YOUNG YAKUZA BY JEAN-PIERRE LIMOSIN
Jean-Pierre Limosin has always been a keen admirer of the land of the Rising Sun. He shot a feature in Tokyo in 1996 (Tokyo Eyes), a beautiful documentary about Takeshi Kitano (for the French TV series Cinema, de notre temps) and numerous short films -including a film about photographer Nobuyoshi Araki. As he got naturally acquainted with more and more Japanese people, no wonder he’d been proposed at some point by a yakuza boss, M. Kumagai, to film the life the latter's clan in Tokyo. Limosin accepted the proposal on the condition he could do it with his own rules and not solely according to the yakuzas rituals. He also asked to follow the path of a young recruit, who will turn out to appear as unfathomable as charismatic and who will bring about the circle’s fall. Young Yakuza, which was first screened at Cannes Film Festival last year, has just been released in France.
THE PICK OF THE WEEK BY... FRANCOIS MARQUIS Producer of Erick Zonca's The Daydream of Angels and more recently of Julia by the same director, François Marquis speaks about his passion for the maturity of great auteurs: he has chosen Roman Polanski's The Pianist, starring Adrien Brody, which earned the film the Golden Palm in Cannes Film Festival in 2002.
MANHUNT Based on the true story of the Klarsfelds, a Franco-German couple who devoted themselves to bringing Nazi war criminals to justice. Their pursuit of Klaus Barbie, the "Butcher of Lyon," takes them to South America, where he has found refuge. After 12 years of investigations, undercover work and battles with authorities, they succeed in having him captured and brought to justice. Manhunt is a riveting historical and political thriller by Laurent Jaoui, starring Yvan Attal and Franka Potente as the Klarsfelds. Now on DVD with numerous extras (including an interview with the Klarsfelds and an interview with journalist Ladislas de Hoyos). Click here to view the trailer.
BLOGS You can now post your comments on the site blog! (A temporary bug had prevented posts over the last few weeks. We apologize about it...).
APRIL 9 - JUNE 8 Georges Rousse exhibition at la Maison Européenne de la Photographie in Paris. Rousse is perhaps not so much a photographer, or even a painter, as a bender of space. His works are essentially optical illusions, both deceptively simple and deceptively complex at the same time. Largely abstracts and geometrical shapes painted on the walls of derelict spaces, once photographed they appear to occupy a suspended fourth plane, stretched a little dizzily over crumbled walls and rusted windows. Each photograph is a carefully generated moment, a place to contemplate the perfection of shapes, the quiet dignity of abandoned spaces, while savouring the simple pleasure of sleight of hand. A room turnt into project-room also relates his work since 1981.
APRIL 10-14 Second edition of the Contemporary Drawing Fair: 55 galleries of first-rate importance, both French and from abroad (Germany, Belgium, Canada, United States, Holland and Switzerland) will invest a Parisian building of four levels, over 2000m2, located 4 rue du Général Foy in Paris 8, for an international Fair entirely dedicated to modern and contemporary drawing, with works dating from 1948 to today. A medium apart, even if it covers the freer forms of classical drawing, modern contemporary drawing, in its spontaneity, and sometimes its dimensions, is strongly inscribed in today's epoch. Particularly convivial by its organization "in apartments" and by the number of its participants, the Contemporary Drawing Fair favours the presentation of works rarely on offer to collectors in traditional fairs until now.
MY UNCLE (DVD)
It’s one of the few French films to be as famous in France than in the USA. Because Jacques Tati worked personally on his work translation ; also because there’s not so many dialogs in it, essentially gags, as well as a poetic way to experience space and architecture. If you don’t know the film nor the director yet, think of a silent film genius such as Chaplin or Keaton thrown into the fifties world of modern design and abstract paintings. An hilarious masterpiece.
CHARLEY VARRICK (DVD)
It begins with a robbery. Two men and the wife of one of them robl a bank in a little town and get nearly one million dollars: they won’t be euphorical for long as it belongs to the mob, which will try by any means to recover it. It's the starting point of Don Siegel's film starring Walter Matthau -a littlle-known and yet one of his best film: dry, virtuoso, so moral that it becomes abstract. It’s the kind of film the best films today in Hollywood try to refer to.
MANHUNT (DVD)
Klaus Barbie, the "Butcher of Lyon," flew to South America after the end of World War II. The Klarsfelds, a Franco-German couple who devoted themselves to bringing Nazi war criminals to justice, hunted him for years before bringing him back to France. Based on their true story, this fast-paced film is a brilliant thriller as well as an investigation about nazis who escaped after the end of the war and their links with South American dictatorships. A thrilling and riveting film starring Yvan Attal and Franka Potente as the Klarsfeld couple.
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