Filmbrain's Screen Capture Quiz: Round 17, Week 11

Ok, perhaps last week's quiz was a bit too difficult. For whereas few had problems spotting La Cérémonie from the week before, only five people were able to identify Chabrol's Au Coeur du Mensonge (The Color of Lies). Made just four years after La Cérémonie, it's the start, in my opinion, of a somewhat dry period for Chabrol, where his films become increasingly more by-the-numbers. (That said, I think last year's A Girl Cut in Two is a remarkable return to form.)

A tale of infidelity and a horrific crime, The Color of Lies suffers from thin characters -- nobody is developed much beyond the superficial, which is a shame given the rich subject matter. That's Jacques Gamblin and Antoine de Caunes in the photo, the latter of whom had a brief part in the truly awful (and awfully creepy) Mr. Bean's Holiday, which I had the misfortune to see on an airplane.

In other Filmbrain-related news, I've been preparing for an interview with Hong Sang-soo for the DVD release of Woman on the Beach, which New Yorker is releasing in December. I'm looking forward to it. And for those that have been asking, my Synecdoche, New York review (if you can call it that) is, Buddha-willing, just a few days away.

This week: Brittany by way of New York City? This is from the final scene of a truly magnificent film, though one that's not without its detractors. I promise that next week's quiz, the final one, won't be as difficult. Name the film. Submit your answers to this address. Good luck!

Comments

[Richard Jensen]

I saw "Synecdoche, New York" in Seattle last week after the election. And I gotta tell you, for a film that deals with death and decay, I walked out oddly jazzed. There's something about watching a filmmaker take an idea and push it all the way to the edge.
The unexamined life may not be worth living but the examined one is no bed of roses either.

[S'z]

Looks like one of those répérages by Alain Resnais ... cf. his books with pictures of the same name.

[colinr]

However if you think Mr Bean's Holiday is the worst thing Antoine de Caunes has been associated with think of those of us in Britain - for nine years he hosted the end of the pier style comic smut magazine show Eurotrash, along with Jean Paul Gaultier for the first four seasons.

It is quite difficult to take either of them seriously now after years of seeing them introduce clips of naked Germans, old men taking plaster casts of the breasts of young ladies, making causal chitchat with the cripplingly (and fatally) endowed Lolo Ferrari (in order to introduce short, but quite funny, meta-segments such as "Lolo lies down" or "Lolo bounces on a trampoline for a while") and introducing the latest awful generic Euro-pop band to play the show out!

It was mesmerisingly awful, yet compulsive watching in those pre-Internet days! Around the turn of the century as soon as people could easily access pornography, various freakish variety acts and German David Hasslehoff tribute bands at the click of a mouse the show sadly ended. Ah, those were more innocent days...!

[Saladinho]

Did anyone ever answer this? I'm sure they have. It's Mon Oncle D'Amerique by Resnais. I just discovered this blog. Excellent stuff. Now I have another excuse to rent Synecdoche again, to see the blog extra, which I haughtily eschewed before.