Category: Culture

Movie Review: Montparnasse Bienvenue

 

SCREENDAILY
A fearless, powerhouse performance by Laetitia Dosch infuses every frame of Montparnasse Bienvenue (Jeune Femme), the kinetic, incident-packed portrait of rudderless yet resilient Paula, a 31-year-old woman in emotional free-fall. This first film by writer-director Léona Serraille is full of snap and surprises as energetic scatterbrain Paula ricochets from situation to situation after getting dumped by a lover — her former teacher and prominent photographer Joachim (Gregoire Monsaingeon) — with whom she lived for a decade. Following its debut in Cannes (Un Certain Regard) this should travel.

We meet Paula pounding on a door — first with her fist and then with her forehead — demanding to be let in. In a sequence at the hospital where the resulting gash is treated, we witness Paula’s manic gift for navel-centered gab and her oblivious knack for casually insulting the very people trying to help her. She’s a walking train wreck who manages to lurch from station to station as we look on. There’s literally never a dull moment. [ . . . ] READ FULL REVIEW

Marie Richeux, what movie buff are you? 

Back on France Culture with ‘By Les Temps qui cour’ (which replaces ‘Les Nouvelles Vagues’ since the beginning of the school year), the passionate and thoughtful Marie Richeux also released at the end of August her third book, Climats de France, a rich exploration and poetic of Franco-Algerian relations taking as a point of departure his childhood in a city of Meudon-la-Forêt. We wanted to know which films water this great thirsty for culture.

Three Favorite Films of All Time

King of the Wind and Electric Queens  (2014) by Cédric Dupire and Gaspard Kuentz, a so-called “documentary” experience about a fair in India that never clearly reveals its stake and is so powerful in the electricity of this moment. The Lesser Mantra  (1997) by Fernand Deligny, Josée Manenti and Jean-Pierre Daniel. His film shows, like his books, how to question the way we look at others, and to make this interrogation the very subject of a link (therefore a cinema) is fertile. The Wonders  (2014) Alice Rohrwacher. It is so beautiful. Amongst other things, there is this scene where the two sisters look with concentration at the way the sun settles on the floor and the walls. It is very moving [ . . . ]

Read the Full Interview at: Marie Richeux, what movie buff are you? – THREE COLOURS

Why Agnes Varda Is the Coolest Oscar Nomineev

This year, director Agnès Varda became the oldest Academy Award nominee in history when her documentary, Face Places, about street artist JR, was nominated in Best Documentary Feature category this year. This is just one of the many reasons that Varda is one of––if not THE––coolest Oscar nominee of all time. More thoughts below [ . . . ]

Source: Why Agnes Varda Is the Coolest Oscar Nominee | French Culture