[NB: Internet access in my summer idyll was about as reliable as....well, something that's not terribly reliable. This was meant to have been posted days ago. My apologies.]
Greetings from Finistère...or as it's known in its literal translation, the end of the world. Western France is nothing short of magical (did I really just type that?) and there's a part of me that possesses an overwhelming desire to stay. Peeking into a real estate office yesterday, I discovered that for about 300,000 Euro (less than the price of a shabby studio apartment in NYC) you can own a four-story, sixteen room chateau in the hills overlooking the bay of Morlaix. Benten France is beginning to sound like a wonderful idea....
But what about le cinema? While it's true that I can count the local movie houses on one hand, there's more to see than just Le Chevalier Noir. In fact, two upcoming New York Film Festival titles are currently playing -- Hong Sang-soo's Night and Day, and Ari Folman's Waltz With Bashir. Pas mal, non? I was too busy stuffing my face with various fruits de la mer to check out any of the cinematic offerings, but I did manage to catch a couple of films while in Paris.
Though terribly jetlagged and outright exhausted, I dragged myself out on my first night to catch La Ronde de l'aube (aka The Tarnished Angels) which was playing as part of the Douglas Sirk: Prince of Melodrama retrospective at La Filmothèque du Quartier Latin. Having never seen it on the big screen, there was no way I could pass up an opportunity to catch this Faulkner adaptation in all its black-and-white cinemascope glory. I wasn't disappointed. The print was pristine, and much to my surprise (given that most of Paris had seemingly left for August holidays) the theater was booked solid with a mixture of hipster cinephiles and old-timers who remember it back from '58. The experience was almost ruined by my neighbor, a 50-ish professorial type who was continually pointing out Sirk's nuances to his companion, a young-enough-to-be-his-daughter "student" (who just happened to be nestling in his arms.) Fortunately he stopped after being shushed by about a dozen people, all of whom were no doubt jealous of their budding May-December romance. Aah, Paris. I mean...ick.
Sirk's darkly tragic existential tale of a heroic pilot (Robert Stack), his wife (Dorothy Malone), and a dedicated journalist (Rock Hudson) is far more psychologically complex than I remembered, and the swaggering machismo is priceless. (Stack offering up his wife for sixty minutes in exchange for a plane still manages to shock.) On the way out of the theater, a slightly agitated woman asked me (in French) exactly what Sirk saw in Dorothy Malone, and why he would work with her after her terrible performance in Written on the Wind. A lack of confidence in my French combined with nothing to say on the matter resulted in a simple "Je ne sais pas" on my part.
Two days afterwards I ventured into Gomorrah, the Cannes Grand Prize award winner. Admittedly, I had a tough time keeping up with the slang-heavy French subtitles, but I was notably impressed by what I managed to glean. Fortunately I'll have an opportunity to catch this in a few weeks at the NYFF.
Mike Leigh's latest film has also just opened, and I love the the title has been changed from the idiomatic Happy-Go-Lucky to the simple imperative Be Happy!
A brief note, unrelated to film. Americans in Paris. Crikey. I guess they're actively doing their part to keep the myth alive, if you know what I mean. Well done.
Finally, my trip to western France has inspired me to do an all-Brittany round for the forthcoming Screen Capture Quiz. I'm pretty confident I've got a dozen lined up. Check back Wednesday for week 1!
Happy Memorial Labor Day!
Welcome back! (But it was Labor Day yesterday--not Memorial Day--you've been out of the country too long!)
Posted by: Hotspur | 2008.09.02 at 11:17 AM
Ah, I had hoped you went to Nord, which is my favorite area of France (shoot me, I'm a bit perverse). Presumably, you've already gone to the cathedral at St. Quimper, which is quite charming.
I've been watching the Rob Nilsson retrospective here in San Francisco. Rob has finished a series of 9 (!) films (called, appropriately, the 9@Night series) that he and an acting workshop have been creating here in SF about our local version of the Bowery over the last 14 (!) years.
1. Rob has no distribution for these films.
2. The films are extraordinary. They are the best movies ever about San Francisco (indeed, I'm tempted to argue they are actually the only films I've ever seen that are about San Francisco - as opposed to the innumerable movies merely set in San Francisco - but that tell us nothing about the real city).
3. Ray Carney (and, well, me, after seeing the series) think Rob may well be the best film-maker in America. The films of the 9@Night Series are the equals of such movies as Killer of Sheep, Coming Apart, Faces, Wanda, My Brother's Wedding, Mickey and Nickie, the usual honor roll.
Pick up the phone and make the deal.
Posted by: alex | 2008.09.02 at 06:39 PM