Claude Sautet Forged an Admirable Path in Character-Study Drama
Many of Claude Sautet’s films were pointed comments on how even the most assured families can be the victims of upheaval when cultural codes are challenged.
French cinema
Teo Hernández’s Queer Avant-Garde Films Rewire Your Brain
Watching Teo Hernández’s queer avant-garde films, the source for his ideas about cinema as sex and ritual, all culminating in ecstatic visions, becomes self-evident.
‘The Second Twin’ Ooh-La-Las the 1960s French Murder Mystery
As a whodunit, The Second Twin is a nifty tease whose resolution might surprise you, unless you pull yourself away from the dazzle long enough to analyze the story.
Silent Serial ‘Tih-Minh’ Puts You Under Its Drugged Spell
Louis Feuillade’s dreamlike 12-episode silent film series Tih-Minh should be experienced, like laudanum, in discreet doses that will linger in our brains until the next fix.
‘A Man and a Woman’ and a Dizzy 1960s Romance
Claude Lelouch’s hugely popular A Man and a Woman was criticized for its sleek, chic, starstruck, pie-eyed, romantic wish fulfillment. Yet therein lay its radicalism.
‘Daddy’ Is a Blast of Feminist Art to the Face
Daddy is a classic example of an artist making a museum film that showcases her campy and confrontational art and performance.
Three Robert Hossein Films Evoke Harold Pinter
The three Robert Hossein films in Wicked Games exhibit gender-based power struggles and existentialist tendencies with a touch of absurdism.
Chantal Akerman’s Evolutions and Revolutions
From kitchen epics to road odysseys, these nine Chantal Akerman films chart the evolutions and revolutions of one of modern cinema’s most important auteurs.
French Filmmaker Julien Duvivier Is Ripe for Rediscovery
All four films in Criterion’s Julien Duvivier in the Thirties present a sour, self-critical image of French civilization and do it with finesse.
‘Vice and Virtue’ Is Resoundingly Allegorical and Artificial
Roger Vadim’s 1963 wartime drama Vice and Virtue is an almost abstract, self-parodic vision of decadence.
A Little Ominous Noir Music Makes Jules Dassin’s ‘Rififi’ Nearly Perfect
Jules Dassin’s Rififi, a benchmark of the heist genre shows that for the criminal, elegance and brutality go hand-in-hand.