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Du côté de la côte [Along the Coast] (Agnès Varda, 1958)
Aug
9
yellow
Yellow, in food or fashion*
“Tourists prefer the trendy colors, yellow and blue. Pacing fancies, hotels are painted yellow and blue. Blue wins. All women want to be fashionable. All women wear blue, except the English, those learning to swim, and the Germans, who are dedicated to green.”
– narrator
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La baie des anges [Bay of Angels] (Jacques Demy, 1963)
Aug
6
mercredi
The bank where Jean Fournier (Claude Mann) works. A wall calendar, slightly tilted, reads Août 6 Mercredi. DP: Jean Rabier.
“Life has its tricks. Its oddities.”
– Jackie Demaistre
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Paparazzi (Jacques Rozier, 1963/1964)
Jul
29
A character has a camera or takes photos*
It buzzes on the set of Le mépris. These mosquitos, the Italians say paparazzi, swarm La Bardot and making it merely impossible for anyone – themselves included – to do their job. But Bardot knows them, too well, and gives them what they want, when she wants it.
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Les trois couronnes du matelot [Three Crowns of the Sailor] (Raúl Ruiz, 1983)
Jul
25
1958
Prostitute María (Nadège Clair) sitting on her bed. The bed is covered in dolls. DP: Sacha Vierny.
“On the night of July 25, 1958 I killed Ladislaw Zukarevitch, antique dealer, my mentor, my master in the art of polishing diamonds, my tutor at Warsaw Theological School.”
– the student
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Estate violenta [Violent Summer] (Valerio Zurlini, 1959)
Jul
25
1943
A large radio on a small pedestal. A perpetual wall calendar next to it reads DOMENICA 25 LUGLIO. DP: Tino Santoni.
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L'argent [Money] (Robert Bresson, 1983)
Jul
22
A man at an ATM holds on to a Visa credit card with tweezers. DPs: Pasqualino De Santis & Emmanuel Machuel.
Everything's expensive: someone is a at bank or ATM*
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La grande bouffe (Marco Ferreri, 1973)
Jul
21
A character pigging out*
“The most revolting film I have ever seen”
Four hedonistic gourmands throw a party of the flesh, of meat, of lust, and death.
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La piscine [The Swimming Pool] (Jacques Deray, 1969)
Jul
20
“I thought you'd be hungry, maybe.”
Schneider and Ronet's characters go get their groceries in a tiny, surprisingly well-stocked-with-Asian-food-items French corner shop, ánd manage to find all the ingredients needed. One rookie mistake: Uncle Ben's. Of all the rice in the world…
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Estate violenta [Violent Summer] (Valerio Zurlini, 1959)
Jul
19
Roberta (Eleonora Rossi Drago) and Carlo (Jean-Louis Trintignant). DP: Tino Santoni.
Characters go on a date, or fall in love*
“It would be thrilling if you were willing,
and if it can never be, pity me,
for you were born to be kissed,
I can’t resist, you are temptation,
and I am yours!”
– Nacio Herb Brown & Arthur Freed, Temptation (1933)
On a beautiful summer day in Rimini, Carlo, the handsome son from a bourgeois home, saves a little girl and becomes infatuated with the girl's mother, a young widow years his senior. Set in July 1943, the events in the outer world (poss. spoilers) and the fate of the two uneven lovers slowly come to their logical conclusion.
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La collectionneuse [The Collector] (Éric Rohmer, 1967)
Jul
18
Someone's all bundled up*. No list of summer films is complete without Éric Rohmer.
“I even tried not to think. I was face-to-face alone with the sea, far from cruises and beaches, fulfilling a childhood dream put off year after year. I lost myself completely in the play of shadow and light, sinking into a lethargy heightened by the water. That state of passivity, of complete availability, promised to last much longer than the euphoria of one’s first summer dip into the ocean. I could easily see myself spending a whole month this summer this way.”
– Adrien
An art dealer and his writer friend plan to spend the summer together in a villa on the Côte d'Azur. A young woman, a collector of sorts, disrupts their retreat.