Une belle course / Driving Madeleine

 

Christian Carion: Une belle course / Driving Madeleine (FR/BE 2022). Line Renaud (Madeleine Keller) and Dany Boon (Charles Kaufman).

Madeleinen Pariisi / Madeleine och taxichauffören.

    FR/BE © 2022 Une Hirondelle Productions - Pathé Films - TF1 Films Production - Artémis Productions. Associated Co-PC: Bright Lights Films - Kobayashi Communication. Production : Laure Irrmann et Christian Carion. Coproducteurs : Ardavan Safaee et Patrick Quinet. Associate producers : Marie de Cenival, Laurent Bruneteau et Thomas Bruxelle. Executive producer: Stéphane Riga.

    Fiche technique

Réalisation : Christian Carion

Screenplay and dialogue : Cyril Gély - adaptation : Christian Carion.

Photographie : Pierre Cottereau - couleur

Décors : Chloé Cambournac

Costumes : Agnès Noden

Musique : Philippe Rombi

Son : Pascal Jasmes, François Maurel, Thomas Desjonquères, Thomas Gauder.

Montage : Loïc Lallemand

Casting : Gigi Akoka

    Distribution:

Dany Boon : Charles

Line Renaud : Madeleine

Alice Isaaz : Madeleine, jeune

Jérémie Laheurt-Fine : Ray

Julie Delarme : Karine

Gwendoline Hamon : Denise

Elie Kaempfen : Matt

Thomas Alden : Mathieu

Hadriel Roure : Mathieu, jeune

Jacques Courtès : Daniel

Carl Laforêt : l'automobiliste impatient

Christophe Rossignon : le président du tribunal

    Budget : 7,94 millions d'euros

Langue originale : français

Genre : comédie dramatique, road movie

91 min

    Dates de sortie :

France : août 2022 (festival d'Angoulême - film d'ouverture) - Société de distribution : Pathé Distribution (France)

Canada : septembre 2022 (festival de Toronto)

France : 21 septembre 2022

Finlande : 15 mars 2024 - Cinema Mondo - Finnish / Swedish subtitles by Outi Kainulainen / Joanna Erkkilä.

    Viewed at Maxim 2, Helsinki, Saturday 11 May 2024

Synopsis from the press kit: " Madeleine, 92 years old, calls a taxi to take her to the retirement home where she will be living. Charles, a disillusioned driver with a tender heart, agrees to drive by the places that affected Madeleine’s life. Through the streets of Paris, her extraordinary past is revealed. They don’t know it yet, but they will forge a friendship during this drive that will change their lives forever. "

AA: At first sight, Christian Carion's Driving Madeleine is a piece of feelgood entertainment, based on surefire ingredients: - the star pair Line Renaud and Dany Boon, acting together also in Bienvenue chez les Ch'tis (Welcome to the Sticks, FR 2008, D: Dany Boon), the highest grossing French film of all time - a wonderful sightseeing tour of Paris full of beloved landmarks - the improbable friendship between a male driver and an elderly lady like in Driving Miss Daisy - soundtrack spiced with nostalgic international crossover hits by Dinah Washington and Etta James - the grudging taxi driver and the procrastinating lady ending up having the time of their lives - the taxi driver never charging for the round-the-clock ride, instead inviting the lady to dinner before the destination - but with a fairy-tale envelope from Madeleine's lawyer at the cemetery.

From this angle, Driving Madeleine delivers, and it is reportedly a pioneering technical achievement. Most of the movie takes place inside the taxi, but it was entirely shot in the studio. Paris traffic is difficult / impossible anyway, and especially with a 92 year old star. The DP Pierre Cottereau covered the whole journey from every possible angle in advance and employed a new generation LED screen system of transparencies, 4K high definition L-shaped screens in all directions, including the sky, better than greenscreens, in which actors have to imagine the surroundings. The immersion was total, and actors felt like they were in a moving car, including in the collision with the kid on an electric scooter. For the viewer, Une belle course is a gratifying cinematic Paris tour. Having returned two weeks ago from the 11th arrondissement, I was happy to return to the Place de la République and Avenue Parmentier together with Line Renaud (Madeleine Keller) and Dany Boon (Charles Kaufman).

Inside the sightseeing trip and fairytale narrative there is a tough core. Madeleine is a young woman when the occupation ends and Paris is liberated. There is a love affair with Matt, a G.I., and a son, Mathieu, abandoned by him. There is a husband, Ray, who turns violent to both Madeleine and Mathieu. Brutalizing and disgracing Mathieu is the last straw. Madeleine poisons Ray and torches him where it hurts most. Madeleine is convicted to a 25 year prison sentence by an all male jury (moderated to 13 because of good behaviour). Meanwhile, by 1968, her son Mathieu has grown to a man who condemns his mother because of whom he has been bullied all his life. He goes to Vietnam as a war photographer and returns in a coffin.

There is no soft-pedalling in this territory. The movie is a time travel journey in gender discrimination. In France, women got to vote in 1948, but Madeleine tells Charles «the fifties weren’t like today...» Women had to get their husbands’ permission just to work or have access to household money. In a scene unplanned by the film-makers, Madeleine and Charles walk past a City of Paris poster with the face of Simone Veil - remembered for Loi Veil, legalizing abortion in France - in 1975. In the press notes, Christian Carion estimates that although times have changed, domestic violence is even worse today, because there are men who revenge on women for getting equal.

Regarding the young Madeleine's life during the Occupation there is a visit to a courtyard with a commemorative plaque to three Resistance fighters shot on 7 October 1943, including Lucien Keller, Madeleine's father. If the characters Madeleine Keller and Charles Kaufman, are Jewish, this is the only clue besides their names. [The actor Dany Boon, whose father was an Algerian Muslim, converted to Judaism when he married Yaël Harris, and also his previous wife Judith Godrèche was Jewish. Boon has been active in fighting antisemitism]. The desolate reminder of the memorial plaque forces us to reassess the movie's escapist ambience.

The deeply felt and nuanced interplay of Line Renaud and Dany Boon is the greatest reward of Driving Madeleine. At age 92, Line Renaud is full of life, wit and energy. Dany Boon, France's most popular comic actor, again proves how great a comedian can be in a serious part.

 
BEYOND THE JUMP BREAK: DATA FROM THE PRESS KIT:

Havumetsän lapset / Once Upon a Time in a Forest

Virpi Suutari: Havumetsän lapset / Once Upon a Time in a Forest (FI 2024) with Ida Korhonen, activist in Metsäliike, bringing together members of Elokapina, Greenpeace and Luontoliitto.

Barrskogens barn

    FI 2024 Euphoria Film Oy. P: Virpi Suutari & Martti Suosalo.

    D+SC: Virpi Suutari. Cin: Teemu Liakka, Jani Kumpulainen F.S.C. - 1:2,39 and 4:3, 25 fps. M Sanna Salmenkallio. S: Olli Huhtanen. ED: Jussi Rautaniemi F.C.E. 

    Featuring:

Ida Korhonen on 23-vuotias ympäristöaktivisti ja metsätieteiden opiskelija.

Minka Virtanen on 29-vuotias aktivisti, joka joka toimii useissa eri ruohonjuuritason liikkeissä ja isommissa järjestöissä.

Otto Snellman on 29-vuotias yhteiskunnallisesti aktiivinen filosofian väitöskirjatutkija.

Ville Murmann on 35-vuotias Luontoliiton metsäryhmän kartoituskoordinaattori, joka selvittää metsien luontoarvoja.

Otso Piitulainen on 21-vuotias ympäristötieteiden opiskelija, jota kiinnostaa yhteiskunnallinen vaikuttaminen.

    Inspired by: Juha Kauppinen: Heräämisiä - kuinka minusta tuli luonnonsuojelija.

    92 min

Festival premiere: CPH:DOX, Copenhagen, 16 March 2024.

Finnish premiere: 28 March 2024 - B-Plan Distribution.

Viewed with Finnish subtitles for the hard-of-hearing at Kinopalatsi 4, Helsinki, Saturday 11 May 2024.

Literal translations of the Finnish title: "Children of the Taiga", "Children of the Conifer Forest".

MUBI synopsis: " Biodiversity and generation gaps collide in a politically urgent and thoughtful film about two young activists' fight to save the vast Finnish forests. Is it still civil disobedience when you know you have both history and the future on your side? "

    " Ida and Minka share a boundless love for the Finnish forests and a deep respect for nature. But not everyone agrees. The two young environmentalists demonstrate against deforestation and eventually win a seat at the table with the older, bearded men that represent the powerful giants of the timber industry. But one thing is the industry, another thing entirely is to convince your own grandfather, who has spent a lifetime clearing and planting trees, that wild nature means everything to biodiversity and to the future of the planet. The gaps between generations are deep, the climate fight is also a cultural struggle. Fortunately, Finnish filmmaker Virpi Suutari has an eye for more than bitter conflicts and hard fronts, and with commendable humanity (and a dose of understated humour) she has created that great film about nature, the future and the climate that the world has been waiting for – nothing less. And in the spirit of its young activists, it is also a beautiful and thoughtful tribute to nature itself, with tadpoles and flying squirrels as witnesses to the great human drama. " (MUBI synopsis)

Synopsis from the press dossier: " Palkitun Virpi Suutarin uusi elokuva Havumetsän lapset pöllyttää raikkaalla tavalla käsityksiämme metsistä ja niiden suojelusta. Elokuvan nuoret päähenkilöt Ida, Minka, Otto, Ville ja Otso haluavat pelastaa Suomen metsät. Vastassaan heillä on metsäteollisuus ja kansallinen ideologia metsistä taloudellisen hyvinvoinnin perustana. Ovatko nuoret sankareita vai isänmaan pettureita puolustaessaan jäkäliä ja katoamassa olevia hömötiaisia? Suutarin humaani metsäkertomus kuljettaa katsojansa lumoavalle luontomatkalle vanhojen havupuiden suojasta Aalistunturin huipulle, selluteollisuuden kabineteista Idan isoisä Taunon, entisen metsätyömiehen, kotisohvalle. Suomen ja suomalaisuuden kuvaajana ansioituneen Suutarin (mm. Aalto, Eedenistä pohjoiseen) elokuva ravistelee kohtaamaan hupenevan metsäluontomme kauneuden ja hädän. "

AA: There can be no more important theme than the one discussed by Virpi Suutari in Havumetsän lapset.

This is a film about Extinction Rebellion. The movement's eloquent Finnish title is Elokapina, "Life Rebellion". "Elo" is short for "Elämä" (Life), as even in "Elokuva" ("Life Image"), Finnish for "movie / film / cinema".

This is a film about generation rebellion - the young desperate about the future of life on Earth. It is a matter of life and death. We the older generations are living like there is no tomorrow. For the young it is a question of whether there is a life span worth living, worth raising a new generation anymore.

They are powerless, they lack the weight of experience and the skill of argumentation that the forest industry behemoths possess. This is David vs. Goliath.

We have always known, we have done much, but far from enough. Personally, born in 1955, as soon as I could understand, I became aware. Rachel Carson's Silent Spring appeared in 1962 and was published in Finnish the year after.

Suutari excels in pantheistic passages of sublime Lapland. I have never seen more breathtaking nature images, including underwater footage of swimming in Lapland's icy lakes among the perches and the pikes (photographed by the underwater cinematographer wizard Teemu Liakka).

The documentary passages of the Elokapina demonstrations are vivid and memorable. There are also historical inserts of the 1979 Koijärvi Movement and the 1991 strikes of civil disobedience.

A formidable theme of the philosophy of law is involved. The young are fighting for their right to live. We who do nothing are putting their lives in danger.

A novel twist in Suutari's movie is the drive towards dialogue: in encounters with the forest industry - with the Centre Party (Suomen Keskusta), the main voice of the people in the countryside - and with the police and the forest rangers.

Suutari's drive is against polarizing clickbaits. The young actively seek dialogue. The powers-that-be treat them with respect, without condescension. But they speak with the voice of authority. They make promises, but is anything changing in the big picture?

The trouble is, you don't win elections with green promises. You lose, and populists win, with even more devastating consequences. This has been the dilemma since the 1950s.

Havumetsän lapset is a document about a huge communication gap. The big challenge is to engage everybody, starting from the people of the countryside, the ones closest to the nature, dramatized in the dialogue between Ida Korhonen the Elokapina activist and her grandfather Tauno from Savo, a former farmer and lumberjack who does not understand a word of what Ida is saying. The cliché of the hipster nature tourists from the city vs. the true people of the countryside must be superseded. Beloved narratives, even the Koijärvi legend, could be examined anew.

There is little time left. A new accent for me here is "Trauerarbeit" [surutyö / grief work / process of grieving / work of mourning]. There may be no future. We are left to celebrate "Die Ehre Gottes aus der Natur" [Jumalan kunnia luonnossa / The Divine Glory from Nature]

BEYOND THE JUMP BREAK: DATA FROM THE PRESS KIT:

Paradiset brinner / Paradise Is Burning

Mika Gustafson: Paradiset brinner / Paradise Is Burning (SE 2023). Bianca Delbravo (Laura), Dilvin Asaad (Mira) and Safira Mossberg (Steffi).

Siskoni.

    SE 2023 © Hob AB (Nima Yousefi) / Tuffi Films (Venla Hellstedt, Jenni Jauri) / ToolBox Film (Maria Stevnbak Westergren) / IntraMovies (Marco Valerio Fusco, Micaela Fusco). Country: Sweden, Italy, Denmark, Finland.

    Director: Mika Gustafson

Screenplay: Mika Gustafson, Alexander Öhrstrand

Cinematographer: Sine Vadstrup Brooker - Color | 1.78:1

Production Designer: Catharina Nyqvist Ehrnrooth

Costume Designer: Susse Roos

Make Up and Hair Designer: Kaisa Pätilä

Music: Giorgio Giampà

Sound designer: Gustaf Berger - 5.1 & Stereo 

Editor: Anders Skov

Casting director: Elin Ström

    Cast: Bianca Delbravo (Laura, 16), Dilvin Asaad (Mira, 12), Safira Mossberg (Steffi, 7), Ida Engvoll (Hanna), Mitja Sirén (Sasha), Marta Oldenburg (Zara), Alexander Öhrstrand (Hannas man), Isabella Kjellberg (Sandra).

    Film clip: Stalker (SU 1979).

    Language: Swedish

    108 min

    World Sales: Marco Valerio Fusco – Intramovies

    Festival premiere: 7 Sep 2023 Venice Film Festival - Orizzoni prize for best director Mika Gustafson - Authors under 40 Award for best screenwriting Mika Gustafson.

    Swedish premiere: 27 Oct 2023.

    Guldbagge Awards: Best Film (Nima Yousefi) - Best Production Design (Catharina Nyqvist Ehrnrooth) - Best Make-up (Kaisa Pätilä)

    Helsinki premiere: 19 April 2024 - Cinemanse - Finnish subtitles: Janne Kauppila.

    Viewed at Finnkino Kinopalatsi 8, Helsinki, Saturday 4 May 2023.

IMDb logline: " Three sisters aged 7 to 16, live alone after their mother vanishes for whole swathes of time. When the social services demand a family meeting, oldest sister Laura plans to find a stand in for their mother. "

Handling: " Filmen kretsar kring tre systrar, Laura, Mira och Steffi, i åldrarna 7 till 16 år. Eftersom deras mamma är borta under längre perioder, bor systrarna ofta ensamma. När socialtjänsten börjar ställa frågor och kräver ett möte med familjen, planerar äldsta syster Laura att hitta någon kan fungera som stand-in för mamman. För att inte oroa sina yngre syskon, håller hon sin plan hemlig. "

Handling (Svensk Filmdatabas): " Tre systrar, 7 till 15 år, lever ensamma. Mamman försvinner i perioder och det mesta av vardagslivet får systrarna lösa själva. När soc kräver ett familjemöte har den äldsta systern Laura en vecka på sig att hitta någon som kan spela mamman. I sitt sökande efter en låtsasmamma inleder Laura en relation med 35-åriga Hannah. Någonting som inte bara förändrar Laura, utan även situationen for systrarna. "

Synopsis (Venice): " In a working-class area of Sweden, sisters Laura (16), Mira (12) and Steffi (7), get by on their own, left to their own devices by an absent mother. With summer on the way and no parents around, life is wild and carefree, vivacious and anarchic. But when social services call a meeting, Laura has to find someone to impersonate their mom, or the girls will be taken into foster care and separated. Laura keeps the threat a secret, so as not to worry her younger sisters. But as the moment of truth draws closer, new tensions arise, forcing the three sisters to negotiate the fine line between the euphoria of total freedom and the harsh realities of growing up. "

Director's statement (Venice) : " Paradise Burning is a declaration of love to sisterhood. To those who know your story and made you who you are. A bond that’s stronger than everything else. A blessing and a curse all at the same time. For me the film is about the transience of time and life. About memories and reconciliation. I want to show what it’s like to be a human being in those moments when euphoric freedom lies cheek to cheek with total despair and the everyday humor in between. "

AA: In Paradise Is Burning, Mika Gustafson's debut fiction feature, the joy and the energy of Laura (16, Bianca Delbravo), Mira (12, Dilvin Asaad) and Steffi (7, Safira Mossberg) evoke Charlotte Regan's Scrapper (GB 2023), another contemporary tale of childhood lived in freedom, the sunny side of being abandoned by parents. But the story that Paradise Is Burning tells is different. It is about sisterhood, tenderly observed and deeply felt. 

It is a perilous life, because it involves finding ever changing ways to get by without money. Sneaking into vernissages of exhibitions for a maximal catch of cocktail snacks. Shoplifting elevated to an art form. Eating fish fingers after the best before date. Chronical lying to social service officers when failing to appear at school.

Laura has even become an expert burglar who breaks into apartments for a few hours of living the life of others, sometimes in luxury. The girls frequent private swimming pools while the inhabitants are away. This aspect of Paradise Is Burning is a poignant statement about the status of outcasts in a consumer society. It reminds me of Auli Mantila's excellent Ystäväni Henry / My Friend Henry (FI 2004). We are invited into the life of the unseen citizens of our society.

During one of these adventures, Laura meets Hanna (35, Ida Engvoll) into whose home she has broken and entered. Unexpectedly, their encounter turns into friendship and more: a tentative love affair. The account of Hanna's situation remains elliptic, but there is a man (Alexander Öhrstrand, also the co-screenwriter) and a baby. Laura's presence chases him away, and Hanna then turns Laura down. But before that Laura has initiated Hanna into her secret life in other people's apartments and taught her the tricks how to get in and out without drawing attention.

A deadline casts its shadow over the girls' existence. A social service officer is coming, and the clock is ticking. There is a clear and present danger that the sisters will be separated. Hanna does her best to find someone to impersonate their mother. The last candidate is Hanna. Laura's tryst with her has alienated her from her sisters. The doorbell rings.

A recurrent motif is a pack of stray dogs wandering in the neighbourhood. The dog from Stalker is glimpsed on television. But Mika Gustafson's vision is the opposite of Andrei Tarkovsky's dystopia thanks to her warm celebration of community against all odds.

I thank Simo Halinen for recommending Mika Gustafson's remarkable fiction feature debut.

BEYOND THE JUMP BREAK: DATA FROM THE PRESS KIT AND BIENNALE DI VENEZIA 2023:

Civil War

Alex Garland: Civil War (GB/US 2024). Great poster, but in the movie, the most powerful symbol is the Washington obelisk.

Civil War / Civil War.

    GB/US 2024 [year of release] © 2023 [Miller August Rights LLC tbc]. Production companies: DNA Films, IPR.VC. Produced by Andrew Macdonald, Allon Reich, Gregory Goodman

Directed by Alex Garland

Written by Alex Garland

Cinematography by Rob Hardy

Music by Ben Salisbury, Geoff Barrow

Edited by Jake Roberts

    Wikipedia: Cast

- Kirsten Dunst as Lee Smith, a renowned war photojournalist from Colorado. She is said to be the youngest-ever member of the Magnum Photos cooperative. The character's first name is a reference to famed World War II photojournalist Lee Miller.

- Wagner Moura as Joel, a Reuters journalist from Florida and Lee's colleague

- Cailee Spaeny as Jessie Cullen, an aspiring young photographer from Missouri who accompanies Lee and Joel on their journey

- Stephen McKinley Henderson as Sammy, a veteran journalist for The New York Times and Lee's mentor

- Nick Offerman as the President of the United States, a dictatorial president currently serving his third term

- Sonoya Mizuno as Anya, a British reporter embedded with the Western Forces' advance on the capital

- Jefferson White as Dave, Anya's cameraman

- Nelson Lee as Tony, a Hongkonger reporter who is good friends with Lee and Joel

- Evan Lai as Bohai, a Hongkonger reporter who is a colleague of Tony

- Jesse Plemons as a racist ultranationalist militant who holds the journalists at gunpoint. Plemons was not credited for the role.

- Karl Glusman as a spotter

- Jin Ha as a sniper

- Juani Feliz as Secret Service Agent Joy Butler

    Loc: - Atlanta, Georgia. - Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

    Language: English

    109 min

    Distributed by: A24 (United States), Entertainment Film Distributors (United Kingdom)

    Release dates:

Festival premiere: 14 March, 2024 South by Southwest (SXSW)

London premiere: 11 April, 2024 BFI IMAX, London

US premiere: 12 April, 2024

Finnish premiere 19 April 2024 - released by Cinemanse - Finnish / Swedish subtitles by Ilse Rönnberg / Charlotte Elo

    Viewed at Finnkino Tennispalatsi 10, Helsinki, Saturday 4 May 2024

Tagline: " Welcome to the frontline. "

Official logline: " An adrenaline-fueled thrill ride through a near-future fractured America balanced on the razor's edge. "

IMDb logline (from SXSW): " A journey across a dystopian future America, following a team of military-embedded journalists as they race against time to reach DC before rebel factions descend upon the White House. "

The division of the United States in the movie:

    Loyalist states (United States)

    Western Forces

    Florida Alliance

    New People's Army

AA: Alex Garland's Civil War is a dystopia, a war movie and a war journalist movie. Not a true genre movie, Civil War remains unclassifiable, with elements of science fiction and horror. Not a political movie in a specific way, it is a vision about a broken society. One of the trailers in the show was for Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes, resonating with the main picture.

Civil War reminds me of Medium Cool (US 1969), Die Fälschung (DE 1981), The Year of Living Dangerously (AU 1982), The Killing Fields (GB 1984), Welcome to Sarajevo (GB 1997) and Mr. Jones (PL 2019). Most of all it reminds me of Apocalypse Now (US 1979), not a journalist movie, but another journey to the heart of darkness.

When the film starts, the war is about to come to a conclusion. A team of journalists rushes towards Washington D.C. for the biggest scoop - the surrender of the increasingly dictatorial president (Nick Offerman).

Besides the daredevil Joel (Wagner Moura) there is his close colleague, the star photographer Lee Smith (Kirsten Dunst), and her mentor, the journalist veteran Sammy (Stephen McKinley Henderson) "from what is left of The New York Times", the voice of reason. There is competition but even more importantly, solidarity. In the beginning, Lee rescues a cub photojournalist, Jessie Cullen (Cailee Spaeny), from a suicide bombing scene. During the journey there are even more engrossing instances of "what greater love is there than one willing to lay down their life for his friends".

Lee is not exactly happy to learn that she is Jessie's role model. Clearly Lee would not recommend anybody to follow her. Next morning, to her dismay, Lee finds out that Joel has invited Jessie to join their perilous journey from New York to Washington, D.C. It is an infernal odyssey. War brings out the worst of us.

The idol of both Lee Smith and Jessie Cullen is Lee Miller, the legendary photographer and photojournalist, honoured by Lee Smith even in her name. In the centenary year of surrealism, we remember Lee Miller as Man Ray's model, companion and herself the creator of some of the most memorable surrealist photographs. In WWII Lee Miller became a top war correspondent, often teaming with David E. Scherman. 

This war is different from the Second World War. In the Temptations song "War" (Norman Whitfield, Barrett Strong, 1970), the chorus was "War, what is it good for? Absolutely nothing", but here a further step is taken: for many, what is the war about? "Absolutely nothing". It is about violence for violence's sake. It is about the killing instinct.

Media is getting obsolete. Nobody reads. There is no internet. The star journalists are after the biggest scoop. But who is going to know? The victorious army gets its trophy like in a big game hunt. It is a hollow victory for both soldiers and their journalist-parasites in a world without values.

BEYOND THE JUMP BREAK: DATA FROM WIKIPEDIA:

Le Théorème de Marguerite / Marguerite's Theorem

Anna Novion: Le Théorème de Marguerite / Marguerite's Theorem (FR/CH
 2023). Ella Rumpf (Marguerite Hoffmann).

Margureriten teoreema / Marguerites teorem.

    FR/ CH © 2023 TS Productions / France 2 Cinéma [co-pc] / RTS Radio Télévision Suisse [co-pc] / Beauvoir Films [co-pc]. P: Adrian Blaser, Miléna Poylo, Gilles Sacuto et Aline Schmid.

    Format : couleur — 2,35:1 — son 5.1 — DCP

    Fiche technique

Réalisation : Anna Novion

Scénario : Agnès Feuvre, Marie-Stéphane Imbert, Anna Novion et Mathieu Robin

Photographie : Jacques Girault

Décors : Anne-Sophie Delseries

Costumes : Clara René

Musique : Pascal Bideau

Son : Roman Dymny, Marc Von Stürler et Béatrice Wick

Montage : Anne Souriau

Mathematics advisor : Ariane Mézard

    Distribution

Ella Rumpf : Marguerite Hoffmann

Jean-Pierre Darroussin : Laurent Werner, son directeur de thèse

Clotilde Courau : Suzanne

Julien Frison : Lucas Savelli

Sonia Bonny : Noa

Cheng Xiaoxing (crédité Maurice Cheng) : M. Kong

Idir Azougli : Yanis

Camille de Sablet : la formatrice

Édouard Sulpice : un élève

Yun-Ping He : un adversaire du mah-jong

Karl Ruben Noel : le danseur

Ava Baya : la petite amie du danseur

Gauthier Boxebeld : le manager

Leila Muse : la journaliste

Esdras Registe : le collègue

Dominique Ratonnat : le professeur

Capucine Chappey : l'amie anglophone de Lucas

    Le tournage a, entre autres, lieu à Paris pour l'École normale supérieure (ENS) de l'université Paris sciences et lettres (PSL), en mai 2022. Filming locations also include: Chinatown Belleville (Paris) and Lausanne.

    Soundtrack selections include "Misirlou" (trad. from the Eastern Mediterranean Ottoman Empire, first recorded in 1927 in Greece), played by the math students' brass band.

    Langue originale : français

    Durée : 112 minutes

    Genre : comédie dramatique

    Sociétés de distribution : Pyramide Distribution (France) et Outside The Box (Suisse).

    Dates de sortie :

France : 22 mai 2023 (Festival de Cannes) ; 1er novembre 2023 (sortie nationale)

Suisse romande : 15 novembre 2023

Finnish premiere: 3 May 2024 - released by Cinema Mondo - Finnish / Swedish subtitles by Outi Kainulainen / Joanna Erkkilä.

    Viewed at Finnkino Tennispalatsi 14, Helsinki, Saturday 4 May 2024.

Synopsis from the press kit: " The future of Marguerite, a brilliant student in Mathematics at the prestigious École Normale Supérieure, seems all planned out. The only woman from her promo, she is finishing a thesis she has to expose to an audience of researchers. On D-day, a mistake shakes all her certainties and her foundations collapse. Marguerite decides to quit everything to start all over again. "

AA: Anna Novion's Marguerite's Theorem is a rewarding and original contribution to films about scientists, evoking from recent memory works such as The Universal Theory, The Imitation Game, The Theory of Everything and A Beautiful Mind. Most of all I was thinking about Oppenheimer. 

Like The Universal Theory, Marguerite's Theorem is a fictional tale about fictional people, but reportedly it does not stray far from reality. The story is based on solid expertise provided by the mathematics advisor Ariane Mézard. The problems discussed are real: Goldbach's conjenture and Szemerédi's theorem and regularity lemma. I don't understand a word of what they are saying, but apparently we may see on the screen elements to real and new solutions. A documentary element is the real location of the fabled École Normale Supérieure (ENS) in Paris where much of the action takes place.

It is an exciting story and also a psychological coming of age story. Marguerite Hoffmann (Ella Rumpf) is a mathematical genius who has come far in solving the most difficult problem: Goldbach's conjecture. Her professor Laurent Werner (Jean-Pierre Darroussin) takes a new student working with the same problem, Lucas Savelli (Julien Frison). Marguerite is hurt and jealous.  In a crucial demonstration, Lucas exposes a mistake of hers. She is paralyzed, breaks down and abandons everything. She behaves childishly and immaturely. She blames Laurent and Lucas for scheming behind her back. She even lies to her mother, a math teacher. She cannot face failure. Werner advises her to take responsibility and move on. Everybody makes mistakes. Everybody fails. He also teaches Marguerite that mathematics is not a solo venture.

Marguerite has always been the star pupil at the expense of living the normal life of a young woman. Having left mathematics behind, she becomes the housemate of a young dancer, Noa (Sonia Bonny) and wakes up at night to the sound of her orgasm on the other side of the wall. Marguerite has never had one. Aroused, she visits a bar in Noa's company and picks up a man "just for recreation". She takes a job at a sports store. In dire financial straits, she becomes a gambler in illegal mahjong dens. The new impulses, also including dancing, awaken her and give her fresh ideas.

Laurent warns Marguerite not to blend sentiment with mathematics. Marguerite's progress has become twisted because she has sacrificed everything for science. And because she was not living the life of a full human being, she was needlessly vulnerable in accidents. Opening to life outside mathematics, Marguerite becomes a better mathematician. Together with Lucas, Marguerite embarks on new directions and they become a wonderful team because they are different but committed to the same goal.

I was thinking about Oppenheimer, because it is the first Christopher Nolan movie with sex. I found it essential to the fabula. On that level of intellect, struggling with problems transcending the limits of understanding, it is possible to become too narrow-focused and thereby deranged. Sex, among other qualities, is a liberator, a power reset of mind and body and the ultimate stimulus. There is no mind without body. Mens sana in corpore sano. And there is no good sex without love. Marguerite's Theorem is a saga about the triumph of the spirit in harmony with the body - with life - with love.

Oppenheimer, too, was a celebration of team work - perhaps the greatest I can think of (I mean the movie and even more the book on which it is based). Oppenheimer himself is not the supreme genius. Unlike many in his team he never got the Nobel Prize. But he was the one who had talent to recognize talent and organize the world-changing enterprise in nuclear science.

  

BEYOND THE JUMP BREAK: FROM THE PRESS KIT:

Hkheil hnalm / The Vanishing Soldier

Dani Rosenberg: / החייל הנעלם / Hkheil hnalm / The Vanishing Soldier (IL 2023) with Ido Tako (Shlomi Aharinov).

החייל הנעלם / Le Déserteur

    IL 2023. PC: Israel Film Fund / United Channel Movies. Production  Avraham Pirchi, Chilik Michaeli, Moshe Edery, Leon Edery, Itamar Pirchi

    LISTE TECHNIQUE

Réalisation  Dani Rosenberg

Scénario  Dani Rosenberg, Amir Kliger

Image  David Stragmeister

Décors  Ben-Zion Porat

Costumes  Ofri Barel

Musique originale  Yuval Semo

Son  Neal Gibbs

Mixage  Michael Stoliar

Montage  Nili Feller

    LISTE ARTISTIQUE

Shlomi Aharinov / Ido Tako

Shiri / Mika Reiss

Rachel Aharinov, Mère de Shlomi / Efrat Ben Zur  

Grand-mère de Shlomi / Tiki Dayan

Père de Shlomi / Shmulik Cohen

    Fiction / 1h38 / VO : Hébreu / Couleur / 2.35 / 5.1 / RCA 161.321

    Festival premiere: 5 Aug 2023 Locarno

    Sortie en France : 24 avril 2024 - Dulac Distribution, sous-titres francais : Malkiel Itzhaky

    Viewed at Arlequin, Salle 1, 76 rue de Rennes, Paris 75006, samedi le 27 avril 2024

IMDb : " Eighteen-year-old Israeli soldier flees back to his girlfriend in Tel Aviv only to discover that the military elite is convinced he was kidnapped in the fog of war. "

Dulac Distribution : " Shlomi, un soldat israélien de dix-huit ans, fuit le champ de bataille pour rejoindre sa petite ami:e à Tel-Aviv. Errant dans une ville à la fois paranoïaque et insouciante, il finit par découvrir que l’armée, à sa recherche, est convaincue qu’il a été kidnappé… Un voyage haletant, une ode à une jeunesse qui se bat contre des idéaux qui ne sont pas les siens. "

AA: Twenty-four hours in the life of a deserter from the war front in Gaza, shot and premiered before 7 October 2023.

A chase story, and even more than from Tsahal, Shlomi is on the run from himself. From the destruction on the front he wants to return home, but there is no home. The food at his home is rotten. His father is in a hospital after a stroke. His mother breaks down in tears when she learns about Shlomi's desertion. Shiri is his girlfriend more in imagination than reality. The most sympathetic is the grandmother who has dementia. Shlomi's desperate attempt to fall in love has dramatic consequences.

Life during wartime, on the eve of destruction. Gaza is in ruins, and Tel Aviv is one big party - with its jubilant street scene and happy beach with French tourists like from Les Vacances de M. Hulot. People are living in a militarist and nationalist dream like there is no tomorrow.

Shlomo runs, speeds on a bicycle, drives in borrowed or stolen cars, in an increasingly self-destructive way, until he considers suicide. The film evokes amok, but Shlomo is not a mad killer, on the contrary. There are some affinities with Nadav Lapid's Synonymes (IL 2019).

There is a Nouvelle Vague ambience (À bout de souffle), but The Vanishing Soldier is more profoundly disturbing. There is a disconnect between wartime reality and Tel Aviv illusion. Something has been broken, to the point of honest communication turning impossible.

Shot on location in Tel Aviv and Qulansawe (an Israeli Arabic village near the West Bank) and against digital backgrounds (the destroyed Palestinian village).

The tense free jazz score was composed by Yuval Semo, and the drumming was performed live while the film was running. The grandmother's theme is a song by the wonderful Argentinian Mercedes Sosa.

Davud Stragmeister has conducted the cinematography in scope, largely in long tracking shots of Shlomo on the run. There are also sensitive close-ups and extreme close-ups. 

BEYOND THE JUMP BREAK: DOSSIER DE PRESSE:

Aku wa sonzai shinai / Evil Does Not Exist

Ryosuke Hamaguchi: 悪は存在しない / Aku wa sonzai shinai / Evil Does Not Exist (JP 2024).

悪は存在しない / Le Mal n'existe pas.

    JP 2024. Production: NEOPA (Satoshi Takata) / FICTIVE

    Director: Ryusuke Hamaguchi

Screenplay: Ryūsuke Hamaguchi

Cinematographer: Yoshio Kitagawa - 2K DCP - 1,66:1

Production Designer: Masato Nunobe

Visual Effects: Tetsuya Shiraishi

Music: Eiko Ishibashi

Sound: Izumi Matsuno - Dolby 5.1

Editor: Ryūsuke Hamaguchi, Azusa Yamazaki

Assistant director: Kaoru Enda

Directeur de la production: Tomohisa Ishii

    Main Cast: Hitoshi Omika (Takumi), Ryo Nishikawa (Hana), Ryuji Kosaka (Takahashi), Ayaka Shibutani (Mayuzumi), Hazuki Kikuchi, Hiroyuki Miura

    Loc: the film was mainly shot in the Suwa area of Nagano Prefecture, including around Yatsugatake Mountains.

    Language: Japanese

    Running Time: 106’

Festival premiere: 4 Sep 2023 Venice - ventes Internationales M-Appeal - le grand prix du jury (Silver -Lion)

French and Belgian premiere: 10 April 2024 - Diaphana Distribution - sous-titres francais: Léa Le Dimma

Japanese premiere: 26 April 2024

    Viewed at UGC Odéon, 124 bd Saint-Germain, 75006 Paris, samedi le 27 avril 2024

VENICE SYNOPSIS

" Takumi and his daughter Hana live in Mizubiki Village, close to Tokyo. Like generations before them, they live a modest life according to the cycles and order of nature. One day, the village inhabitants become aware of a plan to build a glamping site near Takumi’s house offering city residents a comfortable “escape” to nature. When two company representatives from Tokyo arrive in the village to hold a meeting, it becomes clear that the project will have a negative impact on the local water supply, causing unrest. The agency’s mismatched intentions endanger both the ecological balance of the plateau and their way of life, with an aftermath that affects Takumi’s life deeply. "

VENICE: DIRECTOR'S STATEMENT

" In this film, I had a wonderful opportunity to work with Drive My Car’s composer Eiko Ishibashi again. The film project began when she asked me to create some footage for her live performance Gift, and I conceived of the film as an “original source material” for the footage. As I became more and more connected to this film we were creating, Eiko and her friends helped me a lot in the shooting, too. This very free way of filmmaking vitalised me a lot. After the shoot, I felt that I had captured interactions of people in nature and completed the work as a single film with Eiko Ishibashi’s beautiful theme music. I hope the audience will feel the life force of the figures that are stirring in nature and music. "

DIAPHANA SYNOPSIS

" Takumi et sa fille Hana vivent dans le village de Mizubiki, près de Tokyo. Comme leurs aînés avant eux, ils mènent une vie modeste en harmonie avec leur environnement. Le projet de construction d’un « camping glamour » dans le parc naturel voisin, offrant aux citadins une échappatoire tout confort vers la nature, va mettre en danger l’équilibre écologique du site et affecter profondément la vie de Takumi et des villageois... "

AA: The genesis is a twin project. Drive My Car's composer Eiko Ishibashi mounted a live music performance to Ryusuke Hamaguchi's footage called the Gift, and Hamaguchi edited the feature film Evil Does Not Exist from the same material. The Gift performance has been described as a "mystical and meditative experience".

Evil Does Not Exist is a pantheist, animist mystery play about people living in harmony with nature in the village Mizubiki / Mizuhikicho near Tokyo on the Yatsugatake mountains. A real estate company is planning a project of glamping (glamour camping) there. The startup is aggressively rushing into things, but its two PR people fall in love with the inhabitants and are about switch sides. They also start to learn about the rare deer of the mountain but are still far from knowing how to negotiate nature.

The account of the clash of cultures is intelligent, devoid of clichés. The PR people are genuinely considerate, but they get into a crosscurrent between their arrogant neoliberalist bosses and the gentle village inhabitants. Hamaguchi's observations about the timeless routines of the village and the contemporary hectic of the remote meetings are accurate.

Much of the film evolves in the very air of the mountain forest, starting from extended low angle tracking shots of the trees in winter. Nature itself is a / the protagonist. At times the approach borders on the experimental and the psychedelic.

Evil Does Not Exist is Ryusuke Hamaguchi's follow-up to his masterpiece Drive My Car. There is much to admire, but I fail to connect with the Eiko Ishibaki score, the raison d'être of the movie.

BEYOND THE JUMP BREAK: DOSSIER DE PRESSE: ENTRETIEN AVEC RYUSUKE HAMAGUCHI

Histoire de ne pas rire. Le Surréalisme en Belgique (2024 exhibition at Bozar)

René Magritte : Le Bain de cristal, 1946, gouache, collection privée © Photothèque R. Magritte, Adagp Images, Paris, 2019.

Xavier CANONNE (sous la dir. de), Histoire de ne pas rire. Le surréalisme en Belgique, Fonds Mercator et Bozar Books, 2024, 288 p., 49 €, ISBN : 978-94-6230-371-3

" Histoire de ne pas rire. Le Surréalisme en Belgique "

Jusqu'au 16 juin 2024.

Bozar

Le Palais des Beaux-Arts / Centre for Fine Arts

Ravensteinstreet 23

1000 Bruxelles

Visited on 20 April 2024

OFFICIAL : " Bozar commémore les 100 ans du surréalisme avec une exposition consacrée au célèbre mouvement d'avant-garde belge sur une période de pas moins de 60 ans. 1924 : comme à Paris, les activités surréalistes commencent dans notre pays avec des pamphlets audacieux du poète Paul Nougé, entre autres, véritable fil rouge de cette exposition. "

" Les surréalistes singuliers de Belgique vont au-delà de l'esthétique pure - ils veulent transformer le monde avec leur art subversif. Dans Histoire de ne pas rire, nous accordons une attention particulière à leurs contacts internationaux, au contexte politico-historique et aux femmes artistes importantes. Comprend des œuvres signées, entre autres, Paul Nougé, René Magritte, Jane Graverol, Marcel Mariën, Rachel Baes, Leo Dohmen, Paul Delvaux ainsi que Max Ernst, Yves Tanguy, Salvador Dalí, Giorgio De Chirico et bien d'autres. "

The title of the exhibition means "Not a laughing matter". It refers to a familiar saying in Belgian conversation. It also refers to the title of a book of the collected writings by the Belgian surrealist Paul Nougé: Histoire de ne pas rire (Bruxelles: Les Lèvres nues, 1956).

AA: The centenary exhibition of Belgian surrealism at Bozar is arguably an even greater revelation than the exhibition of international surrealism at MRBAB (Musées royaux des Beaux-Arts de Belgique). The surrealist movement started in Belgium simultaneously with France, but where the French movement was officially terminated in 1969, the Belgian movement continued at least until the 1980s and apparently never ended.

With 238 works on display, the Bozar exhibition is bigger than the one at MRBAB. Quantity turns to quality. This exhibition is about the versatility of surrealism. Among other things, it is a many-sided tribute to René Magritte, whose career we follow from 1920 until 1965 in the context of mentors and friends such as Paul Nougé and Marcel Mariën. Magritte's inspirer Giorgio di Chirico is also on display. This is a story of networks, friendships, publications and events that promoted the movement. During his transition to surrealism, Magritte moved from suspicious Brussels to supportive Paris, but in 1934, the first international manifestation of surrealism was arranged in Brussels - at Le Palais des Beaux-Arts, today's Bozar.

In the foreword to the exhibition catalogue, Christophe Slagmuylder and Zoë Gray condense seven characteristics of Belgian surrealism:

1. Le couple inséparable du mot et de l'image. / The inseparable pairing of word and image.

2. L'humour subversif narguant l'autosatisfaction et les collègues surréalistes. / The subversive sense of mockery towards complacency and fellow surrealists.

3. Les images oniriques tirées du quotidien ou d'une vision fascinée par un étrange réalité. / The oneiric images drawn from the everyday or from an enthralled vision of a strange reality.

4. La sobriété scientifique dans la lutte contre la raison. / Scientific sobriety in the combat against reason.

5. L'anonymat maîtrisé du groupe. / Anonymity cultivated by a group.

6. La croyance - temporaire - dans le communisme. / Temporary faith in communism.

7. Le paradoxe de petits bourgeois bien mis qui se transforment en révolutionnaires au service de la communisme. / The paradox of well placed petits bourgeois transforming into revolutionaries in the communist cause.

Even from a strictly Belgian viewpoint it is rewarding to view also the MRBAB international exhibition, because it casts its web deeper into the Belgian roots in symbolism in works by Jean Delville, Guillaume Vogels, Fernand Khnopff, Max Klinger and León Dardenne. 

The affinity of symbolism and surrealism reminds us of connections even further in the past - in Deutsche Romantik (Caspar David Friedrich) and Gothic fiction (Edgar Allan Poe). William Blake, Giuseppe Archimboldo and the Brueghel family are also meaningful in the context, to say nothing about indigenous art and sacred objects in many cultures.

The main difference between the old masters and the artists of the surrealist movement is that the latter were conscious about the unconscious. They practised automatic writing and the interpretation of dreams in awareness of psychoanalysis. "Wo Es war soll Ich werden". But that very awareness made surrealists seem dull and predictable in the eyes of Freud.

The whole is bigger than the sum of its parts in this exhibition. I liked particularly:

Marcel Mariën: La Traversée du rêve (1938-1945). Assemblage, 62,7 x 5,6 cm. Collection privée

René Magritte: Autoportrait (1923). Huile sur bois. 43,1 x 35,5 cm. Collection Sisters L

Pierre-Louis Flouquet: Composition (1920-1922). Huile sur toile. 156 x 117 x 5 cm. Anvers, Galerie Ronny Van de Velde

Marcel Stobbaerts: Portrait de Marthe Beauvoisin (Portrait de Madame Nougé) (1926). Huile sur toile, 93 x 60 cm. Bruxelles, MRBAB

Giorgio De Chirico: Les Plaisirs du poète (1912). Huile sur toile. 69 x 86 cm. Esther Grether Family Collection

René Magritte: La Traversée difficile (1926). Huile sur toile. 80 x 65 cm. Collection R. Vanthournout

Max Ernst: La Révolution la nuit (1923). Huile sur toile. 116,2 x 88,9 cm. Tate, acquis en 1981, inv. T03252

Man Ray: Boule de neige (1927-1928). Photographie. 20,2 x 15,5 cm. Gand, Amsab-Instituut voor Sociale Geschiedenis, inv. fo028393

E. L. T. Mesens: La Lumière déconcertante (1926). Collage et photographie. 23 x 16,9 cm. Gand, Amsab-Instituut voor Sociale Geschiedenis, inv. fo028003

René Magritte: Portrait de Paul-Gustave Van Hecke (1928). Huile sur toile. 65 x 60 cm. Courtesy Opera Gallery

Joan Miró: Tête de fumeur (1924). Huile sur toile. 51 x 66,5 cm. Musée communal d'Ixelles, inv. MJ 34

Paul Nougé: L'Ombre et son ombre (1932). Épreuve à la gelatine argentique, tirage moderne, 27,7 x 27,9 cm. Charleroi, Musée de la Photographie, inv. MPC 96/568

Paul Nougé: Subversion des images : Les Vendanges du sommeil ou Yeux clos, bouche scellée - Les Buveurs - Manteau suspendu dans le vide - Femme étendue sur une cheminée ou Les profondeurs du sommeil - La Naissance de l'object ou Les Spectateurs - Femme effrayée par une ficelle (1929-1930). Photographies, Anvers, Coll. Sylvio Perlstein --- [reproduction de négatifs par Marc Trivier] Le Grenier - Cils coupés - Femmes au miroir - La Vengeance - Table aimantée, tombeau du poète - Le Fard - Mur murmure - Femme dans l'escalier - ... les oiseaux vous poursuivent - Linges et cloche - Le Lecteur - La Jongleuse - Le Bras révélateur (1929-1930). Photographies, 20 x 30 cm. Bruxelles, AML. 00568/0087-0105

Paul Delvaux: L'Incendie (1935). Huile sur toile. 140,2 x 85,5 cm. Bruxelles, MRBAB, inv. 11541

Raoul Ubac: La Chambre (1938). Épreuve gélantino-argentique, 53,8 x 75 cm. Paris, Centre Pompidou - Musée national d'Art moderne - Centre de Création industrielle, inv. AM 1988-649

Marcel Lefrancq: the Parc de Mons series (1938-1939). Épreuves à la gélatine argentique, tirages modernes, 28,2 x 28.4 cm. Charleroi, Musée de la Photographie

Raoul Ubac: La Nébuleuse (1938). Épreuve à la gélatine argentique, tirage d'époque. 11,7 x 8,7 cm. Charleroi, Collection de la Fédération Wallonie-Bruxelles, en dépôt au Musée de la Photographie, inv. APC 22.048

René Magritte: La Liberté de l'esprit (1948). Huile sur toile, 100 x 80 cm. Charleroi, Collection du Musée des Beaux-Arts, inv. 340 01000156

Paul Delvaux: L'Aube sur la ville (1940). Huile sur toile, 172 x 202 cm. Belfius Art Collection, inv. 13222

Surrealism was a celebration of l'amour fou - mad love. It was the central tenet, fundamental and profound, in the art and life of the surrealists (René Magritte / Georgette Berger, Louis Aragon / Elsa Triolet, Man Ray / Kiki de Montparnasse, Lee Miller...). L'amour fou is the keyword to Un chien andalou and L'Âge d'Or. It is also the key to favourite movies of the surrealists such as Peter Ibbetson. It is also the reason why Vertigo is relevant here (the Edgar Allan Poe connection).

Female nudity and sexuality is a major subject (I was about to write "asset") in surrealist art. There was a male bias in the movement, as in the art world in general. I hesitate to write "male gaze", but it is justified here. Female artists such as Jane Graverol and Rachel Baes get represented in the Bozar surrealist exhibition from the 1940s onwards. 

The first surrealist film-maker was Germaine Dulac, but she was unhappy with Antonin Artaud's screenplay for La Coquille et le clergyman. Since Maya Deren there has been a growing prominence of female avantgarde in the cinema, including surrealist affinities.

Both catalogues are valuable keepsakes. They contain the illustrations in extenso. As usual today, the reproductions fail to convey the true colour brightness of the artworks.

...

On a personal note, my earliest memory of surrealism is a reproduction of La persistència de la memòria (ES 1931) by Salvador Dalí. That was in the 1960s, and at the time, surrealism, often mixed with psychedelia, was prominent in pop culture, including in poems, lyrics and songs by Bob Dylan, John Lennon and David Bowie. I have written two books on the music video, and my fascination started with works such as The Beatles: Strawberry Fields Forever (GB 1967, D: Peter Goldmann) and David Bowie: Ashes to Ashes (GB 1980, D: David Bowie & David Mallet). Lennon's standup piano with strings turned into a cobweb evoke the grand piano in Un chien andalou. The barren trees remind us of Dalí's Persistence of Memory. Bowie's Beachy Head appears as "a strand of eternity" like Dalí's Portlligat.

Imagine ! 100 Years of International Surrealism (2024 exhibition at Musées royaux des Beaux-Arts de Belgique)

Salvador Dalí : Construction molle aux haricots bouilles (prémonition de la guerre civile) (1936). © Philadelphia Museum of Art. Philadelphia (Pennsylvania). The Louise and Walter Arensberg Collection.

Catalogue: IMAGINE! 100 ans de surréalisme international. Ludion. Expo: 21/2/2024 - 21/07/2024, Musées royaux des Beaux-Arts de Belgique, Bruxelles et ensuite Hamburger Kunsthalle en de Fundación. Francisca Vandepitte, e.a. HB, 320 x 220 mm, 240 p. Publication date: Maart 24. ISBN: 9789464781120 (HB - FR). € 35,00. --- Cent ans après la publication du "Manifeste du Surréalisme" (1924) d'André Breton, les MRBAB célèbrent le centenaire de la naissance du surréalisme avec IMAGINE!, une exceptionnelle exposition itinérante internationale conçue en collaboration avec le Centre Pompidou (Paris). Une immersion dans la poésie surréaliste, à travers les thématiques du rêve, du labyrinthe, de la métamorphose, de l'inconnu et du subconscient, emmenée par les grands noms du surréalisme, de Max Ernst à Giorgio de Chirico, en passant par Salvador Dalí, René Magritte, Joan Miró, Jane Graverol, Sorothea Tanning, Man Ray, Leonor Fini, etc. --- IMAGINE! se concentre sur les liens, les similitudes, mais aussi les lignes de fractures, entre le surréalisme et un de ses précurseurs, le symbolisme. En effet, à partir de 1880, Bruxelles est un exceptionnel carrefour des arts et avant-gardes, qui se manifeste notamment par le biais des expositions du Groupe Les XX et La Libre Esthétique. Le symbolisme, incarné notamment par Rops, Spilliaert, Khnopff, Delville ou Minne, s'y développe et anticipe largement l'émergence du mouvement surréaliste. --- Quelques décennies plus tard, Bruxelles devient le foyer du surréalisme belge. Malgré la rupture culturelle provoquée par la Première Guerre mondiale, les anciens symbolistes et la jeunesse émergente ne sont pas fondamentalement étrangers l'un à l'autre. --- Après Bruxelles et Paris, l'exposition continuera son parcours européen et international par la Hamburger Kunsthalle, puis à la Fundación Mapfre Madrid et s'achèvera au Philadelphia Museum of Art.

IMAGINE!

100 Years of International Surrealism

Exposition internationale

Musées royaux des Beaux-Arts de Belgique (MRBAB)

Regentschapsstraat 3 rue de la Régence

1000 Bruxelles

21.2. > 21.7.2024

Visited on 19 April 2024

COMMISSARIAT :

- Musées royaux des Beaux-Arts de Belgique : Francisca Vandepitte, Conservatrice de l'art moderne

- Centre Pompidou, Musée national d'Art Moderne : Didier Ottinger, Directeur adjoint chargé de la programmation culturelle du Musée national d'Art moderne - Centre de création industrielle (MNAM/CCI) & Marie Sarré, Attachée de Conservation au Service des collections modernes

- En collaboration avec le Centre Pompidou (Paris), la Hamburger Kunsthalle, la Fundación Mapfré Madrid et le Philadelphia Museum of Art.

OFFICIAL INTRODUCTION

" Les Musées Royaux des Beaux-Arts de Belgique inaugurent IMAGINE!, une exceptionnelle exposition itinérante internationale conçue en collaboration avec le Centre Pompidou (Paris).

Une immersion dans la poésie surréaliste, à travers les thématiques du rêve, du labyrinthe, de la métamorphose, de l’inconnu et du subconscient, emmenée par les grands noms du surréalisme, de Max Ernst à Giorgio de Chirico, en passant par Salvador Dalí, Joan Miró,  Jane Graverol, Dorothea Tanning, Man Ray, Leonor Fini, etc.

Prêt pour ce grand voyage poétique ?

Chaque musée partenaire accueille le noyau dur de l’exposition itinérante et le décline en mettant l'accent sur son propre patrimoine. À Bruxelles, la volonté des MRBAB est d’offrir une lecture élargie du surréalisme à travers une perspective symboliste, à travers plus de 130 œuvres d'art (peintures, œuvres sur papier mais aussi sculptures, objets, assemblages et photographies).

IMAGINE! se concentre sur les liens, les similitudes, mais aussi les lignes de fractures, entre le surréalisme et un de ses précurseurs, le symbolisme. En effet, à partir de 1880, Bruxelles est un exceptionnel carrefour des arts et avant-gardes, qui se manifeste notamment par le biais des expositions du Groupe Les XX et La Libre Esthétique. Le symbolisme, incarné notamment par Rops, Spilliaert, Khnopff, Delville ou Minne, s’y développe et anticipe largement l'émergence du mouvement surréaliste.

Quelques décennies plus tard, Bruxelles devient le foyer du surréalisme belge. Malgré la rupture culturelle provoquée par la Première Guerre mondiale, les anciens symbolistes et la jeunesse émergente ne sont pas fondamentalement étrangers l'un à l'autre.

De janvier à juillet 2024, la Belgique assurera la présidence du Conseil de l'Union européenne. En raison du centenaire de la publication du “Manifeste du Surréalisme” (1924), de l'importance de ce mouvement pour la Belgique, de sa diffusion et de sa signification dans un contexte européen, 2024 est une année propice pour mettre le surréalisme à l'honneur. Avec l'exposition IMAGINE!, les MRBAB célèbrent le centenaire de la naissance du surréalisme en s’insérant dans un contexte européen optimal.

Après Bruxelles et Paris, l'exposition continuera son parcours européen et international par la Hamburger Kunsthalle, puis à la Fundación Mapfré Madrid et s'achèvera au Philadelphia Museum of Art. "

AA: I celebrate the centenary of surrealism by visiting two magnificent exhibitions in Brussels: international today (at Musées royaux des Beaux-Arts de Belgique = MRBAB) and Belgian tomorrow (at Bozar). The scope of the MRBAB is international, but even here there is a Belgian accent: the continuity of 1880s Belgian symbolism into post-WWI surrealism.

MRBAB highlights nine themes:

    The Labyrinth

    The Night

    The Forest

    Mental Landscapes

    Metamorphoses & Myths

    Chimeras

    Dream & Nightmare

    The Tears of Eros

    The Cosmos

Stimulating and inspiring, mixing the familiar with the unfamiliar. 

My favourites include:

Jean Delville: The Dead Orpheus (1893) oil on canvas

Giorgio de Chirico: Melancholy of a Beautiful Day (1913) oil on canvas

Max Ernst: Capricorn (1948/1964) bronze

Guillaume Vogels: Impasse des Quatre-Livres, Evening (ca 1883) oil on canvas

René Magritte: The Dominion of Light (1954) oil on canvas - I like his whole cycle in this series

Paul Klee: Uhrpflanzen (1924) oil drawing with transfer colouring

Hans Arp: "Mirr" (1936) gilded bronze

Pablo Picasso: Blue Acrobat (1929) charcoal and oil on canvas

André Kertesz: Distorsion no. 40, Paris (1933/1977) gelatin-silver print

Paul Delvaux: Pygmalion (1939) oil on wood

Man Ray: Portrait of a Poet (Juliet) (1973) photo printed in 23 copies

Fernand Khnopff: Portrait of Marguerite Khnopff (1887) oil on canvas, mounted on wood

Dorothea Tanning: The Guest Bedroom (1950-1952) oil on canvas

Joan Miró: Woman and Birds at Sunrise (1946) oil on canvas

Valentine Dobrée: Black Gloves (ca 1930) mixed media, collage

Max Klinger: The Glove (Paraphrase About the Discovery of a Glove (1881) ten plates

Dora Maar: Untitled [Manos saliendo de una concha / Hand-seashell] (1934) modern print

Wilfredo Lam: Soulless Children (1964) oil on canvas

Léon Dardenne: The Angel That Lost Gomorrah - The Spirit of the Ruins - The Song of Hours (1886) triptych, charcoal on paper

Barnett Newman: Genetic Moment (1947) oil on canvas

Jackson Pollock: The Moon-Woman Cuts the Circle (1943) oil on canvas

Rufino Tamayo: Man Facing the Infinite (1950) oil on canvas

Jean Arp: Star (1941) plaster sculpture

Alexander Calder: Mobile [ca 1953-1954] three-dimensional object with moving parts, painted metal sheet, metal rods, steel wire

Surrealism as an "ism" started a hundred years ago, one of the seismic movements that changed the course of art after the First World War. Its central features had always existed in poetry, tales of mystery and imagination and authors such as Dostoevsky. The distinction of  the surrealist movement was that it was conscious about the unconscious, in practices including automatic writing. It was inspired by psychoanalysis, but Sigmund Freud rejected the movement, because it was too obvious for him.

The first surrealist film was Germaine Dulac's La Coquille et le clergyman (1928) and a corpus of surrealist avantgarde started to grow in the cinema, including Maya Deren's Meshes of the Afternoon (1943). The most famous film was Un chien andalou (1929) by Luis Buñuel and Salvador Dalí.

My favourite text about surrealism is Henry Miller's "The Golden Age", a celebration of his favourite movie, Luis Buñuel's L'Âge d'Or (1930). It is about repression and liberation in the same spirit as Freud's essay Das Unbehagen in der Kultur. Miller and the surrealists shared an inspiration in the cinema, starting in 1890s early cinema shows mixing a Chinaman walking over Brooklyn Bridge in the rain with nightmarish pursuits in which houses collapsed and people disappeared through trapdoors. Surrealists loved pre-war Louis Feuillade serials such as Fantomas, shot in newsreel style on the streets of Paris. Henry Miller celebrates also a Laurel & Hardy masterpiece, The Battle of the Century (US 1927). Clashes and montages of the absurd and the unexpected were a key surrealist experience. An avid moviegoer was also Franz Kafka, another surrealist.

A great surrealist film-maker was Georges Franju both in documentaries (Le Sang des bêtes, Hôtel des Invalides) and the cinéfantastique (Les Yeux sans visage, Judex). I met Franju in April 1978 and with him conducted my first interview with a film-maker. His catchword was the "insolite", roughly the same as "uncanny" - "das Unheimliche" to speak with Freud.

When Hitler occupied France, surrealists moved to America. Salvador Dalí came into collaboration with Walt Disney (in the Destino project), but there had always been a surrealist affinity in Disney - likewise with the Fleischer Brothers, Tex Avery and Chuck Jones. The affinity lives on in the work of Hayao Miyazaki, includíng in The Boy and the Heron. In Finland, Tove Jansson was a surrealist in the 1930s (for instance in Mysterious Landscape), but the surrealist inspiration continued in her Moomin novels and cartoons.

Dalí was also in collaboration with Alfred Hitchcock in Spellbound, and it is illuminating to register that the most surrealist, compellingly oneiric scenes - whether in dream or awake - are the most sober ones. Vertigo is Hitchcock's most surrealist film, but the semi-factual The Wrong Man is surrealist, as well, in its Kafkaesque approach.

Susanne Langer explored film art as a dream mode. I would expand her insight to cover also non-fiction, including newsreels. Films appear in a time continuum. They are timebound but also timeless and endlessly repeatable. André Bazin observed in his essay on bullfights that we only die once, except in the cinema, where death is repeated every afternoon. The sense of the absurd is inherent in cinematic montage which cuts temporal continuity into pieces. Buster Keaton caught this in Sherlock, Jr.

Surrealism is in the lifeblood of the cinema.

La Dame à la Licorne (six tapestries at Musée de Cluny)

One of the six tapestries: Tenture de la dame à la licorne-le gout -Cl.10831 -1 - N° Inventaire : Cl. 10831 à 10836

Musée de Cluny, Musée National du Moyen Âge

28 rue du Sommerard

75005 Paris

Visited on 17 April 2024

GUIDE BOOKS: 

Musée de Cluny, Musée National du Moyen Âge: A Guide (2015), 192 s. 

Élisabeth Taburet-Delahaye & Béatrice de Chancel-Bardelot : The Lady and the Unicorn (2018), 120 s.

MUSÉE DE CLUNY: TAPISSERIES DE LA DAME À LA LICORNE: 

" Le Toucher, le Goût, l’Odorat, l’Ouïe et la Vue… et une sixième pièce, avec une tente bleue et l’inscription mon seul désir : immédiatement reconnaissables, les tapisseries qui forment la tenture de la Dame à la licorne sont parmi les œuvres les plus célèbres des collections du musée de Cluny. "

" Le fond rouge et un même schéma de composition unissent les six tapisseries. Sur un grand ovale bleu, la Dame, élégante, parée de bijoux et souvent assistée d’une demoiselle, se tient solennellement, entre un lion et une licorne porteurs de bannières, de capes ou d’écus à trois croissants. Ce groupe est encadré par des arbres de quatre essences : des chênes, des orangers, des pins et des houx. Le sol des six "îles" est planté de fleurs, et les fonds rouges sont parsemés de plantes à fleurs et d’animaux : lapins blancs, renardeaux, un lionceau, des agneaux, des oiseaux… mais aussi des singes ou une panthère… "

" Les armoiries, de gueules (rouge) à la bande d’azur (bleu) chargée de trois croissants d’argent (blanc) ont permis d’identifier la famille qui a fait tisser ces pièces : les Le Viste, originaires de Lyon, mais possédant des terres en Bourgogne et des résidences parisiennes. L’identité du commanditaire reste l’objet de débats : ce serait soit Jean IV Le Viste, mort en 1500, soit son neveu Antoine, mort en 1532, deux personnages de l’époque des rois de France Charles VIII et Louis XII, pourvus de charges dans la haute administration du temps. "

" Les modèles des femmes et des animaux à grande échelle ont été dessinés par le peintre Jean d’Ypres. Actif à Paris de 1489 à 1508, il est connu comme enlumineur au service de la reine Anne de Bretagne et comme auteur de modèles pour des vitraux ou pour des gravures illustrant des livres imprimés. Les plantes et les animaux ont pu être tissés à partir de modèles détenus dans les ateliers des liciers. Le tissage est très soigné, voire virtuose, mais le lieu de production des tapisseries n’est pas connu. Elles peuvent provenir des métiers à tisser implantés aux Pays-Bas méridionaux, dans des villes comme Bruxelles ou Tournai, mais elles pourraient tout autant être l’œuvre des liciers parisiens. "

" Un sentiment de paix et d’harmonie se dégage des six tapisseries. On y voit peu d’objets et d’accessoires, tandis que les vêtements et les bijoux sont décrits avec attention. Les végétaux et les animaux sont partout représentés, tantôt stylisés, tantôt inspirés par l’observation directe. "

" La tenture a été comprise de diverses manières, en particulier en fonction de l’interprétation que l’on peut faire de la sixième pièce. Comment comprendre l’inscription, comportant deux initiales, A et I encadrant l’expression mon seul désir ? Peut-être les prénoms d’Antoine Le Viste et de son épouse Jacqueline ? La Dame prend-elle ou remet-elle un collier dans le coffret tendu par la demoiselle ? Est-ce une allégorie des sens et d’un sixième sens, proche de l’âme et du cœur ? Peut-on faire une lecture courtoise de ces tapisseries, puisque la Dame est dans un jardin où nombre de plantes et d’animaux font allusion à la quête amoureuse ? Mon seul désir est-il une devise ? Quel sens donner au mot désir, dans un monde encore profondément chrétien, mais au seuil de la Renaissance ? "

N° Inventaire : Cl. 10831 à 10836

Hauteur : 311 à 377 cm

Largeur : 290 à 473 cm

Complément d'information sur le lieu : Lieu de production : Paris (réalisation des cartons)

Périodes : 4e quart du 15e siècle; 1er quart du 16e siècle

Technique : tapisserie

Œuvre incontournable

AA: Before entering the Musée de Cluny, there is time to visit the medieval garden and meditate by the ruins of the Roman Empire. My first visit to the museum is focused to one room only, Salle 13, dedicated to the six huge tapestries of the La Dame à la Licorne cycle. 

I only know them from illustrations and reproductions, including in Harry Potter movies. Seen for the first time "live" in the dim, tender lighting of Musée de Cluny, they cast a magic spell.

They are breathtaking. I have never seen anything like them. They are subtle, refined and vivid. Medieval discipline is combined with a Renaissance sense of life.

Wool and silk threads join in a rich and warm union. The colours may be fading but they are still mesmerizing. The glow is unique and mysterious.

In the guide to the six tapestries, Rainer Maria Rilke's Die Aufzeichnungen des Malte Laurids Brigge (1910) is liberally quoted. He writes about each. The experimental novel, an early exercise in the stream of consciousness, is in public domain and legally online. In the Zeno online publication, the Dame à la Licorne passage is on pages 64-66.

Five of the tapestries are dedicated to the senses of the touch, the taste, the smell, the hearing and the sight. The sixth gives a clue to its sense in the coat of arms "À mon seul désir". What does it mean?

What is the sixth sense? The other senses are physical, and this one might be spiritual. It might be intuition. It might be the wisdom of the heart. It might be the sense of the sacred. It might be love.

The six senses have also been linked with six virtues of medieval nobility: richesse (wealth), franchise (pure and direct sensation), beauté (rapture of the soul towards harmony), liesse (an elevation of the soul), oiseuse (appearance) and largesse (generosity).

I was alerted to these tapestries a year ago by a film, À mon seul desir (FR 2023) by Lucie Borleteau. It is about the desire of the body, but the secret of that matter is that it is always also about the desire of the soul.

God's Little Acre

Anthony Mann: God's Little Acre (US 1958) with Robert Ryan (Ty Ty Walden) and Buddy Hackett (Pluto Swint, later during the film elected sheriff). Photo: La Cinémathèque française.

Le Petit Arpent du bon Dieu / Luojan oma maatilkku / Guds lilla land.

Anthony Mann

États-Unis / 1957 / 110 min / 35 mm [announced] / VOSTF

D'après le roman Le Petit Arpent du bon Dieu d'Erskine Caldwell.

Avec Robert Ryan, Aldo Ray, Fay Spain.

Helsinki premiere: 31 Oct 1958 - Savoy - United Artists.

Rétrospective Anthony Mann

Viewed at La Cinémathèque française, Salle Georges Franju, 51 Rue de Bercy, 75012 Paris, M° Bercy Lignes, 14, 6, dimanche 14 avril 2024.

La Cinémathèque française : " Dans la moiteur du Sud, une histoire d'or caché dans le jardin d'un pauvre planteur de coton. Robert Ryan et Aldo Ray (héros de Cote 465) dans une adaptation bigarrée du livre de Caldwell, qui mêle le drame familial à la farce paysanne, d'un érotisme outrancier et audacieux. "

AA: Anthony Mann directed two films for his own production company Security Pictures: Men in War and God's Little Acre, both starring Robert Ryan and Aldo Ray.

Both films strive for earthy naturalism in contrast to Hollywood glamour. In Men in War, Mann succeeded. In God's Little Acre, he failed.

There seemed to be a curse around Erskine Caldwell in Hollywood. John Ford created masterpieces of working people in The Grapes of Wrath, The Long Voyage Home and How Green Was My Valley but failed in Tobacco Road (although the cinematography of Arthur C. Miller was magisterial).

I believe that the trouble was about sex. This was the era of the Production Code Administration (PCA, 1934-1968). Before the MPAA rating system was introduced in 1968, an American film as a rule had no rating, that is: everything had to be suitable for children. A frank, naturalistic account of sex was impossible in mainstream Hollywood. Instead there was circumlocution, euphemism, symbolism, or baroque excess. 

In God's Little Acre, Anthony Mann experimented with open sexuality as daringly as he could and showed naked skin (cheesecake and beefcake) as much as the PCA allowed. Fay Spain and Tina Louise  are unique love goddesses in Anthony Mann's world, and together with Aldo Ray they emit an authentic pheromone charge and a high sex appeal, but Hollywood restrictions make the performances seem repressed and contrived. Although the actors are formidable, the beating around the bush feels embarrassing. 

For once Mann loses his assured approach. Even the exciting and original score by Elmer Bernstein feels out of touch in such circumstances.

After John Ford's 1940's films, it became rare in Hollywood to make films about fighting workers. From this angle, God's Little Acre is also exceptional. The workers break into a closed cotton mill with the intention of taking the production into their own hands, but a guard shoots and kills their leader Will Thompson (Aldo Ray).

There is a restoration of God's Little Acre at the UCLA Film and Television Archive supervised by Robert Gitt, but that was not on display. 35 mm was announced. The screening started as what looked like a battered 16 mm print. The visual quality improved, and turned into what looked like a decent 16 mm print.

Reign of Terror

Anthony Mann: Reign of Terror (US 1949) with Richard Basehart as Robespierre.

Le Livre noir / Yllämme giljotiini / Över oss giljotinen.

Anthony Mann

États-Unis / 1949 / 89 min / 35 mm / VOSTF

Avec Robert Cummings, Arlene Dahl, Richard Basehart.

Helsinki premiere: 24 Feb 1950 - Savoy - released by Parvisfilmi Oy.

Sous-titres français on print by Michel Herbuveaux.

Rétrospective Anthony Mann

Viewed at La Cinémathèque française, Salle Georges Franju, 51 Rue de Bercy, 75012 Paris, M° Bercy Lignes, 14, 6, dimanche le 14 avril 2024.

La Cinémathèque française : " Les codes du film noir au service d'un épisode de la Révolution française : la disparition du « livre noir » de Robespierre où sont inscrits les noms de ses ennemis. Dans un Paris éclairé aux flambeaux, un thriller en costumes, impeccablement interprété, méconnu et palpitant. "

AA: Revisited Reign of Terror which I last saw in 1998 in a 16 mm print.

La Terreur (the Reign of Terror, 5 September 1793 - 27 July 1794) conveyed as a film noir. 

It was a special thrill to see this Anthony Mann masterpiece in Paris.

Set on the last day of la Terreur (26 July 1794), the movie is dramatized as one big chase, dynamic and relentless. Essentially, it is one ride in the night for life and death - for the protagonists and for France. It is a well made play with suspense moments, false identities, stunning revelations and last minute rescues. The decisive clue in the impossible search of the elusive Black Book is provided by Robespierre's dog. A person who stays in control during every twist is Fouché (Arnold Moss) the survivor, the chief of the secret police. In the finale, Robespierre meets his end at the guillotine and "La Marseillaise" sounds for the only time. A soldier whose back is turned remarks to Fouché that the art of being a Frenchman is knowing what comes next. Fouché asks his name. "Bonaparte, Napoléon Bonaparte". Follows the text frame "The End of the Reign of Terror".

Mann and his cinematographer John Alton create pure visual poetry in the Expressionist idiom. The mise-en-scène is magisterial. It all plays out in darkness, physical and metaphysical. The composition in depth is electrifying. Mirrors expand the field of vision. High angles and low angles enhance drama. Much of the action is covered in silhouettes and shadows. 

The subjects of a reign of terror, dictatorship, mob rule, mass killings, sadistic tortures and pervasive fear feel acute in a movie made in the 1940s. As well as the cynicism of the villains, their callousness in front of extreme suffering and their hard-boiled dialogue. In the Mann retrospective, I have felt a special cold fury in scenes of brutal violence. It is about looking into the blackest darkness and transcending it.

Robert Cummings and Arlene Dahl carry the leading roles. Richard Basehart who had just played the cold-blooded burglar-killer in He Walked by Night returns to play Robespierre in a great ensemble cast with Wade Crosby (Danton), Richard Hart (Barras), Norman Lloyd (Tallien) and Jess Barker (Saint-Just). It is a pleasure to glimpse the 15 year old Russ Tamblyn in his second movie. He returned to an Anthony Mann production as Cherokee Kid in Cimarron.

This good 35 mm projection did justice to John Alton's extremely ambitious high contrast cinematography with impressive black levels.