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Petit à petit [Little by Little] (Jean Rouch, 1970)
Sep
3
Skyscraper Day
Damouré (Damouré Zika) measures a Parisian with craniology callipers. No skyscraper in this still, but there's scaffolding. DP: Jean Rouch.
In the sequel to Rouch's Jaguar (1967), Damouré wants a high rise for his Niger business with “as many floors as he has wives”. He decides to travel to Paris to learn about the construction of such building, and what made Paris to the Paris of today. While there, he gets distracted by the peculiarities of the French natives. Worried about Damouré's increasingly puzzling postcards, his company sends out Lam (Lam Ibrahim Dia) to bring him home.
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Mon oncle (Jacques Tati, 1958) / Koolhaas Houselife (Ila Bêka + Louise Lemoine, 2008)
Aug
29
grey
A delivery man in front of the gates of Villa Arpel (via), and custodian Guadalupe Acedo working the lift in Maison à Bordeaux. DP of Mon Oncle: Jean Bourgoin.
[A favourite] colour: grey*
Approaching the 60s, Mr Hulot finally switches from black-and-white to colour. Suddenly, we see that his suit is a beigeish grey and so is the Arpels' house, that modernist masterpiece designed by Tati. The beloved luddite struggles with hypermodern people and their hypermodern constructs, much alike the future Hulot from Playtime (1967).
– A house like yours must be such a job!
– Oh, a leaf! Ah, yes it's a chore.
– Admit it, you love it.
In similar absurd fashion, Guadalupe Acedo, cleaning lady, works her way through Rem Koolhaas' Maison à Bordeaux (1998) in Bêka and Lemoine's Koolhaas Houselife (2008). Too steep are the stairs, too leaky everything else. Levelheaded, she does her thing; a small beacon of romantic practicality in a world of absurd efficiency.
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Czułe miejsca [Tender Spots] (Piotr Andrejew, 1981)
Aug
28
1998
Janek (Michał Juszczakiewicz) and Ewa (Hanna Dunowska) in embrace on a bed. DPs: Jerzy Zieliński & Ryszard Lenczewski.
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Seksmisja [Sexmission] (Juliusz Machulski, 1984)
Aug
9
Two poor captured extinct men enjoying breakfast and cigarettes. DP: Jerzy Łukaszewicz.
– Men are extinct.
– They were not mammoths!
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Sedmikrásky [Daisies] (Věra Chytilová, 1966)
Jul
25
a girls' night out
Marie I and Marie II (Jitka Cerhová and Ivana Karbanová respectively) having a heck of a time. DP: Jaroslav Kučera.
A girls' night out: women having fun on their own[???]*
Marie II: “But I'm happy.”
Marie I: “I'm so happy, too.”
Two young women called Marie pull destructive, anarchist pranks.
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Dillinger è morto [Dillinger Is Dead] (Marco Ferreri, 1969)
Jul
25
1934
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血は渇いてる [Chi wa kawaiteru / Blood Is Dry] (Yoshishige Yoshida, 1960)
Jul
17
beer
A man and woman share a meal in a top-floor restaurant. The view is numerous identical modern buildings. She's smoking and they both clutch large beer mugs. Two dishes hold small bits of food with toothpicks stuck into them. DP: Tōichirō Narushima.
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Ucho [The Ear] (Karel Kachyňa, 1970)
Jul
17
Party member, and rather drunk, Anna (Jiřina Bohdalová) and her newspaper hat at the officials' party. DP: Josef Illík.
“The 17th of July. Comrade Anna is not lying!”
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Rat Life and Diet in North America (Joyce Wieland, 1968)
Jul
4
Independence Day
Rats – gerbils actually – nibbling on the Stars and Stripes (via). DP: Joyce Wieland.
“This film tells a story of rebels (played by real rats) and cops (played by real cats). After a long domination by cats, the rats escape from prison (this is their rebellion) and find refuge in Canada. There, they feed on organic produce from a garden where the grass hasn’t been sprayed with DDT.”
– Jonas Mekas, via
French-Canadian patriot Joyce Wieland tells a fable of freedom.
Coincidentally, the Canadian city of Trois-Rivières, scene of the final battle of the American Revolutionary War, also celebrates an Independence Day on the fourth of July.
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Divorzio all'italiana [Divorce Italian Style] (Pietro Germi, 1961)
Jul
3
A closeup of a man's hand holding up a diary. It's the third of July. DPs: Leonida Barboni & Carlo Di Palma.
Additionally, IMDb writes that “director Pietro Germi filmed a close-up of the front page of a newspaper announcing Yuri Gagarin's flight around the earth on April 12th 1961.”