Author: THE HOBBLEDEHOY

Michael Stevenson, aka Dai Bando, Johnny Foreigner, Monsieur Pas De Merde, is a blogger of French and British culture. His blogs "Pas De Merde" and "The Hobbledehoy" have been called "marvelous" by some, and "meh" by others.

Film Review: Baden, Baden

Due out later this November is Rachel Lang’s debut film about a dejected young Frenchwoman co-opted to help with some bathroom remodeling for her grandma. The “Baden, Baden”movie trailer looks very funny. Check out the FrenchCulture.org review below [ – Pas De Merde – ]

Like many in her generation, 26 year-old, free-spirited Ana lives a life teetering on the edge of comedy and melodrama. After a failed experience working on a film set, she returns to her hometown and decides to focus her energy on renovating the bathroom of her spunky, aging grandmother. Over the course of a scorching summer, Ana finds herself connecting and reconnecting with lovers and friends, as her (self-)improvement project gradually becomes more than she bargained for.

BADEN BADEN is a deceptively low-key feature debut from French filmmaker Rachel Lang, anchored by a slyly compelling, effortlessly confident lead performance by Salomé Richard, Lang’s alter ego and star of her two previous short films. Equally adept at narrative minimalism, psychological portraiture, and deadpan comedy, BADEN BADEN is a character study of great penetration and charm.

 

Source: BADEN BADEN | French Culture

French women to walk out of work in protest against gender pay gap 

Women in France earn around 15.1 percent less than men, according to the latest data from the European Union’s statistics agency Eurostat, which Les Glorieuses has calculated to mean women will be essentially working for free for the rest of the year after 4:34pm on November 7.“As of 4:34pm [and 7 seconds] on November 7, women will be working ‘voluntarily’,” the organisation said in a statement on its website.

“We call on women, men, unions and feminist organisations to join the movement… and to hold events and protests in order to make income inequality a central political problem. By tackling this subject, we’re showing that the gender pay gap is not just a ‘woman’s issue’.”

Source: French women to walk out of work in protest against gender pay gap – France 24

Pauline Croze: “Success does not buy happiness”

After four years of absence, Pauline Croze returns with an album, “Bossa Nova”. A return to his first musical emotions. Notes she whispered in his teenage bedroom. Pauline Croze chose bossa nova for its fourth album. An amazing musical turn for the audience but that sounds like a homecoming for her. A hot air that lives for years, since his first love with music: “I discovered it in a movie where there is a story of impossible love. That’s what I was at that time of my adolescence. I saw myself in this character who exorcised his sentence listening to bossa nova “, says the young woman. It is in this music “the dramatic message, but the notes soaring.”

She tells her story, her way to exist: “There’s a lot of sensuality, a nonchalant sensuality that looks like me.” So for hours in his teenage bedroom, she draws, sings, and discovered a passion: “I singing phonetic way the

Source: Pauline Croze: “Success does not buy happiness”

Yann Tiersen’s Favourite Albums

Baker’s DozenIn Place: Yann Tiersen’s Favourite Albums
Fred Bowler , November 2nd, 2016 09:56


With his ninth album, EUSA, out now, the French composer and multi-instrumentalist takes Fred Jage-Bowler from the Velvets to Bill Callahan via NEU!, Vashti Bunyan and Joanna Newsom on a tour of his favourite records

READ FULL STORY at Source: The Quietus | Features | Baker’s Dozen | In Place: Yann Tiersen’s Favourite Albums

Why We Love Paris

With the Eiffel Tower as our November issue cover star, we celebrate the City of Light—just one of our readers’ favorite places, revealed in the 2016 Readers’ Choice Awards.Nobody does a pastry basket quite like the hotels of Paris—it’s a little thing, to be sure, but when you add up all the little things Paris does well, all the details it has mastered over the centuries, you’ll see why it’s one of the world’s great cities. It consistently lands on our Readers’ Choice Awards list of best international cities—as it did this year, just unveiled today—so we know our readers agree.

And we know that, no matter how golden a city may seem, even the finest face adversity: It was nearly a year ago that Paris suffered its worst attack since World War II, and since then, it has faced the invisible, lingering threat of fear, the kind that troubles locals like a nervous undercurrent, and keeps travelers from visiting.

Source: Why We Love Paris