French films are shit. Porquoi?

certainly most of the directors whose new films I'll pay to see are the vets I know (Techine, Assayas et al)

Bonello and Dumont continue to make excellent films BYMMV

Dumont, Denis, Assayas def. all world class imho. Looking forward to the new Gaspar Noe, which was filmed in French.

Dumont ugh

Bonello series recomms? I've only seen House of Pleasures; Saint Laurent opens imminently.

http://www.filmlinc.com/films/series/i-put-a-spell-on-you-the-films-of-bertrand-bonello

My list:

1. Saint Laurent
2. On War
3. House of Tolerance/Pleasures
4. The Pornographer
5. Tiresia

Haven't seen Something Organic or the shorts or the documentary.

I don't know. I think he's very interesting, and I love the chance to binge on a new filmmaker. But his early stuff is a bit impersonal, it's only from On War and onwards that he really begins finding his own style. Saint Laurent is a really good gay film as well, I think. A lot of the interesting things with Bonello is the way he discusses sex and gender, but in his early films and can be so caught up in 'new extremity' thinking. There are some good points about how society views transgendered people in Tiresia, or porn in The Pornographer, but they kinda drown in all the blood and the sex of it all.

But the dirty truth is that the real must-see in that program is Antoine Barraud's Portrait of the Artist, in which Bonello plays the lead. That one sums up pretty much everything Bonello tries to get at about 'monsters' and sex and gender, but in a much more entertaining package. That is my major discovery of 2015 so far, I really loved it.

thx v much

That Tomboy film was good. Its director has now made Girlhood, which seems exciting

For search purposes, Céline Sciamma

jeezus, as usual those Linc Center schedules are murder on people with weekday jobs and who like to eat dinner before 9:30pm.

Saw the Girlhood trailer - riding the 'female friendship' bag (re: Ferrante). Also had La Haine vibes - in any case worth a look.

When I think of French cinema, I can find nobody like Haneke or Almodovar or even Sorrentino, who's films are guaranteed release in a small market like Denmark.

Amodovar is a joke. Sorrentino has probably made his best film. Haneke...get the feeling he won't make another great film (no reason for thinking this except he has made many of 'em over a long period of time).

There are always 2-3 films from France that will be good, but its mostly froth. Like most places.

Sorry to complete the above - A lot of the time there is a price to pay to make sure your films get into a screen.

Dumont, who is probably the best current French cinema has - struggles to get a screening here. Carlos - five hour cut, know its LOL TV but it works as cinema - didn't even get a decent run in the French film institute here.

Eden reminded me of The Last Days of Disco a bit, although it's more of a mood piece. At one point, when Paul DJs the wedding after his fall from grace, I even thought of This Is Spinal Tap--it's basically his gig at the military base. Think I recognized maybe five or six songs (including Jaydee's "Plastic Dreams," which a few months ago I mentioned to a friend was the only Christgau single-of-the-year I'd never heard, until I heard it and realized that I did know it); someone immersed in this might find the soundtrack woefully off the mark, but I thought the music was good. On the Assayas thread someone posted about similarities to Something in the Air, which he liked better; I preferred Eden. Great ending that some will find cloying. If you've seen this, who is the actress who gives Paul the Robert Creeley book? She might even be well known...Can't locate her in the credits, and I'm positive I've seen her before--she's something of a Meg Foster lookalike.

yikes Saint Laurent IS 150 MINS

He. But it flies by and there's quite a lot of full frontal male nudity. And it's Bonello's best and very worth seeing. Also, it's a minute less than Batman v Superman!

Qui est-ce que tu trouve plus sympa -- Frederique ou Pauline -- et comme un copain (pas une copine (neutre, si c'est possible))?

pardon -- trouves

Ca dépend...?

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CvNo7c7WAAAt_P7.jpg

Bravo

I'm actually starting to feel that this might be slightly true? At least this year. tt was bemoaning how all the French films she's seen recently have the same tiresome feel

I take it that Verhoeven's "Elle" isn't widely released yet

bullshit, try le cinema americain

Elle played 32 N American screens last weekend, doing OKish.

Didn't see many American films I liked this year either. Hurry up and release the Lonergan already

speaking of shit, and french films, it's almost time again to watch "pere noel est un ordure"

i enjoyed seeing that at MoMA a few years ago

Elle played 32 N American screens last weekend, doing OKish.

They probably should have marketed it as a comedy.

well it is that, but partly something very much not.

I wouldn't say there have been 10 French films that are must-see in any given year in my film-going lifetime. It doesn't work like that.

Every year the Glasgow Film Festival takes part in a season of French cinema that features quite a lot of films by new or young French filmmakers, so it still feels like French is a productive cinema country (more so than the UK, anyway). These are films in an arthouse mode, generally - I have no idea about what constitutes 'popular' cinema in France now, if it even exists (I remember family holidays in France in the 1970s, when you would see big posters for obscure French comedies that would never ever play in the UK - would love to see a season of that stuff now - Ozon's Potiche seems to be partly a tribute to that 'genre'). As always, it's hard to make general comments about a large national cinema when we only get to see a tiny fraction of the totality, but any country where Godard, Dumont, Bonello, Denis, Desplechin, Assayas etc are still active can hardly be written off entirely.

i don't know if it's still subsidised, but france is large enough population-wise to sustain a film industry without having to worry enormously about selling same all round the world

(also -- or at least this was true back when i read whatever it was that taught me this^^^ -- it doesn't give a cultural fvck about its TV, and as a consequence a lot of its film basically fills some of the dramatic slots that TV offers in the UK)

that sounds about right but Peak TV is beginning to hit france too with some quality stuff like Trepalium and Bureau Des Legendes

but yes LOADS of stuff that just never gets translated.

yes there've been a handful of things getting into the nordic slot during scando downtime -- spiral most obviously (also a belgian thing abt a fancy bank robbery)

Yes, Spiral.

Was gonna say Carlos by Assayas was a made for TV thing (which played here at the cinemas, but I saw it on DVD).

As for French films this year there have def been a couple (and there always is a couple). Loved Things to Come.

well most mainstream French cinema consists of comedies, all more or less descending from the 70's "Les Bronzés" mold (ie middle class shenanigans in communal settings)
In a very different syle, I saw "Le Prénom" ("What's in a Name") the other day and thought it was surprisingly good for a mainstream comedy.

Caught up with Bonello's Nocturama at its NY premiere, variously put in mind of Bresson, mid-60s Godard and Rio Bravo. Maybe his best, along with the brothel movie.

http://www.slantmagazine.com/house/article/toronto-international-film-festival-2016-bertrand-bonellos-nocturama

http://www.bfi.org.uk/news-opinion/sight-sound-magazine/reviews-recommendations/nocturama-review-bertrand-bonello-terrorism-consumerism

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J122E5Ygz5s

I might have preferred Saint Laurent (to both of them) but yeah, it's really good.

https://d26dzxoao6i3hh.cloudfront.net/items/1w1B2G1r2I3F3z0J2r3C/image1.JPEG

tsk tsk

see BPM btw

my god Betty Blue, a recent beneficiary of the Criterion treatment, is garbage.

lol. otm

have never been an avid cinemagoer, so my opinion might be ignorable, but still: the only film showing I ever walked out of (this must have been ‘87), because it was just so not good and so not for me (my companion felt exactly the same).

the sheer quantity of french films about bourgeois city dwellers 'out of water' on a ill-advised adventures to the countryside where they learn to connect with what's real and also have a fling with a local or two before returning to the real world wiser and more fulfilled is just staggering, is there a quota or something?? it's like the french version of origami, or king cab pickups - a timeless art that they can produce endless minute variations on for centuries

"city dwellers 'out of water' on a ill-advised adventures to the countryside where they learn to connect with what's real and also have a fling with a local or two before returning to the real world wiser and more fulfilled"

my family and ! have been joking that is the plot of every Hallmark Christmas movie (except in those there is only one fling and there is no return to the real world)

I really enjoyed Petite Maman and Only the Animals recently, which fit these conditions to a point

The free translated opening from a paywalled Le Monde article:

In recent weeks, the rare images filmed by Jean Eustache (1938-1981) that were roaming the Internet have vanished; to be reborn better, in the coming months. After a meticulous restoration, the works of the filmmaker close to the New Wave, author of the legendary La Maman et la Putain (1973) , will finally find their way back to theaters.

The dispute which hindered the distribution of his filmography, never released on DVD and rarely shown on television , has just been lifted, following an agreement between the heir, Boris Eustache, and Les Films du Losange, as well as reveals to the world its new president, Charles Gillibert . Passed by MK2, founder of CG Cinéma, this 44-year-old producer took over this emblematic New Wave authors' house in July 2021, with two partners, investor Alexis Dantec and entrepreneur Jacques Veyrat.

Cool, thanks.

Excellent news!

niiiice!

Could someone give me some hints as to what the most essential French filmmakers of the 70's and 80's were? Making my way through a Tavernier box and would like to get a better grasp of the context he was operating in. Feels like international attention stayed focused on the nouvelle vague/left bank crowd for the most part.

Pialat probably first and foremost