PLOY BY PEN-EK RATANARUANG
Pen-Ek Ratanaruang is the other great name of contemporary Thai cinema along with Apichatpong Weeraseethakul. Both have studied in the USA and have found an international audience thanks to the festivals interests. But there aren’t many similarities between those two filmmakers. First working as a graphic designer, Ratanaruang has another idea of beauty, which his more for him a question of style: a sensualist, who finds beauty in style (floating camera, beautiful slow motion and sidelong framings) and the sixth feature -the disturbing and erotic Ploy- of whom, has been released this week in France after it was shown in many festivals such as Cannes, Toronto, London or Saint-Louis.
THE PICK OF THE WEEK BY... JEAN-PIERRE LIMOSIN Director Jean-Pierre Limosin (Young Yakuza, Tokyo Eyes) has picked Come and See by Elem Klimov. "A friend who works on the concept of war made me discover this film. It’s the last film by Elem Klimov. It exhausted him to sickness. I can see on the faces of the actors what they went through. It’s a film entirely shot with a steadycam, in 1984, with a heavy machinery ; a film in which the death of God is really convincing and has nothing to do with the proclivity of the Church or the Orthodox mysticism we can see in other Russian directors..." Click here to read more.
JULIA FOR EVER Erick Zonca's Julia is still touring international festivals and convincing the audience in French theaters. A must see by the director of The Dreamlife of Angels and The Little Thief. And a breakthrough performance by Scottish actress Tilda Swinton (Orlando, Michael Clayton). Liked or hated Julia? Post your comment here.
APRIL 16-27 The great achievements of Romania’s emerging filmmakers such as Cristi Puiu, Cristian Mungiu (4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days -winner of the Golden Palm at Cannes last year), Ruxandra Zenide were foreshadowed by earlier generations -Liviu Ciulei, Lucian Pintilie, Dan Pita, Mircea Daneliuc, Alexandru Tatos, among others. With Shining Through a Long, Dark Night: Romanian Cinema, Then and Now, the Lincoln Center Film Society, in collaboration with the Romanian Cultural Institute in New York, brings together many of the finest recent Romanian films with a selection of key films from the pre-1989 Romania cinema.
APRIL 16 - July 13 Bringing together over 100 paintings, objects or films, Narrative Figuration Paris, 1960-1972 in Paris at the Grand Palais is an exploration of the sources of the figurative revival which marked the history of art in the 60s in Paris. The exhibition, which can be seen as the best way to remind the public of the inventiveness of these founding years, reconstitutes the creative environment of these works, which were sparked by the cultural and social ferment of the 60s.
APRIL 17-23 Visions du Réel is a unique international Festival in Nyon (Switzerland) providing an overview of the best of documentary or "cinéma du réel" (cinema of reality). The festival began in 1969 and became know for showing films that reflected struggles for independence, or the emancipation of women for example. The 14th edition of Visions du Réel festival includes 155 films from 36 countries, including 22 films in the international categories.
KIJÛ YOSHIDA BOXSET VOL. 1 (DVD)
Influenced by Godard’s Breathless since his first feature, Good-for-nothing, Kiju Yoshida progressively came to a very radical cinema, in both an artistical and a political point of view. The first part of his work, more or less five years this box-set content, shows in Yoshida the worthiest son of Naruse and Ozu, thanks to strong social tales with a powerful melodramatic dimension, such as Blood is Dry and Akitsu Springs (aka An affair at Akitsu).
LA CONSULTATION (DVD)
Héléne de Crécy’s La Consultation (literaly in English: The Surgery) is the portrait of a society that is being drawn in camera, in the relationship of a doctor with his patients: a great way to reach collectivity by the mean of small individual confessions, showing that medicine also cures the social body.
LoUISE BOURGEOIS (DVD)
Born in France in 1911, Louise Bourgeois has set in New York in the end of the 30s but only obtained an international recognition in the 70s with works showing a certain taste for childhood, monumental works, onirism, traumas and concentration camps… On the occasion of the French retrospective of her work at the Centre Pompidou in Paris, the artist speaks about her work in this gripping DVD.
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