before my eyes? Who can tell?”
– Guy de Maupassant, Le Horla, 1887 (via)
Objects and rooms have distinct colours ranging from the deepest blues and violets to a pale lavender, a muted silver and shocks of yellow. The usage of colour in Le Horla is striking throughout and reminds me of how Van Gogh's paintings became increasingly colourful as his madness enveloped him.
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Procès de Jeanne d'Arc [The Trial of Joan of Arc] (Robert Bresson, 1962)
Aug
17
forgiveness
Jeanne (Florence Delay) bound to the stake. DP: Léonce-Henri Burel.
Holi: someone is forgiven (forgiveness being an important aspect of Holi)*
“Pray for me. I forgive the evil done me.”
– Jeanne d'Arc
Jeanne trusts her delusions to forgive the people who brought her to justice.
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Le camion [The Lorry] (Marguerite Duras, 1977)
Aug
16
indigo
Indigo: a building or structure*
Him: It’s a film?
Her: It would have been a film.
A truck, both the narrative structure and his (Depardieu's character) material representation. She – the director – and he – the lead actor – do a read-though while discussing her script. A communist truck driver picks up a female hitchhiker. They discuss the landscape, the cosmos, pointlessness, communism of course. All the while, the indigo truck plods on.
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Trois couleurs: Bleu [Three Colors: Blue] (Krzysztof Kieślowski, 1993)
Aug
15
cerulean
Julie (Juliette Binoche) in a blue wallpapered room, observes blue beads suspended in front of a window with a cerulean sky and ocean behind it. Throughout the story, her clothing changes from white, to black, to the darkest charcoal blue, to Prussian blue. DP: Slawomir Idziak.
Cerulean, or blue: in food or fashion*
“I'm just fine. I have everything here. I have the TV. You can see the whole world”
– the mother
How could I not pick at least one instalment of Kieślowski's Trois couleurs trilogy. Here's blue, the liberté of the tricolor. Blue occurs as the sky to fall through, the room without life, and the cloth that binds.
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Lola Montès (Max Ophüls, 1955)
Aug
14
Bavaria
Celebrating Oktoberfest [in September/October] and the Bavarian royals [rip]: a royal character or family*
“The painter takes his time. He doesn't like her dress. He doesn't like her gloves. One day he asks her if she dares pose for him – all in pink. She dares! And the king, enraptured by her pose, offers her a palace!”
– circus master
Maria Dolores Porriz y Montez, Countess von Landsfeld, Lola Montès for short, now a circus attraction, once the mistress to Ludwig I, King of Bavaria. While her fellow circus performers play Lola's former lovers, the ringmaster tells her story.
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Il fiore delle mille e una notte [Arabian Nights] (Pier Paolo Pasolini, 1974)
Aug
13
cerulean
Cerulean, or blue: a building or structure*
“Eh, i sogni a volte insegnano male, Dùnya, perché la verità intera non è mai in un solo sogno, la verità intera è in molti sogni.”
One of the many exotic locations is the مسجد شاه, [Masjed-e Shah, or Shah Mosque] in Iran with its otherworldly blue and blue-adjacent tiles.
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Il deserto rosso [Red Desert] (Michelangelo Antonioni, 1964)
Aug
12
green
Valerio (Valerio Bartoleschi) and his mother Giuliana (Monica Vitti) in an arid industrial landscape. Giuliana wears a brilliant green coat, its shade between pea green and moss green, depending on the drabness of the surroundings. DP: Carlo Di Palma.
Green: in food or fashion*
“She'd discovered a small beach far from town, with crystal-clear water and pink sand. She loved that spot. The colors of nature were so beautiful, and there was no noise. She'd leave only when the sun did too.”
– Giuliana
Antonioni's first film in colour beautifully utilises Vitti's brilliance – of her auburn hair, her porcelain teint, her vivid costumes (by Paola Carloni) – against the drab landscape.
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آداب بهاری [Adab-e Bahari / Rites of Spring] (Ali Asghar Agahbanaei, 1982)
Aug
11
spring
In a dewdrop hanging from a rose, the face of a smiling woman appears.
Dita e Verës, a pagan spring celebration from Albania, celebrated in March: a spring scene*
The restless anticipation of spring. Iran as it was before and after the 1979 toppling of the Shah. While the snow melts away, the Revolution takes place, and fresh buds appear on the rose bushes. A poem.