list http://www.spout.com/ Recent community activity around La France on Spout Copyright 2005-9 Spout, LLC Spout RSS http://www.spout.com/images/SpoutLogoRSS.jpg http://www.spout.com/ 136 30 http://www.spout.com/films/La_France/332207/default.aspx Title: La France
Year: 2007
Director: Serge Bozon
Plot: A woman whose husband is away fighting in World War I embarks on an arduous journey after receiving a troubling letter in Director Serge Bozon's intimate war drama. The year is 1917, and it's springtime in France. Camille's husband may be fighting in the war, but for this naive young housewife life is peaceful. Upon receiving a letter in which her husband curtly ends the couple's relationship without explanation, Camille decides to disguise herself as a man and seek her true love out on the front lines. It's not long before Camille joins up with a small squadron of soldiers who remain completely unaware of her true identity or gender, and as the group makes their way to the battleground Camille's eyes will finally be opened to a reality she could have never imagined - the reality of France. ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide
Times Tagged: 18
Number of blog posts: 5
]]>Wed, 17 Dec 2008 17:01:43 GMTLa France2007Serge BozonA woman whose husband is away fighting in World War I embarks on an arduous journey after receiving a troubling letter in Director Serge Bozon's intimate war drama. The year is 1917, and it's springtime in France. Camille's husband may be fighting in the war, but for this naive young housewife life is peaceful. Upon receiving a letter in which her husband curtly ends the couple's relationship without explanation, Camille decides to disguise herself as a man and seek her true love out on the front lines. It's not long before Camille joins up with a small squadron of soldiers who remain completely unaware of her true identity or gender, and as the group makes their way to the battleground Camille's eyes will finally be opened to a reality she could have never imagined - the reality of France. ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide18Tag Target (>10)5http://www.spout.com/ProductImages/s332207.jpghttp://www.spout.com/films/La_France/332207/default.aspxFilm http://www.spout.com/blogs/karina/archive/2008/12/17/38486.aspx Post By: Karina
Post To: Karina on SpoutBlog
Post Date: 12/17/2008 12:01:43 PM
Body: As I hinted at a bit yesterday when I posted about some of the best undistributed films of the year, I have a love/hate relationship with the idea of movie ranking. The idea that any of us––critic, blogger, professional, amateur…to the extent that any of those words mean anything anymore––could be indisputably “correct” in our individual execution of such an activity is insane; and of course, any attempt to draw each of our subjective takes on The Year in Movies into a consensus waters down everything that makes an individual list idiosyncratic and thus interesting. But in the end, I do believe that what’s valuable about these activities is valuable enough to outweigh what’s annoying: if you read this blog regularly and have come to draw a bead on my tastes in relation to your own, maybe seeing a list of my favorite New York theatrical releases of 2008 will help jog your memory about films you meant to see (or avoid), and now that many of these are available on DVD, maybe you’ll make it happen (or not). My full ballot is posted at indieWIRE now. I chose not to rank the titles from 1-10, but they did reel out of my brain in a particular order, and that has to mean something. Below the jump, my theatrical favorites, with links back to previous coverage, and notes on where/how each film can currently be seen. A Christmas Tale Reviewed on November 11, 2008: “A Christmas Tale reunites [Emanuelle] Devos and [Mathieu] Amalric as an oil and water romantic unit, as if giving their doomed lovers from Kings the last chance that narrative logic wouldn’t previously let them have.  Devos is a sideline character in Christmas, but an important one: her unfathomably calm tolerance of Henri’s uncontrollable impulse for destruction is an emblem of Desplechin’s unique humanism.” Where can you see it? It’s currently in limited release, and on IFC On Demand. Synecdoche, NY Reviewed on October 23, 2008: “[It's] about the fear of death, the impossibility of romance in the absence of longing, the instinct to project our desires on to others and to seek answers about ourselves in mirror images. In other words, as theater director Caden Cotard (Philip Seymour Hoffman) says of his own life’s work, ‘It’s about everything.’” Where can you see it? Currently on about 100 screens nationwide, it should be out on DVD in the spring. Build a Ship, Sail to Sadness Reviewed briefly on February 7, 2008: “Laurin Federlein’s highly-improvised, Hi8-sourced, sorta-doc/sorta-musical…is the kind of balls-out, so independent it’s essentially handmade work of art that’s notably missing from festivals like Sundance.” I also discussed it on this episode of FIlmCouch. Where can you see it? Good question. It screened for one week in New York almost a year ago. Now, Netflix has a page for it…which says its DVD release date is unknown. My Winnipeg Reviewed on June 13, 2008: “One could be generous, and praise [Guy] Maddin for effectively tapping into the muddied logic of the small town in endless winter, where physical numbness from the inhuman external elements often leads to a kind of booze-aided intellectual numbness. There, so many frigid anti-socials rock a kind of mutual indifference that, when it gets really bad, borders on inhumane (I’ve never been to Winnipeg, but I did spend three winters in Chicago). One could also recalibrate that as a pejorative: you could just say that Maddin directs like a drunk.” Where can you see it? A UK DVD is already out; Amazon suggests that a US version is on its way. Woman on the Beach I never reviewed Hong Sang Soo’s release, which opened at the very beginning of 2008 after the indieWIRE Critics’ Poll declared it the best undistributed film of 2007. But Manohla Dargis did: “As usual in Mr. Hong’s films, everyone will consume too much alcohol, insults will be exchanged, and confessions will be made. A man and a woman will have fumbling, embarrassed and terribly sad sex, the memory of which will haunt them and the story and probably you. Only the rooms will be shabby, never the sentiment.” Where can you see it? New Yorker will release a new DVD on December 30. Rachel Getting Married Reviewed on October 3, 2008: “[Anne] Hathaway’s vulnerability in this tricky role is stunning, but slyly so: as a viewer you can loathe her presence, as some of the personalities in the film speace seem to, and then with a single cut realize that she’s gone from a scene and not only miss her, but actually, actively worry about where she is and what she’s up to.” See also notes on The Liberal Guilt Thing. Where can you see it? On 150 screens after nearly three months in release, if Hathaway gets her expected Best Actress nomination the release will likely expand. La France Reviewed on July 9, 2008: “It’s a musical with just one song, performed by non-performers in a handful of mutations throughout the film. And it’s a love story, soaked in romantic delusion but ultimately fatalist in regards to the actual odds that love can overcome existential crisis….Is this France––or was it? An empty space on which the lonely and lost draw their own impossibly romantic fantasies, only to wander towards inevitable disappointments with heads and hearts infected by the deceptively simple beauty of pop?” Where can you see it: There is a French DVD. Again, Netflix has a page, but it’s unclear when there will be a US release for them to do something with it. Mister Lonely Reviewed on March 16, 2008: “Making movies just seems to be an extension of [Harmony Korine's] primary goal of slipping in and out of identities, of nailing us before we can nail him. I know this, and yet I throw up my hands and give in to it, because with Mister Lonely, the process and the product seem to fuse. Consider me suckered. Where can I see it? It’s available on DVD. Flight of the Red Balloon I saw Hou Hsiao-Hsien’s dreamy take-off on the children’s short The Red Balloon once in 2007 and once in 2008, but somehow I’ve never written about it. That’s okay, because Andrew O’Hehir has: Where can I see it? It’s on DVD. Encounters at the End of the World I caught Werner Herzog’s travelogue some time after Paul reviewed it at its Telluride premiere, so I didn’t publish my own review, but over the months I’ve become convinced that, in producing a not-very-thinly-veiled work of autobiography about insanity and the human instinct to conquer unknown worlds and make them their own, Herzog has wittingly or not made a companion film to his friend Harmony Korine’s Mister Lonely. More on that theory in 2009, perhaps. Where can I see it? It’s on DVD. Originally posted on:SpoutBlog » Karina Longworth
]]>Wed, 17 Dec 2008 17:01:43 GMTKarinaKarina on SpoutBlog12/17/2008 12:01:43 PMAs I hinted at a bit yesterday when I posted about some of the best undistributed films of the year, I have a love/hate relationship with the idea of movie ranking. The idea that any of us––critic, blogger, professional, amateur…to the extent that any of those words mean anything anymore––could be indisputably “correct” in our individual execution of such an activity is insane; and of course, any attempt to draw each of our subjective takes on The Year in Movies into a consensus waters down everything that makes an individual list idiosyncratic and thus interesting. But in the end, I do believe that what’s valuable about these activities is valuable enough to outweigh what’s annoying: if you read this blog regularly and have come to draw a bead on my tastes in relation to your own, maybe seeing a list of my favorite New York theatrical releases of 2008 will help jog your memory about films you meant to see (or avoid), and now that many of these are available on DVD, maybe you’ll make it happen (or not). My full ballot is posted at indieWIRE now. I chose not to rank the titles from 1-10, but they did reel out of my brain in a particular order, and that has to mean something. Below the jump, my theatrical favorites, with links back to previous coverage, and notes on where/how each film can currently be seen. A Christmas Tale Reviewed on November 11, 2008: “A Christmas Tale reunites [Emanuelle] Devos and [Mathieu] Amalric as an oil and water romantic unit, as if giving their doomed lovers from Kings the last chance that narrative logic wouldn’t previously let them have.  Devos is a sideline character in Christmas, but an important one: her unfathomably calm tolerance of Henri’s uncontrollable impulse for destruction is an emblem of Desplechin’s unique humanism.” Where can you see it? It’s currently in limited release, and on IFC On Demand. Synecdoche, NY Reviewed on October 23, 2008: “[It's] about the fear of death, the impossibility of romance in the absence of longing, the instinct to project our desires on to others and to seek answers about ourselves in mirror images. In other words, as theater director Caden Cotard (Philip Seymour Hoffman) says of his own life’s work, ‘It’s about everything.’” Where can you see it? Currently on about 100 screens nationwide, it should be out on DVD in the spring. Build a Ship, Sail to Sadness Reviewed briefly on February 7, 2008: “Laurin Federlein’s highly-improvised, Hi8-sourced, sorta-doc/sorta-musical…is the kind of balls-out, so independent it’s essentially handmade work of art that’s notably missing from festivals like Sundance.” I also discussed it on this episode of FIlmCouch. Where can you see it? Good question. It screened for one week in New York almost a year ago. Now, Netflix has a page for it…which says its DVD release date is unknown. My Winnipeg Reviewed on June 13, 2008: “One could be generous, and praise [Guy] Maddin for effectively tapping into the muddied logic of the small town in endless winter, where physical numbness from the inhuman external elements often leads to a kind of booze-aided intellectual numbness. There, so many frigid anti-socials rock a kind of mutual indifference that, when it gets really bad, borders on inhumane (I’ve never been to Winnipeg, but I did spend three winters in Chicago). One could also recalibrate that as a pejorative: you could just say that Maddin directs like a drunk.” Where can you see it? A UK DVD is already out; Amazon suggests that a US version is on its way. Woman on the Beach I never reviewed Hong Sang Soo’s release, which opened at the very beginning of 2008 after the indieWIRE Critics’ Poll declared it the best undistributed film of 2007. But Manohla Dargis did: “As usual in Mr. Hong’s films, everyone will consume too much alcohol, insults will be exchanged, and confessions will be made. A man and a woman will have fumbling, embarrassed and terribly sad sex, the memory of which will haunt them and the story and probably you. Only the rooms will be shabby, never the sentiment.” Where can you see it? New Yorker will release a new DVD on December 30. Rachel Getting Married Reviewed on October 3, 2008: “[Anne] Hathaway’s vulnerability in this tricky role is stunning, but slyly so: as a viewer you can loathe her presence, as some of the personalities in the film speace seem to, and then with a single cut realize that she’s gone from a scene and not only miss her, but actually, actively worry about where she is and what she’s up to.” See also notes on The Liberal Guilt Thing. Where can you see it? On 150 screens after nearly three months in release, if Hathaway gets her expected Best Actress nomination the release will likely expand. La France Reviewed on July 9, 2008: “It’s a musical with just one song, performed by non-performers in a handful of mutations throughout the film. And it’s a love story, soaked in romantic delusion but ultimately fatalist in regards to the actual odds that love can overcome existential crisis….Is this France––or was it? An empty space on which the lonely and lost draw their own impossibly romantic fantasies, only to wander towards inevitable disappointments with heads and hearts infected by the deceptively simple beauty of pop?” Where can you see it: There is a French DVD. Again, Netflix has a page, but it’s unclear when there will be a US release for them to do something with it. Mister Lonely Reviewed on March 16, 2008: “Making movies just seems to be an extension of [Harmony Korine's] primary goal of slipping in and out of identities, of nailing us before we can nail him. I know this, and yet I throw up my hands and give in to it, because with Mister Lonely, the process and the product seem to fuse. Consider me suckered. Where can I see it? It’s available on DVD. Flight of the Red Balloon I saw Hou Hsiao-Hsien’s dreamy take-off on the children’s short The Red Balloon once in 2007 and once in 2008, but somehow I’ve never written about it. That’s okay, because Andrew O’Hehir has: Where can I see it? It’s on DVD. Encounters at the End of the World I caught Werner Herzog’s travelogue some time after Paul reviewed it at its Telluride premiere, so I didn’t publish my own review, but over the months I’ve become convinced that, in producing a not-very-thinly-veiled work of autobiography about insanity and the human instinct to conquer unknown worlds and make them their own, Herzog has wittingly or not made a companion film to his friend Harmony Korine’s Mister Lonely. More on that theory in 2009, perhaps. Where can I see it? It’s on DVD. Originally posted on:SpoutBlog » Karina Longworth http://www.spout.com/blogs/spoutblog/archive/2008/12/17/38485.aspx Post By: SpoutBlog
Post To: SpoutBlog on spout.com
Post Date: 12/17/2008 12:01:26 PM
Body: As I hinted at a bit yesterday when I posted about some of the best undistributed films of the year, I have a love/hate relationship with the idea of movie ranking. The idea that any of us––critic, blogger, professional, amateur…to the extent that any of those words mean anything anymore––could be indisputably “correct” in our individual execution of such an activity is insane; and of course, any attempt to draw each of our subjective takes on The Year in Movies into a consensus waters down everything that makes an individual list idiosyncratic and thus interesting. But in the end, I do believe that what’s valuable about these activities is valuable enough to outweigh what’s annoying: if you read this blog regularly and have come to draw a bead on my tastes in relation to your own, maybe seeing a list of my favorite New York theatrical releases of 2008 will help jog your memory about films you meant to see (or avoid), and now that many of these are available on DVD, maybe you’ll make it happen (or not). My full ballot is posted at indieWIRE now. I chose not to rank the titles from 1-10, but they did reel out of my brain in a particular order, and that has to mean something. Below the jump, my theatrical favorites, with links back to previous coverage, and notes on where/how each film can currently be seen. A Christmas Tale Reviewed on November 11, 2008: “A Christmas Tale reunites [Emanuelle] Devos and [Mathieu] Amalric as an oil and water romantic unit, as if giving their doomed lovers from Kings the last chance that narrative logic wouldn’t previously let them have.  Devos is a sideline character in Christmas, but an important one: her unfathomably calm tolerance of Henri’s uncontrollable impulse for destruction is an emblem of Desplechin’s unique humanism.” Where can you see it? It’s currently in limited release, and on IFC On Demand. Synecdoche, NY Reviewed on October 23, 2008: “[It's] about the fear of death, the impossibility of romance in the absence of longing, the instinct to project our desires on to others and to seek answers about ourselves in mirror images. In other words, as theater director Caden Cotard (Philip Seymour Hoffman) says of his own life’s work, ‘It’s about everything.’” Where can you see it? Currently on about 100 screens nationwide, it should be out on DVD in the spring. Build a Ship, Sail to Sadness Reviewed briefly on February 7, 2008: “Laurin Federlein’s highly-improvised, Hi8-sourced, sorta-doc/sorta-musical…is the kind of balls-out, so independent it’s essentially handmade work of art that’s notably missing from festivals like Sundance.” I also discussed it on this episode of FIlmCouch. Where can you see it? Good question. It screened for one week in New York almost a year ago. Now, Netflix has a page for it…which says its DVD release date is unknown. My Winnipeg Reviewed on June 13, 2008: “One could be generous, and praise [Guy] Maddin for effectively tapping into the muddied logic of the small town in endless winter, where physical numbness from the inhuman external elements often leads to a kind of booze-aided intellectual numbness. There, so many frigid anti-socials rock a kind of mutual indifference that, when it gets really bad, borders on inhumane (I’ve never been to Winnipeg, but I did spend three winters in Chicago). One could also recalibrate that as a pejorative: you could just say that Maddin directs like a drunk.” Where can you see it? A UK DVD is already out; Amazon suggests that a US version is on its way. Woman on the Beach I never reviewed Hong Sang Soo’s release, which opened at the very beginning of 2008 after the indieWIRE Critics’ Poll declared it the best undistributed film of 2007. But Manohla Dargis did: “As usual in Mr. Hong’s films, everyone will consume too much alcohol, insults will be exchanged, and confessions will be made. A man and a woman will have fumbling, embarrassed and terribly sad sex, the memory of which will haunt them and the story and probably you. Only the rooms will be shabby, never the sentiment.” Where can you see it? New Yorker will release a new DVD on December 30. Rachel Getting Married Reviewed on October 3, 2008: “[Anne] Hathaway’s vulnerability in this tricky role is stunning, but slyly so: as a viewer you can loathe her presence, as some of the personalities in the film speace seem to, and then with a single cut realize that she’s gone from a scene and not only miss her, but actually, actively worry about where she is and what she’s up to.” See also notes on The Liberal Guilt Thing. Where can you see it? On 150 screens after nearly three months in release, if Hathaway gets her expected Best Actress nomination the release will likely expand. La France Reviewed on July 9, 2008: “It’s a musical with just one song, performed by non-performers in a handful of mutations throughout the film. And it’s a love story, soaked in romantic delusion but ultimately fatalist in regards to the actual odds that love can overcome existential crisis….Is this France––or was it? An empty space on which the lonely and lost draw their own impossibly romantic fantasies, only to wander towards inevitable disappointments with heads and hearts infected by the deceptively simple beauty of pop?” Where can you see it: There is a French DVD. Again, Netflix has a page, but it’s unclear when there will be a US release for them to do something with it. Mister Lonely Reviewed on March 16, 2008: “Making movies just seems to be an extension of [Harmony Korine's] primary goal of slipping in and out of identities, of nailing us before we can nail him. I know this, and yet I throw up my hands and give in to it, because with Mister Lonely, the process and the product seem to fuse. Consider me suckered. Where can I see it? It’s available on DVD. Flight of the Red Balloon I saw Hou Hsiao-Hsien’s dreamy take-off on the children’s short The Red Balloon once in 2007 and once in 2008, but somehow I’ve never written about it. That’s okay, because Andrew O’Hehir has: Where can I see it? It’s on DVD. Encounters at the End of the World I caught Werner Herzog’s travelogue some time after Paul reviewed it at its Telluride premiere, so I didn’t publish my own review, but over the months I’ve become convinced that, in producing a not-very-thinly-veiled work of autobiography about insanity and the human instinct to conquer unknown worlds and make them their own, Herzog has wittingly or not made a companion film to his friend Harmony Korine’s Mister Lonely. More on that theory in 2009, perhaps. Where can I see it? It’s on DVD. Originally posted on:SpoutBlog
]]>Wed, 17 Dec 2008 17:01:26 GMTSpoutBlogSpoutBlog on spout.com12/17/2008 12:01:26 PMAs I hinted at a bit yesterday when I posted about some of the best undistributed films of the year, I have a love/hate relationship with the idea of movie ranking. The idea that any of us––critic, blogger, professional, amateur…to the extent that any of those words mean anything anymore––could be indisputably “correct” in our individual execution of such an activity is insane; and of course, any attempt to draw each of our subjective takes on The Year in Movies into a consensus waters down everything that makes an individual list idiosyncratic and thus interesting. But in the end, I do believe that what’s valuable about these activities is valuable enough to outweigh what’s annoying: if you read this blog regularly and have come to draw a bead on my tastes in relation to your own, maybe seeing a list of my favorite New York theatrical releases of 2008 will help jog your memory about films you meant to see (or avoid), and now that many of these are available on DVD, maybe you’ll make it happen (or not). My full ballot is posted at indieWIRE now. I chose not to rank the titles from 1-10, but they did reel out of my brain in a particular order, and that has to mean something. Below the jump, my theatrical favorites, with links back to previous coverage, and notes on where/how each film can currently be seen. A Christmas Tale Reviewed on November 11, 2008: “A Christmas Tale reunites [Emanuelle] Devos and [Mathieu] Amalric as an oil and water romantic unit, as if giving their doomed lovers from Kings the last chance that narrative logic wouldn’t previously let them have.  Devos is a sideline character in Christmas, but an important one: her unfathomably calm tolerance of Henri’s uncontrollable impulse for destruction is an emblem of Desplechin’s unique humanism.” Where can you see it? It’s currently in limited release, and on IFC On Demand. Synecdoche, NY Reviewed on October 23, 2008: “[It's] about the fear of death, the impossibility of romance in the absence of longing, the instinct to project our desires on to others and to seek answers about ourselves in mirror images. In other words, as theater director Caden Cotard (Philip Seymour Hoffman) says of his own life’s work, ‘It’s about everything.’” Where can you see it? Currently on about 100 screens nationwide, it should be out on DVD in the spring. Build a Ship, Sail to Sadness Reviewed briefly on February 7, 2008: “Laurin Federlein’s highly-improvised, Hi8-sourced, sorta-doc/sorta-musical…is the kind of balls-out, so independent it’s essentially handmade work of art that’s notably missing from festivals like Sundance.” I also discussed it on this episode of FIlmCouch. Where can you see it? Good question. It screened for one week in New York almost a year ago. Now, Netflix has a page for it…which says its DVD release date is unknown. My Winnipeg Reviewed on June 13, 2008: “One could be generous, and praise [Guy] Maddin for effectively tapping into the muddied logic of the small town in endless winter, where physical numbness from the inhuman external elements often leads to a kind of booze-aided intellectual numbness. There, so many frigid anti-socials rock a kind of mutual indifference that, when it gets really bad, borders on inhumane (I’ve never been to Winnipeg, but I did spend three winters in Chicago). One could also recalibrate that as a pejorative: you could just say that Maddin directs like a drunk.” Where can you see it? A UK DVD is already out; Amazon suggests that a US version is on its way. Woman on the Beach I never reviewed Hong Sang Soo’s release, which opened at the very beginning of 2008 after the indieWIRE Critics’ Poll declared it the best undistributed film of 2007. But Manohla Dargis did: “As usual in Mr. Hong’s films, everyone will consume too much alcohol, insults will be exchanged, and confessions will be made. A man and a woman will have fumbling, embarrassed and terribly sad sex, the memory of which will haunt them and the story and probably you. Only the rooms will be shabby, never the sentiment.” Where can you see it? New Yorker will release a new DVD on December 30. Rachel Getting Married Reviewed on October 3, 2008: “[Anne] Hathaway’s vulnerability in this tricky role is stunning, but slyly so: as a viewer you can loathe her presence, as some of the personalities in the film speace seem to, and then with a single cut realize that she’s gone from a scene and not only miss her, but actually, actively worry about where she is and what she’s up to.” See also notes on The Liberal Guilt Thing. Where can you see it? On 150 screens after nearly three months in release, if Hathaway gets her expected Best Actress nomination the release will likely expand. La France Reviewed on July 9, 2008: “It’s a musical with just one song, performed by non-performers in a handful of mutations throughout the film. And it’s a love story, soaked in romantic delusion but ultimately fatalist in regards to the actual odds that love can overcome existential crisis….Is this France––or was it? An empty space on which the lonely and lost draw their own impossibly romantic fantasies, only to wander towards inevitable disappointments with heads and hearts infected by the deceptively simple beauty of pop?” Where can you see it: There is a French DVD. Again, Netflix has a page, but it’s unclear when there will be a US release for them to do something with it. Mister Lonely Reviewed on March 16, 2008: “Making movies just seems to be an extension of [Harmony Korine's] primary goal of slipping in and out of identities, of nailing us before we can nail him. I know this, and yet I throw up my hands and give in to it, because with Mister Lonely, the process and the product seem to fuse. Consider me suckered. Where can I see it? It’s available on DVD. Flight of the Red Balloon I saw Hou Hsiao-Hsien’s dreamy take-off on the children’s short The Red Balloon once in 2007 and once in 2008, but somehow I’ve never written about it. That’s okay, because Andrew O’Hehir has: Where can I see it? It’s on DVD. Encounters at the End of the World I caught Werner Herzog’s travelogue some time after Paul reviewed it at its Telluride premiere, so I didn’t publish my own review, but over the months I’ve become convinced that, in producing a not-very-thinly-veiled work of autobiography about insanity and the human instinct to conquer unknown worlds and make them their own, Herzog has wittingly or not made a companion film to his friend Harmony Korine’s Mister Lonely. More on that theory in 2009, perhaps. Where can I see it? It’s on DVD. Originally posted on:SpoutBlog http://www.spout.com/blogs/spoutblog/archive/2008/7/11/32422.aspx Post By: SpoutBlog
Post To: SpoutBlog on spout.com
Post Date: 7/11/2008 9:00:56 AM
Body: This week we’re taking movies with fans, colleagues, and friends. An e-mail from a listener gets us thinking critically about our love for post-apocalyptic movies, and watching the amazing 1962 French short, La Jetée (pictured above). Kevin talks with David Chen and Devindra Hardawar from /Filmcast about podcasting, Roman Polanski, and really good cartoons. Later we check in with Karina Longworth, where she tells us about overlooked Japanese classic When A Woman Ascends the Stairs and a whimsical WWI quasi-musical, La France. 0:00 - Intro, post-apocalyptic movies, La Jetée 8:00 - /Filmcast’s David Chen and Devindra Hardawar 19:50 - Karina’s Media Diet (Subscribe to FilmCouch–Spout’s weekly movie podcast–in the iTunes store or to our RSS feed and an episode will download each Friday) filmcouch-78 Originally posted on:SpoutBlog
]]>Fri, 11 Jul 2008 13:00:56 GMTSpoutBlogSpoutBlog on spout.com7/11/2008 9:00:56 AM This week we’re taking movies with fans, colleagues, and friends. An e-mail from a listener gets us thinking critically about our love for post-apocalyptic movies, and watching the amazing 1962 French short, La Jetée (pictured above). Kevin talks with David Chen and Devindra Hardawar from /Filmcast about podcasting, Roman Polanski, and really good cartoons. Later we check in with Karina Longworth, where she tells us about overlooked Japanese classic When A Woman Ascends the Stairs and a whimsical WWI quasi-musical, La France. 0:00 - Intro, post-apocalyptic movies, La Jetée 8:00 - /Filmcast’s David Chen and Devindra Hardawar 19:50 - Karina’s Media Diet (Subscribe to FilmCouch–Spout’s weekly movie podcast–in the iTunes store or to our RSS feed and an episode will download each Friday) filmcouch-78 Originally posted on:SpoutBlog http://www.spout.com/blogs/karina/archive/2008/7/9/32334.aspx Post By: Karina
Post To: Karina on SpoutBlog
Post Date: 7/9/2008 2:01:30 PM
Body: Serge Bozon’s La France is generic clusterfuck, but in the best way––a stunningly confident, category-defying, broken-down dream piece about loss and being lost. It’s a film about war in which soldiers are not only never seen actually fighting for their land, but in fact seem to have lost their way in vague and vain pursuit of a lost land to reclaim as their own. It’s a musical with just one song, performed by non-performers in a handful of mutations throughout the film. And it’s a love story, soaked in romantic delusion but ultimately fatalist in regards to the actual odds that love can overcome existential crisis. After a 14 month festival run (including stops at Cannes, New Directors/New Films and LAFF), it opens for a week in New York at Anthology Film Archives on Friday. Camille (Sylvie Testud) is living on a rural estate with an invasive sister when she receives a letter from her husband, who has been writing as faithfully as possible from his post in World War I. But in this missive, he tells her to move on, that she’ll never see him again. Convinced that he’s just confused and susceptible to the black magic of nightmares, that the war’s major side effect is simple distance and not total psychological recalibration, Camille sets out to get her man back. She chops off her hair, binds her breasts and heads out into the countryside in search of her love’s brigade. She soon instead finds another band of soldiers, and though she easily convinces them that she’s a desperate, orphaned teenage boy, they’re nonetheless afraid of a look in her eyes, which the lieutenant of the brigade is sure is a sign that this ruffian is “seeking death.” Camille eventually secures the tropps’ trust and earns the right to stay with them, and together they wander the countryside, ostensibly “looking for the front.” The journey is long, and less than eventful, and as a lost soul with a dreamily sketched but ill-thought-out goal, Camille fits right in. The band kills time on the road swapping imaginings about the lost city of Atlantis, and singing variants on a French pop theme about a blind girl and her lover(s). Bozon recorded the songs live, capturing the less-than-professional voices organically stretching and cracking as the actors played along on shabby home-made folk instruments. At first these musical moments––which unflailingly crop up before night falls and a certain anxious, almost hallucinatory madness creeps on to the screen––play as wonderful non-sequitors. Eventually, they start to tell stories that run parallel to La France’s primary themes. At one point, the feminine protagonist of the song (who is given voice by a variety of legitimately male soldiers, but never Camille) sings a lament to a lost boyfriend: “I promised a lover, a German who’s hard of hearing. The idiot doesn’t know France…who am I to judge?” Later, “she” swoons for a Polack: “I’d like France to be invaded by Poland/I can feel the pleasant vibrations.” If the colonialist fantasy is analogous to rape, this is its inversion: in search of a safe haven away from home, they’re fantasizing that they could submit to another country’s embrace. This longing resolves itself in the saddest of ironies when Camille discovers what’s become of her husband. She may have assumed a new identity in order to find him, but their parallel journeys away from home have transformed both into different people. As much as Bozon’s vision has been praised for its startling originality, so has his choice of title come under attack for its “portentousness“, for being merely a “provocation.” Is this France––or was it? An empty space on which the lonely and lost draw their own impossibly romantic fantasies, only to wander towards inevitable disappointments with heads and hearts infected by the deceptively simple beauty of pop? In an interview with Mark Peranson for Cinema Scope, Bozon, a former film critic and active vinyl obsessive, admits to sourcing his “politics” from his pop preferences: Just listen to “Going All the Way” by The Squires or “On Tour” by The Chancellors (two garage diamonds found by Tim Warren of Crypt Records) and you’ll understand the political meaning of my movie. I’ll try and explain: “On Tour” is a song (as you could guess) about the life of a group on tour. But, like all the real garage bands, the Chancellors never played once outside their own town. Now think about the “tour” of my soldiers… you see? You begin by expecting some light, uplifting pop, but in the end it’s only imposture, frustration, and anger all over the place. Like the music in which the filmmaker finds his unlikely inspiration, La France’s grand, all-encompassing gestures of uplift are underpinned by an eventual awareness of their futilty. That tension, and the odd magic that comes out of it, is irresistible. Originally posted on:SpoutBlog » Karina Longworth
]]>Wed, 09 Jul 2008 18:01:30 GMTKarinaKarina on SpoutBlog7/9/2008 2:01:30 PM Serge Bozon’s La France is generic clusterfuck, but in the best way––a stunningly confident, category-defying, broken-down dream piece about loss and being lost. It’s a film about war in which soldiers are not only never seen actually fighting for their land, but in fact seem to have lost their way in vague and vain pursuit of a lost land to reclaim as their own. It’s a musical with just one song, performed by non-performers in a handful of mutations throughout the film. And it’s a love story, soaked in romantic delusion but ultimately fatalist in regards to the actual odds that love can overcome existential crisis. After a 14 month festival run (including stops at Cannes, New Directors/New Films and LAFF), it opens for a week in New York at Anthology Film Archives on Friday. Camille (Sylvie Testud) is living on a rural estate with an invasive sister when she receives a letter from her husband, who has been writing as faithfully as possible from his post in World War I. But in this missive, he tells her to move on, that she’ll never see him again. Convinced that he’s just confused and susceptible to the black magic of nightmares, that the war’s major side effect is simple distance and not total psychological recalibration, Camille sets out to get her man back. She chops off her hair, binds her breasts and heads out into the countryside in search of her love’s brigade. She soon instead finds another band of soldiers, and though she easily convinces them that she’s a desperate, orphaned teenage boy, they’re nonetheless afraid of a look in her eyes, which the lieutenant of the brigade is sure is a sign that this ruffian is “seeking death.” Camille eventually secures the tropps’ trust and earns the right to stay with them, and together they wander the countryside, ostensibly “looking for the front.” The journey is long, and less than eventful, and as a lost soul with a dreamily sketched but ill-thought-out goal, Camille fits right in. The band kills time on the road swapping imaginings about the lost city of Atlantis, and singing variants on a French pop theme about a blind girl and her lover(s). Bozon recorded the songs live, capturing the less-than-professional voices organically stretching and cracking as the actors played along on shabby home-made folk instruments. At first these musical moments––which unflailingly crop up before night falls and a certain anxious, almost hallucinatory madness creeps on to the screen––play as wonderful non-sequitors. Eventually, they start to tell stories that run parallel to La France’s primary themes. At one point, the feminine protagonist of the song (who is given voice by a variety of legitimately male soldiers, but never Camille) sings a lament to a lost boyfriend: “I promised a lover, a German who’s hard of hearing. The idiot doesn’t know France…who am I to judge?” Later, “she” swoons for a Polack: “I’d like France to be invaded by Poland/I can feel the pleasant vibrations.” If the colonialist fantasy is analogous to rape, this is its inversion: in search of a safe haven away from home, they’re fantasizing that they could submit to another country’s embrace. This longing resolves itself in the saddest of ironies when Camille discovers what’s become of her husband. She may have assumed a new identity in order to find him, but their parallel journeys away from home have transformed both into different people. As much as Bozon’s vision has been praised for its startling originality, so has his choice of title come under attack for its “portentousness“, for being merely a “provocation.” Is this France––or was it? An empty space on which the lonely and lost draw their own impossibly romantic fantasies, only to wander towards inevitable disappointments with heads and hearts infected by the deceptively simple beauty of pop? In an interview with Mark Peranson for Cinema Scope, Bozon, a former film critic and active vinyl obsessive, admits to sourcing his “politics” from his pop preferences: Just listen to “Going All the Way” by The Squires or “On Tour” by The Chancellors (two garage diamonds found by Tim Warren of Crypt Records) and you’ll understand the political meaning of my movie. I’ll try and explain: “On Tour” is a song (as you could guess) about the life of a group on tour. But, like all the real garage bands, the Chancellors never played once outside their own town. Now think about the “tour” of my soldiers… you see? You begin by expecting some light, uplifting pop, but in the end it’s only imposture, frustration, and anger all over the place. Like the music in which the filmmaker finds his unlikely inspiration, La France’s grand, all-encompassing gestures of uplift are underpinned by an eventual awareness of their futilty. That tension, and the odd magic that comes out of it, is irresistible. Originally posted on:SpoutBlog » Karina Longworth http://www.spout.com/blogs/spoutblog/archive/2008/7/9/32333.aspx Post By: SpoutBlog
Post To: SpoutBlog on spout.com
Post Date: 7/9/2008 2:01:18 PM
Body: Serge Bozon’s La France is generic clusterfuck, but in the best way––a stunningly confident, category-defying, broken-down dream piece about loss and being lost. It’s a film about war in which soldiers are not only never seen actually fighting for their land, but in fact seem to have lost their way in vague and vain pursuit of a lost land to reclaim as their own. It’s a musical with just one song, performed by non-performers in a handful of mutations throughout the film. And it’s a love story, soaked in romantic delusion but ultimately fatalist in regards to the actual odds that love can overcome existential crisis. After a 14 month festival run (including stops at Cannes, New Directors/New Films and LAFF), it opens for a week in New York at Anthology Film Archives on Friday. Camille (Sylvie Testud) is living on a rural estate with an invasive sister when she receives a letter from her husband, who has been writing as faithfully as possible from his post in World War I. But in this missive, he tells her to move on, that she’ll never see him again. Convinced that he’s just confused and susceptible to the black magic of nightmares, that the war’s major side effect is simple distance and not total psychological recalibration, Camille sets out to get her man back. She chops off her hair, binds her breasts and heads out into the countryside in search of her love’s brigade. She soon instead finds another band of soldiers, and though she easily convinces them that she’s a desperate, orphaned teenage boy, they’re nonetheless afraid of a look in her eyes, which the lieutenant of the brigade is sure is a sign that this ruffian is “seeking death.” Camille eventually secures the tropps’ trust and earns the right to stay with them, and together they wander the countryside, ostensibly “looking for the front.” The journey is long, and less than eventful, and as a lost soul with a dreamily sketched but ill-thought-out goal, Camille fits right in. The band kills time on the road swapping imaginings about the lost city of Atlantis, and singing variants on a French pop theme about a blind girl and her lover(s). Bozon recorded the songs live, capturing the less-than-professional voices organically stretching and cracking as the actors played along on shabby home-made folk instruments. At first these musical moments––which unflailingly crop up before night falls and a certain anxious, almost hallucinatory madness creeps on to the screen––play as wonderful non-sequitors. Eventually, they start to tell stories that run parallel to La France’s primary themes. At one point, the feminine protagonist of the song (who is given voice by a variety of legitimately male soldiers, but never Camille) sings a lament to a lost boyfriend: “I promised a lover, a German who’s hard of hearing. The idiot doesn’t know France…who am I to judge?” Later, “she” swoons for a Polack: “I’d like France to be invaded by Poland/I can feel the pleasant vibrations.” If the colonialist fantasy is analogous to rape, this is its inversion: in search of a safe haven away from home, they’re fantasizing that they could submit to another country’s embrace. This longing resolves itself in the saddest of ironies when Camille discovers what’s become of her husband. She may have assumed a new identity in order to find him, but their parallel journeys away from home have transformed both into different people. As much as Bozon’s vision has been praised for its startling originality, so has his choice of title come under attack for its “portentousness“, for being merely a “provocation.” Is this France––or was it? An empty space on which the lonely and lost draw their own impossibly romantic fantasies, only to wander towards inevitable disappointments with heads and hearts infected by the deceptively simple beauty of pop? In an interview with Mark Peranson for Cinema Scope, Bozon, a former film critic and active vinyl obsessive, admits to sourcing his “politics” from his pop preferences: Just listen to “Going All the Way” by The Squires or “On Tour” by The Chancellors (two garage diamonds found by Tim Warren of Crypt Records) and you’ll understand the political meaning of my movie. I’ll try and explain: “On Tour” is a song (as you could guess) about the life of a group on tour. But, like all the real garage bands, the Chancellors never played once outside their own town. Now think about the “tour” of my soldiers… you see? You begin by expecting some light, uplifting pop, but in the end it’s only imposture, frustration, and anger all over the place. Like the music in which the filmmaker finds his unlikely inspiration, La France’s grand, all-encompassing gestures of uplift are underpinned by an eventual awareness of their futilty. That tension, and the odd magic that comes out of it, is irresistible. Originally posted on:SpoutBlog
]]>Wed, 09 Jul 2008 18:01:18 GMTSpoutBlogSpoutBlog on spout.com7/9/2008 2:01:18 PM Serge Bozon’s La France is generic clusterfuck, but in the best way––a stunningly confident, category-defying, broken-down dream piece about loss and being lost. It’s a film about war in which soldiers are not only never seen actually fighting for their land, but in fact seem to have lost their way in vague and vain pursuit of a lost land to reclaim as their own. It’s a musical with just one song, performed by non-performers in a handful of mutations throughout the film. And it’s a love story, soaked in romantic delusion but ultimately fatalist in regards to the actual odds that love can overcome existential crisis. After a 14 month festival run (including stops at Cannes, New Directors/New Films and LAFF), it opens for a week in New York at Anthology Film Archives on Friday. Camille (Sylvie Testud) is living on a rural estate with an invasive sister when she receives a letter from her husband, who has been writing as faithfully as possible from his post in World War I. But in this missive, he tells her to move on, that she’ll never see him again. Convinced that he’s just confused and susceptible to the black magic of nightmares, that the war’s major side effect is simple distance and not total psychological recalibration, Camille sets out to get her man back. She chops off her hair, binds her breasts and heads out into the countryside in search of her love’s brigade. She soon instead finds another band of soldiers, and though she easily convinces them that she’s a desperate, orphaned teenage boy, they’re nonetheless afraid of a look in her eyes, which the lieutenant of the brigade is sure is a sign that this ruffian is “seeking death.” Camille eventually secures the tropps’ trust and earns the right to stay with them, and together they wander the countryside, ostensibly “looking for the front.” The journey is long, and less than eventful, and as a lost soul with a dreamily sketched but ill-thought-out goal, Camille fits right in. The band kills time on the road swapping imaginings about the lost city of Atlantis, and singing variants on a French pop theme about a blind girl and her lover(s). Bozon recorded the songs live, capturing the less-than-professional voices organically stretching and cracking as the actors played along on shabby home-made folk instruments. At first these musical moments––which unflailingly crop up before night falls and a certain anxious, almost hallucinatory madness creeps on to the screen––play as wonderful non-sequitors. Eventually, they start to tell stories that run parallel to La France’s primary themes. At one point, the feminine protagonist of the song (who is given voice by a variety of legitimately male soldiers, but never Camille) sings a lament to a lost boyfriend: “I promised a lover, a German who’s hard of hearing. The idiot doesn’t know France…who am I to judge?” Later, “she” swoons for a Polack: “I’d like France to be invaded by Poland/I can feel the pleasant vibrations.” If the colonialist fantasy is analogous to rape, this is its inversion: in search of a safe haven away from home, they’re fantasizing that they could submit to another country’s embrace. This longing resolves itself in the saddest of ironies when Camille discovers what’s become of her husband. She may have assumed a new identity in order to find him, but their parallel journeys away from home have transformed both into different people. As much as Bozon’s vision has been praised for its startling originality, so has his choice of title come under attack for its “portentousness“, for being merely a “provocation.” Is this France––or was it? An empty space on which the lonely and lost draw their own impossibly romantic fantasies, only to wander towards inevitable disappointments with heads and hearts infected by the deceptively simple beauty of pop? In an interview with Mark Peranson for Cinema Scope, Bozon, a former film critic and active vinyl obsessive, admits to sourcing his “politics” from his pop preferences: Just listen to “Going All the Way” by The Squires or “On Tour” by The Chancellors (two garage diamonds found by Tim Warren of Crypt Records) and you’ll understand the political meaning of my movie. I’ll try and explain: “On Tour” is a song (as you could guess) about the life of a group on tour. But, like all the real garage bands, the Chancellors never played once outside their own town. Now think about the “tour” of my soldiers… you see? You begin by expecting some light, uplifting pop, but in the end it’s only imposture, frustration, and anger all over the place. Like the music in which the filmmaker finds his unlikely inspiration, La France’s grand, all-encompassing gestures of uplift are underpinned by an eventual awareness of their futilty. That tension, and the odd magic that comes out of it, is irresistible. Originally posted on:SpoutBlog http://www.spout.com/members/0/tags/war/MemberTagFilms.aspxwar
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