Les Sièges de l'Alcazar (Olaf Möller masterclass, Sodankylä 2025)

 

Luc Moullet: Les Sièges de l'Alcazar (FR 1989). Taking notes in the first row, usually reserved for children.

Luc Moullet: Les Sièges de l'Alcazar (FR 1989). It is not a given to access a seat in the first row meant for children, since tickets are cheaper there. But at last, Guy acquires a green card and free access as a professional critic.

Sodankylän Elokuvajuhlat / Midnight Sun Film Festival (MSFF) 2025.

Olaf Möller masterclass "Green Flash a Decade Long"

At the School, 14 June 2025.

IMDb synopsis: "Paris, 1955. Guy, film critic of the Cahiers du Cinéma, often goes to see the films of Vittorio Cottafavi in a local cinema. One day he notices that Jeanne, film critic of "Positif ", the rival magazine, seems to be following him. He is intrigued."

Olaf Möller (MSFF 2025): "Guy Moscardo and Jeanne Cavalero fall in love. But what at other times and places would be a simple affair of the heart turns at a fleapit called Alcazar into a cruel confrontation between ideological blocks: Guy sits in the first row centre, writes for Cahiers du Cinéma, and has understood that film’s greatest genius is Vittorio Cottafavi – Jeanne sits in the back somewhat to the side, writes for Positif, and has understood that film’s greatest genius is Michelangelo Antonioni. How on earth is this supposed to end in happiness and bliss?"

"Luc Moullet started to write for Cahiers du Cinéma in 1956, and thus knows how many film historical liberties he took here – which are many! – to make his points about the madness of love and the idiocy of orthodoxy in a charmingly screwy and always ballsy fashion. When the film came out towards the end of the Cold War, it was easy to mistake it for a simple piece of nostalgic cinephile fun. The decades since have shown that Les Sièges de l’Alcazar is about much more sinister, and far more general things than mere passion for the movies – but maybe we should again learn to love the movies as if they actually meant something, as if Cottafavi vs. Antonioni was indeed a matter of life and death?" (OM)

FRANCE 1989. DIRECTOR: LUC MOULLET. SCREENPLAY: Luc Moullet • CINEMATOGRAPHY: Richard Copans • EDITING: Guy Lecorne • PRODUCTION DESIGN: Marie-Josèphe Médan • COSTUMES: Rose-Marie Melka • SOUND: Patrick Frédérich • CAST: Olivier Maltinti, Elizabeth Moreau, Sabine Haudepin, Dominique Zardi, Micha Bayard • PRODUCTION: Les Films d’Ici, La Sept Cinéma • PRODUCERS: Suzel Gaillard • PRINT SOURCE: Les Films d’Ici • FORMAT: DCP • LANGUAGE: French • SUBTITLES: English • 54 min

AA: A droll satire on cinephilia written and directed by Luc Moullet, a veteran of deepest cinephilia himself. 

The rivalry of the socially conscious Positif and the l'art pour l'art tribune Cahiers du Cinéma is complicated by a reluctant but growing attraction between a female Positif critic and a male Cahiers critic. It's hate at first sight.

Olaf Möller made the important remark that in reality, all French film critics at the time were male.

The film is a piece of humoristic fiction but also of an almost anthropological interest as an account of the lives of cinema owners and film buffs.

Vittorio Cottafavi was a cult director also in Finnish cinephilia at the time. 

Clips included: 

Traviata '53 / Fille d'amour / Rakkauden tytär (IT/FR 1953)

Nel gorgo del peccato / L'Affranchi / Der ewige Lied der Liebe / Eternal Song of Love (IT/DE 1954)

Una donna libera / Femmes libres / A Free Woman (IT/FR 1954)

Opening credit tune: "El degüello" the Mexican bugle call, used by the Mexican Army in 1838 during the Battle of the Alamo to signal that the defenders of the garrison would receive no quarter from General Santa Anna, arranged by Dimitri Tiomkin for Rio Bravo (US 1959). From "degollar", meaning throat-cutting. "No mercy".

The title of the film is a wordplay on Augusto Genina's L'assedio dell'Alcazar / Sin novedad en el Alcázar / The Siege of Alcazar (IT/ES 1940), released in France as Le Siège de l'Alcazar, a key Antikomintern movie a co-production of Fascist Italy and Falangist Spain, a key film in the cult of El Caudillo, the dictator Francisco Franco. 

In French, "siège" means both "siege" and "seat".