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Plein soleil [Purple Noon] (René Clément, 1960)
Jun
15
croissants
Tom Ripley (Alain Delon) going though his passport over breakfast. Multiple passport photos, a fountain pen, and a magnifying glass take precedence over his fresh croissants. DP: Henri Decaë.
“Why bother having money when you can spend other people's?”
– Philippe Greenleaf
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Série noire (Alain Corneau, 1979)
Apr
9
canned pilchards
Franck Poupart (Patrick Dewaere) about to dig into a can of pilchards. A pile of French women's magazine “marie claire” is next to him on an otherwise bare coffee table. DP: Pierre-William Glenn.
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Io la conoscevo bene [I Knew Her Well] (Antonio Pietrangeli, 1965)
Apr
2
cocktails
A lone Roberto (Enrico Maria Salerno) at a lively cocktail party in Rome's hypermodern EUR district. DP: Armando Nannuzzi.
“Trouble is, she likes everything. She's always happy. She desires nothing, envies no one, is curious about nothing. You can't surprise her. She doesn't notice the humiliations, though they happen to her every day. It all rolls off her back like some waterproof material. Zero ambition. No moral code. Not even a whore's love of money.”
– the writer
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Max et les ferrailleurs [Max and the Junkmen] (Claude Sautet, 1971)
Mar
16
Lily (Schneider) and Max (Piccoli) at a small table decked with good food, good wine, and quite a few wads of cash. DP: René Mathelin.
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Pickpocket (Robert Bresson, 1959)
Mar
12
Michel (Martin LaSalle) in a busy café, observing. An emptied water glass next to the thief should make him look like a paying guest. DP: Léonce-Henri Burel.
“Can we not admit that certain skilled men, gifted with intelligence, talent or even genius, and thus indispensable to society, rather than stagnate, should be free to disobey laws in certain cases?”
– Michel
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Les scélérats [The Wretches] (Robert Hossein, 1960)
Feb
26
canapés
Maid Louise (Perrette Pradier) holding a platter with canapés at a black tie party. Observing her is the master of the house, Jess Rooland (Robert Hossein). DP: Jacques Robin.
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Les yeux cernés [Marked Eyes] (Robert Hossein, 1964)
Jan
11
baguette
A young woman with big eyes and a dark bob (Marie-France Pisier) picks crumbs out of a fresh baguette. She's somewhere in a dreary small town. The snow's almost gone. DP: Jean Boffety.
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Un condamné à mort s'est échappé ou Le vent souffle où il veut [A Man Escaped] (Robert Bresson, 1956)
Dec
29
slop
A man's hand holding a spoon at a perpendicular angle. DP: Léonce-Henri Burel.
“Time to empty our slop pails and run a little water over our faces, then back to our cells for the entire day.”
– Fontaine
viewColloque de chiens (1977)
Monique (Silke Humel, R) spending Christmas Eve in a bar, looking for a way out. She's speaking to an elderly man in an expensive tuxedo. Is this it? DP: Denis Lenoir; still photographer Patrice Morere.
December 24: the night before Christmas (Christmas Eve)
Colloque de chiens (Raúl Ruiz, 1977)
“Nobody knows why Monique, the cold and dry voiced whore, bears in her eyes the sadness and tiredness of her past.”
Filmed during an actors' strike, Raúl Ruiz's Colloque de chiens consists for the most part of still photographs with mixed in stolen moving footage of unsuspecting bystanders and stray dogs. Told in fotonovela format, we follow the pitiful account of Monique, who as a young girl, learns that her mother is not who she thinks she is. Rejected, she throws herself into a life of vice until she meets Henri, a handsome young television repairman. Together they buy a small café, and are happy for once. But the cyclical nature of life determines her faith.
Raúl Ruiz's work is, like Henri's modus operandi, determined by maps and patterns. Even in the short comically melodramatic breathe of Colloque de chiens, the map has been laid out for Ruiz's later, much more complex narrative.
Colloque opens in a barren landscape. There are the skeletal towers of a nearby city, and the endless barks of abandoned dogs. Obscured by tall reeds, a blown-up photograph of a young man. The face, soft and familiar, a distant memory.
“He wanted to be returned to the world of his childhood and to this woman who was perhaps waiting for him” –Chris Marker, dialogue from La Jetée (1962)
Amongst bare winter bushes a large photo of a friendly, young, familiar looking man. In the background against a grey sky multiple white apartment buildings.
#Bales2023FilmChallenge #RaúlRuiz #SilkeHumel #EvaSimonet #RobertDarmel #JorgeArriagada #DenisLenoir #PatriceMorere #drama #crime #melodrama #ShortFilm #photography #animals #gender #prostitution #France #1970s ★★★★☆
#todo
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La baie des anges [Bay of Angels] (Jacques Demy, 1963)
Dec
23
pears
A blonde Moreau at a restaurant table with a man seen from the back. There are several semi-empty wine glasses and pears sliced lengthwise on a plate, covered with a napkin. Jeanne's character Jackie Demaistre is holding a small sheet of paper with a schematic drawing of a roulette wheel while throwing the man a sceptical glance. DP: Jean Rabier.
“We'll go back to Nice tomorrow. The Bay of Angels brings us luck.”
– Jean Fournier
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