Le Scaphandre et le Papillon |
As
the editor of French magazine ELLE, Jean-Dominique Bauby was a key
player in Parisian social and cultural circles before suffering a
massive stroke at the age of 43. He developped what doctors called a
locked-in syndrome: he lost all muscle control, save his left eyelid.
Blinking one letter at a time, he composed a book describing his new
life. As soon as it was published the book became an international
best-seller; Jean-Dominique Bauby died shortly after. This is the basis
of Julian Schnabel's enthralling film in which Jean-Dominique Bauby
summons enormous courage, determination and his soaring imagination to
escape from his trap. Tapping into the limitlessness of his memories,
fantasies, wit, and desires, he finds a way to race through experiences
of wonder and grief, sex and love, fatherhood and childhood, faith and
questioning, ecstasy and absurdity - and touches the very essence of
what it is to be human. Along the way he is buoyed by five remarkable
women: Céline, the mother of his children who remains devoted to him
despite his betrayal; Inés, the girlfriend who still haunts him;
Henriette and Marie, who give him the power to re-connect with the
world and his loved ones; and Claude, who becomes his literary
assistant.
“The liberating thing about The Diving Bell and the Butterfly
is its interlacing of realities and moods. In voiceover Amalric
embodies one aspect of the man in the diving bell; we hear his
impatience and his despair and his dirty chuckle at a joke, while the
Bauby we see on camera, with his one good, overtaxed eye, embodies
another. This flashy, self-centered man does not "earn" our sympathy in
the conventional Hollywood manner.”
Michael Phillips, Chicago Tribune
- Fri Apr 17 @ 7:45 pm
- Sun Apr 19 @ 5:45 pm
- Mon Apr 20 @ 7:55 pm
- Thu Apr 23 @ 5:30 pm
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DIRECTOR
Julian Schnabel
SCREENPLAY
Ronald Harwood. Based on Jean-
Dominique Bauby's novel
Le Scaphandre et le Papillon.
CAST
Jean-Dominique Bauby:
Mathieu Amalric
Céline: Emmanuelle Seigner
Henriette:Marie-José Croze
Claude: Anne Consigny
Marie:Olatz Lopez Garmendia
Inès: Agathe de la Fontaine
Papinou:Max Von Sydow
AWARDS
Best Director, Technical Grand Prize,
Cannes Film Festival (2007).
Best Director, Independent Spirit Awards
(2008).
Running time: 112’
Production: France / USA, 2007
Rating: Rated PG-13
Gauge: 35mm, DVD (color)
GENRE
Drama
DISTRIBUTOR
Swank Motion Pictures |
La Faute à Fidel!
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Anna
is a nine-year old precocious girl . Her life is rather simple and
comfortable, regulated by habits and order. Her family is wealthy, she
goes to a private religious school and often visits her grandparents
who have a wine estate in Bordeaux. One day, her father's sister is
forced to leave Spain - her husband
has just been killed by Franco's
police force. This event is experienced as an electroshock by Anna's
parents and they change their political views radically. Both become
left-wing revolutionaries and Anna's stable life goes awry. Women's
rights,
freedom of speech, democracy, and demonstration are now at the
forefront of Anna's parents' lives. At first, Anna is not interested in
any of it . She strives to hold on to the comfort she is used to and
she is very unhappy when the family moves to a smaller apartment. She
also has to adapt to her parents' new lifestyle as they have less time
to take care of her. Yet, she also tries to make sense of the larger
political events that shake her life and she does not settle for the
simplistic answers that adults give children.
"One of those rare films that maintains unwavering fidelity to a child's view of the world (a lineage that includes The 400 Blows and Lukas Moodysson's Together).
It's not merely a snapshot of the revolutionary politics of
1970-71; it's about the upheavals of childhood, which are timeless and
universal."
Tom Beer, Time Out New York
Blame It On Fidel
- Fri Apr 17 @ 3:45 pm
- Sat Apr 18 @ 8:15 pm
- Tue Apr 21 @ 5:30 pm
- Wed Apr 22 @ 5:30 pm
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DIRECTOR
Julie Gavras
SCREENPLAY
Julie Gavras, Arnaud Cathrine.
Based on Domitilla Calamai's novel
Tutta colpa di Fidel.
CAST
Anna: Nina Kervel-Bey
Marie: Julie Depardieu
Fernando: Stefano Accorsi
François: Benjamin Feuillet
Bonne Maman:Martine Chevallier
Bon Papa:Olivier Perrier
Running time: 99’
Production: France / Italy, 2006
Rating: Not rated
Gauge: 35mm, DVD (color)
GENRE
Drama
DISTRIBUTOR
Koch Lorber Films |
Innocence |
A subterranean
rumbling resonates in the heart of a forest. Hidden by foliage,
a metal grate reveals underground passageways leading to a
boarding school separated from the outside world by a huge
wall. A group of young schoolgirls opens a coffin only to
find six-year-old Iris. Bianca, the oldest student, introduces
Iris to this strange world where there are neither men nor
adults except the old servants and two young teachers: Mesdemoiselles
Edith and Eva. Iris quickly discovers the rules of the school
where teaching centers on dance, physical education and biology.
Obedience is paramount and any boarder who rebels or escapes
is condemned to serve the others forever. Nothing overly dramatic
happens in Innocence, but the anxiety and fear the film provokes
force the viewer to wonder what will take place next. Everything
indicates that these girls are being groomed for something.
Is it a rite of passage preparing them for puberty and adulthood,
or something sinister? Lucile Hadzihalilovic creates a world
oscillating between realism and fantasy through astute lighting,
intense colors, and virtually no background music.
“Hadzihalilovic
steadfastly resists the temptation to explain the strange
universe she presents. Those expecting answers may be
frustrated but the spell cast by her haunting film lingers
long after the closing credits, like a damp mist after
a storm.”
Sura Wood, The Hollywood Reporter
- Sat Apr 18 @ 5:45 pm
- Sun Apr 19 @ 8:10 pm
- Tu Apr 21 @ 7:50 pm
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DIRECTOR:
Lucile Hadzihalilovic
SCREENPLAY:
Lucile Hadzihalilovic, based on the novella “Mine-Haha,
or The Corporal Education of Young Girls” by Frank
Wedekind
CAST::
Iris: Zoé Auclair
Bianca: Bérangère Haubruge
Mlle Eva: Marion Cotillard
Mlle Edith: Hélène de Fougerolles
AWARDS:
Young Director’s Prize,
San Sebastian Film Festival
(2004)
BEST FILM AND BEST CINEMATOGRAPHY:
Stockholm Film
Festival (2004)
Running time: 115’
Production: France / Belgium/
United Kingdom, 2004
Rating: Not Rated
Gauge: 35mm, DVD (color)
DISTRIBUTOR:
Leisure Time Features
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Une Vieille Maîtresse |
The
young and dissolute Ryno de Marigny is betrothed to marry
Hermangarde, an extremely virtuous gem of the French aristocracy. Their
future wedding is on everyone's lips. But some, who wish to prevent the
union despite the young
couple's mutual love, whisper that the young
man will never break off his passionate love affair with Vellini, “a
capricious flamenca who can outstare the sun.” Ryno's attempt to
remain faithful to his wife Hermangarde profoundly fails as Vellini
reappears in Ryno's life, offering him the passion and emotional
connection he lacks in his marriage. His reluctant obsession with
Vellini eventually overtakes his conscience, as he succumbs to the
deceitful path of infidelity. In a rush of confidences, betrayals and
secrets, facing conventions and destiny, feelings will prove their
strength to be invincible. France's foremost provocatrice, director
Catherine Breillat continues to surprise as she pursues her career-long
interest in the ramifications of female desire. Breillat's sumptuous
adaptation of Jules-Amédée Barbey d'Aurevilly's Une Vieille Maîtresse
is set during the reign of Louis Philippe (1830-1848), but this
dangerous liaison is recognizably modern. Disrupting cinematic as well
as social conventions, Breillat's point is anchored in the force of
Asia Argento's carnality.
“Catherine
Breillat has spent more than 30 years showing a knack for directing
individuals wearing no costumes at all, so it's doubly heartening she
knows precisely what to do with lovesick characters in lavish costumes
in An Old Mistress.
Here the courtliness and formal cruelty of 19th-century French manners
work in her favor. Breillat freely stamps her strong and singular
feminine insights on a man's material.”
Lisa Nesselson, Variety
- Sat Apr 18 @ 10:15 pm
- Mon Apr 20 @ 5:30 pm
- Thu Apr 23 @ 7:50 pm
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DIRECTOR
Catherine Breillat
SCREENPLAY
Catherine Breillat. Based on Jules-
Amédée Barbey d'Aurevilly’s 1851 novel
Une Vieille Maîtresse.
CAST
Vellini:Asia Argento
Ryno de Marigny:Fu'ad Ait Aattou
Hermangarde:Roxane Mesquida
La marquise de Flers:Claude Sarraute
La comtesse d'Artelles:Yolande Moreau
Le vicomte de Prony:Michael Lonsdale
Mme de Solcy:Anne Parillaud
Running time: 114’
Production: France, 2007
Rating: Not rated
Gauge: 35mm, DVD (color)
GENRE
Drama
DISTRIBUTOR
New Yorker Films |
Le Voyage du Ballon Rouge |
A
mysterious red balloon affectionately follows Simon, a precocious,
wide-eyed seven-year-old boy, around Paris. His mother Suzanne is a
puppeteer who uses her vocal talents to bring life to the shows she
writes. Single mother of two, Simon
and an older sister, Suzanne
went through a bad divorce and is now struggling with her multi-tasking
as an artist, mother, and landlord. Completely absorbed in her new show
and overwhelmed by the complications of modern daily life, she
decides
to hire Song Fang as Simon's nanny.The young, sensitive Taiwanese film
student in Paris will take care of his needs, pick him up from school,
cook for him, oversee his piano lessons and be a companion to an
inquisitive, gifted and
very lonely boy. Simon and Song watch as the
adults around them come apart at the seams, with joy and anguish, love
and hatred. They come to form a unique extended family, thoroughly
interdependent yet all lost in separate thoughts
and dreams. Inspired by Albert Lamorisse's classic 1956 short The Red Balloon,
the fluid, unparalleled elegance of Hou's first French-language film
finds grace in the simplest details, and gently discovers a Paris
previously unseen.
“Through
a series of quiet, seemingly offhand yet exquisitely conceived
interludes, Mr. Hou introduces us to three fully inhabited people who
embody the careless joys of childhood, the hopes of young adulthood and
the burdens of older age. Mr. Hou arranges these bodies with his usual
tender touch; his mastery of film space remains assured as ever, even
many miles from home, as does his work with actors… lovely, lovely
film…”
Manohla Dargis, The New York Times
- Sat Apr 18 @ 3:15 pm
- Sun Apr 19 @ 3:15 pm
- Wed Apr 22 @ 7:30 pm
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DIRECTOR
Hou Hsiao-hsien
SCREENPLAY
Hou Hsiao-hsien
CAST
Suzanne: Juliette Binoche
Song: Song Fang
Simon: Simon Iteanu
Marc: Hippolyte Girardot
Louise: Louise Margolin
Running time: 113’
Production: France, 2007
Rating: Not rated
Gauge: 35mm, DVD (color)
GENRE
Drama
DISTRIBUTOR
New Yorker Films |
The Red Balloon
and
White Mane
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Newly restored and available for the first time in almost a decade, Albert Lamorisse's The Red Balloon remains
one of the most beloved children's films of all time. In this
deceptively simple, nearly wordless tale, a young boy discovers a stray
balloon that seems to have a mind of its own. Wandering through the
streets of Paris, the two become inseparable, to the surprise of the
neighborhood and the envy of other children. Winner of the Palme d’Or
at the 1956 Cannes Film Festival, The Red Balloon
has enchanted the young—and the young at heart—for decades, and it will
surely find a new generation of fans with this rerelease.
In the south of France is a near-desert region called La Camargue.
There lives White Mane, a magnificent stallion and the leader of a herd
of wild horses too proud to let themselves be broken in by humans. Only
Folco, a young fisherman, manages to tame him. A strong friendship
grows between the boy and the horse, but they must elude the wrangler
and his herdsmen to live freely. Janus Films brings this
film, beloved by generations of French children, to North America in a
glorious new restoration. (White Mane is presented in a new English translation, faithful to the original French voiceover and dialogue, spoken by Peter Strauss.)
- Sat. April 18 @ 1:30 pm
- Sun. April 19 @ 1:30 pm
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THE RED BALLOON
Albert Lamorisse
France 1956
34 mins
WHITE MANE
Albert Lamorisse
France 1953
40 mins |