Belfort 2009 : film-by-film reviews (added CHRONICLE OF A SUMMER and THE 400 BLOWS, 26.Dec.09)
Roundup report for TRIBUNE magazine
CHRONICLE OF A SUMMER – PARIS 1960 : [7/10] : Chronique d'un été – Paris 1960 : France 1961 : Jean ROUCH & Edgar MORIN : 85m : [19/28] : seen 3rd December
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The two directors appear on camera at the start, discussing the project among themselves, explaining that what will follow is an experiment in documentary – in Cinéma-vérité. And indeed it is: an unapologetically academic, theoretical project, redeemed from aridity partly by the vibrancy of its participants/subjects, and partly because of the palpable excitement which Morin and Rouch derived from probing documentary's limits within a nouvelle-vague, cine-reportage context.
Because (in the wake of Breathless, Cleo from 5 to 7, etc) this is yet another journey into the crowded streets of Paris, as the 50s gave way to the 60s, with the Algerian war inescapable in the background – though the latter only emerges from "subtext" to "text" here quite late on.
The early stretches see the directors venture out into the arrondissements with their cameras and sound-recording equipment, compiling vox pops around the exceedingly basic question "Are you happy?" The results of this approach are predictably variable, but things quickly become much more interesting when Morin and Rouch take a more anthropological, oblique tack, tracking down intriguing interlocutors who are allowed to speak at length.
These include a disaffected Renault mechanic who is disarmingly open and engagingly straightforward, as he explains how the functioning of modern societies relies on individuals refusing to follow the letter of the law. Things become more "large P" political with episodes involving a reflective, flaneuse concentration-camp survivor and her interactions with Italian and African immigrants, these sets of incomers providing invaluable "outsider" perspectives.
It also helps that the vast majority of speakers are young – conspicuously younger than the middle-aged directors – and their energy seems to feed into the production, a collage of often-choppy fragments. At one point, entirely without warning, we're whisked from the Parisian streets to the sun-kissed coastline of St Tropez for an extended sojourn among the "beautiful" people.
This is typical of Rouch and Morin's anything-goes approach, acknowledging and testing the boundaries of their chosen medium, trying out stuff pretty much on the hoof. The editing process then organises the eclectic array of footage into a quizzically anthropological analysis of a particular place and time (hence the Paris, 1960 subtitle.)
Rouch and Morin pop up again at the end, having screened a rough-cut to many of their interviewees, discussing the implications of what they've observed. It's a risky, self-deconstructing (potentially self-destructing) strategy, executed with sufficient warmth and intelligence that disaster is avoided and the results remain of much more than time-capsule interest.
24.12.09
THE 400 BLOWS : [7+/10] : Les quatre cents coups : France 1959 : Francois TRUFFAUT : 99m : [19+/28] : seen 5th December
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{note : I watched this film in version originale without English subtitles – my French is OK, but I can't claim to have followed all of the dialogue.}
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Is Antoine Doinel (Jean-Pierre Leaud) the first "real" kid in cinema history? His ordinariness, his maturity, self-confidence, his swagger: all are entirely convincing, organic, believable. No swot or bookish nerd, Doinel has a certain edge – not quite the kind of child who sits at the back of any class, but always ready and willing to "try it on" with teacher, to show off in front of his less-confident pals. He's bold, inventive, creative – traits which aren't channelled into academic pursuits, and instead mainly seem to get him into trouble, to attract the attention of authority figures.
His homelife – he's an only child, lives in a narrow-walled tenement with his mother and step-dad – may not be ideal, but nor is it notably dysfunctional. He seems to get on reasonably well with everyone, including his "folks," but one senses that he's at his happiest when capering (in improvisationally loose sequences) through the streets of the city, ducking and diving into shops, cinemas. His real education, we soon realise, comes from the screen rather than the blackboard – the ecole is presented from a small, rigidly precise number of camera-positions, underlining the stultifying atmosphere that prevails within the walls of the institution.
It is, to say the least, not an environment designed to bring the best out of an instinctively boundary-pushing kid. He's naughty, but by no means anti-social: and this makes the second half of the film, in which Doinel is caught in the execution (or, more accurately, the attempted rectification) of an ill-advised small-time-crime prank – the theft of a typewriter, all the more jarring.
This escapade has the air of a comedy-of-errors, but its consequences are grimly serious: Antoine finds himself in a reform-school: a change of scene from the Paris streets, bien sur, and a step closer the the intriguing, unseen coastal zones depicted in the maps familiar from the walls of his classroom. And this sets up the ecstatic, famous final scene: the run across the countryside, through the dunes, to the sea, the sea-salt scent of freedom, a freeze-frame, and a zoom-in on Antoine Doinel's ever-watchful features. Which ask us: now what?
24.12.09
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all films seen at the Cinéma Pathé in Belfort, France, at the 25th Entrevues (Film Festival Belfort)
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AGUIRRE, THE WRATH OF GOD : [7/10] : Aguirre, der Zorn Gottes : W.Germany 1972 : Werner HERZOG : 93m : [18/28] : seen 3rd December
WOYZECK : [6/10] : W.Germany 1979 : Werner HERZOG : 82m : [15/28] : seen 3rd December
VIOLANTA : [3?/10] : Switzerland 1977 : Daniel SCHMID : 95m {walkout after 40m} : [6?/28] : seen 4th December
DISORDER : [5/10] : Xianshi shi guoqu de wailai : China 2009 : HUANG Weikai : 58m : [14/28] : seen 4th December
LE PLEIN PAYS : [4/10] : aka The Full Country : France 2009 : Antoine BOUTTET : 58m : [11/28] : seen 4th December
THE WEDDING DAY : [8/10] : Le Jour des noces : Switzerland/Bel/Can/Fr 1970 : Claude GORETTA : 71m : [21/28] : seen 5th December
LOVE STREAMS : [7/10] : USA 1984 : John CASSAVETES : USA 1984 : 141m : [18/28] : seen 5th December