Category Archives: European cinema

Andalusian Dog #2

I’ve posted on the surrealist film Un chien andalou which Luis Buñuel calls A desperate and passionate call to murder but want to pick up on it again to share some macabre and other details.

[Youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9mBU4KQEWcw]

A ‘seduction’ scene

In this ‘seduction’ scene we see a man going after a woman, she recoils, he finally catches up with her and gropes for her breasts, she pushes him a way, but finally gives in overcome with desire, while he is stroking her breasts her dress disappears to reveal her naked body, causing him to gaze with pleasure into the void, she pushes him away a second time.

Imagine the scene: somewhere in 1929  Luis Buñuel is on set directing Simone Mareuil and Pierre Batcheff in the clip above. He has on a phonograph a recording of Richard Wagner‘s Liebestod which he plays on the background. Little did he know that both protagonists, in a bizarre twist of fate would later commit suicide. Pierre in 1932, Simone in 1954. Not an actual Liebestod, but macabre enough.

[Youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uNC4kF1e470&NR=1]

Full clip with music by Mogwai

There is so much to be said of this film, watch it for the ‘razor slits the eyeball scene‘  or for some of the early uses of the jarring jump cut. Enjoy.

Control by Corbijn

[Youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qrFKu3xwTlQ]

On 17 May 2007 Anton Corbijn‘s first feature film Control about the life of Joy Division frontman Ian Curtis premiered to rave reviews Cannes Film Festival. The film is based on Deborah Curtis’s book Touching From A Distance about her late husband and the new biography Torn Apart by longtime Mancunians Lindsay Reade (Tony Wilson’s ex-wife) and Mick Middles.

They Call Us Misfits

[Youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SFCy2xP3Vuw&]

Dom kallar oss mods (English title: They Call Us Misfits) is a 1968 Swedish documentary film directed by Stefan Jarl and Jan Lindqvist. The film, the first in what would become a trilogy, is an uncompromising account of the life of two alienated teenagers.

The Mods from the original title Dom kallar oss mods indicates that Mods in Sweden were not the Mods we know from British subculture. The youths depicted would have been described in English speaking countries as as hippies.


Cultissime!

[Youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zd6D8PU95qU]

Buffet Froid (1979) – Bertrand Blier

Context of clip: Depardieu has stabbed Carmet, Depardieu denies, “no I could’nt have done it, I just arrived”. Carmet does not seem to mind dying. Depardieu asks: “how does it feel”. Carmet answers: “Like a sink draining”. At the end Carmet offers Depardieu to take his knife back and says: “You’d better because your fingerprints are on them.” Depardieu thanks him. Spoiler warning: Carmet lives.

Buffet froid is a 1979 French film, written and directed by Bertrand Blier, and starring Gérard Depardieu, Carole Bouquet, Bernard Blier and Jean Carmet.The plot of this film is extremely complex and elusive, for the simple reason that we are left at odds as to the motivation of the characters to perform acts that are systematically the opposite of what is expected of them. Thus, the police inspector allows murders, commits murders himself and pretends not being occupied with his profession when off duty.

The film owes much of its ideological framework to surrealism, re-enforced by an ambience of mystery et theatricality, very similar to the work of Luis Buñuel, who was known to punctuate his work with numerous « gratuitous » murders. We are also reminded of the absurd theatre of Alfred Jarry and Eugène Ionesco.

The location of the metro station of the RER of La Défense, then ending its construction phase and not yet receiving its 170 000 daily employees as is the case today, highly contributes to the atmosphere of the opening sequence of the film: a dehumanized urban space, cold and anxiety-ridden, filmed by night, the only encounters to be expected those of marginalized human beings. All “urban” scenes were filmed in Créteil, in areas under construction at the time.

Bertrand Blier reunites a sublime trio, with his fetish actor Gérard Depardieu), a un-police officer (Bernard Blier) and an assassin strangler of women played by Jean Carmet, all at the peak of their careers.

Digression: Happy birthday Roky Erickson.

La maman et la putain

[Youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hPyzYcrVU-k]

The Mother and the Whore (French La maman et la putain) is a 1973 French film directed by Jean Eustache. It is one the last typical Nouvelle Vague films and an extended essay on male angst, the war of the sexes and the Madonna-whore complex. A typical scene (at the beginning of this clip) is one where Marie comes home, puts a record on the turntable and listens to it in real time.

From the monologue:

…Pour moi il n’y a pas de putes. Pour moi, une fille qui se fait baiser par n’importe qui, qui se fait baiser n’importe comment, n’est pas une pute. Pour moi il n’y a pas de putes, c’est tout. Tu peux sucer n’importe qui, tu peux te faire baiser par n’importe qui, tu n’es pas une pute.
Il n’y a pas de putes sur terre, putain comprends-le. Et tu le comprends certainement.

La femme qui est mariée et qui est heureuse et qui rêve de se faire baiser par je ne sais qui, par le patron de son mari, ou par je ne sais quel acteur merdique, ou par son crémier ou par son plombier… Est-ce que c’est une pute? Il n’y a pas de putes. Y a que des cons, y a que des sexes. Qu’est-ce que tu crois. Ce n’est pas triste, hein, c’est super gai.

…Et je me fais baiser par n’importe qui, et on me baise et je prends mon pied.
…Pourquoi est-ce que vous accordez autant d’importance aux histoires de cul?
Le sexe…
Tu me baises bien. Ah! comme je t’aime.
Il n’y a que toi pour me baiser comme ça. Comme les gens peuvent se leurrer. Comme ils peuvent croire. Il n’y a qu’un toi, il n’y a qu’un moi. Il n’y que toi pour me baiser comme ça. Il n’y a que moi pour être baisée comme ça par toi.
…Quelle chose amusante. Quelle chose horrible et sordide. Mais putain, quelle chose sordide et horrible.

Wet Dream Film Festivals

Poster for first the Wet Dream Film Festival (1970) in Amsterdam

At the end of the 1960s and beginning of the 1970s, Amsterdam was somewhat of a countercultural capital. It was where Suck, The First European Sex Paper was published. Around this time two Wet Dream Film Festivals were organized. The first took place in the autumn of 1970, It had an international jury consisting of Germaine Greer, Jay Landesman, Richard Neville, Michael Zwerin, Didi Wadidi and Al Goldstein. The first prize went to Bodil Jensen in A Summer Day. The “Blast from the Past” award went to Jean Genet‘s film: Un chant d’amour. The Walt Disney Memorial Award went to Christie Eriksson‘s Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. Other prizes were awarded for Peter Flemming, Walter Burns and Falcon Stewart. The Second Wet Dream Film Festival was held in 1971 between October 20 and October 25, again organized by Jim Haynes. Festival jury included Germaine Greer, Al Goldstein, William Holtrop, Didi Wadidi, Anna Beke and Michael Zwerin plus new-comers Mama Cass, Roland Topor, Heathcote Williams, William Burroughs, Carlos Clarens, Tomi Ungerer, Betty Dodson, Marie-France and Miss Angel. Jens Frosen (“Quiet Days in Clichy”) documented the event. Lou Sher, president of Sherpix, who picked up “Adultery For Fun and Profit” at the first festival, put up $1,000 for the first prize this year plus a promise of U.S. theatrical distribution. Organizer Haynes told Variety: “What most people don’t understand about last year’s Wet Dream Festival is that we are not concerned with pornographic aspects primarily, but with the libertarian concept. It is an attack on paternalism because it asks why people can’t see any image they want.”

This post is dedicated to the work of Earl Kemp.