ROMANCE SCREENING

"But I still thought it might be seen as progressive in America, especially because its rare confluence of cinematic taste, literary intelligence, and hard-core sex might undercut the crippling puritanism of our movie codes, which usually equate eroticism with porn, sleaze, and stupidity rather than, say, art, health, and intelligence."
-Jonathan Rosenbaum, CHICAGO READER

"In her solemn, sexually graphic ''Romance,'' Catherine Breillat explores the nature of a woman's need for male attention and erotic love. Though many of her film's insights might be obtained from back copies of Cosmopolitan plus a smattering of the Marquis de Sade, watching it is a memorable experience for several reasons. Not least of these is its blunt, hard-core frankness. It's doubtful that the film's intellectual aspects would command the same attention if the camera did not make the actors' genitals as familiar as their faces."
-Janet Maslin, NEW YORK TIMES


Suggested Secondary Screenings:  EYES WIDE SHUT (Stanley Krubick, 1999) and LAST TANGO IN PARIS (Bernardo Bertolucci, 1972)

THE PIANO TEACHER SCREENING

"There is an old saying:  Be careful what you ask for, because you might get it. THE PIANO TEACHER has a more ominous lesson:  Be especially careful with someone who has asked for you."
-Roger Ebert, CHICAGO SUN TIMES

"Once one expereinces Mr. Haneke's own sadistic tendencies toward his audience, one is left with a sour taste in one's mouth, and little else."
-Andrew Sarris, NEW YORK OBSERVER

"Retraint is this movie's mystery and its miracle. No matter how gruesom it is, mercifully, it's always holding back."
-Wesley Morris, BOSTON GLOBE

Suggested Secondary Screenings:  BELLE DU JOUR (Luis Bunuel, 1967) and THE NIGHT PORTER (Liliana Cavani, 1974)

SITCOM SCREENING

"A pet rat sets off a chain reaction of debauchery in a prim and proper nuclear family in SITCOM, a sort of 'Mouse Hunt meets the Marquis de Sade'... promising in outlets that relish notoriety and aren't obliged to shy away from jaunty depictions of homosexuality, bisexuality, S&M, incest..."
-Lisa Nesselson, VARIETY


"SITCOM is a clever little movie that demonstrates the advantages and limitations of cleverness alone."
-Mick LaSalle, SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE


"SITCOM, which is sardonically filmed with the snappy look of a television comedy, has a sour streak that eventually poisons its humor. Mr. Ozon pushed the limits of shock value much more effectively with the carefully measured violence of SEE THE SEA than he does with this frontal assault."
-Janet Maslin, NEW YORK TIMES

BAISE-MOI SCREENING

"Despite some game performances from two lead femmes, this hard-core pic is a half-baked, punk-inflected porn odyssey masquerading as a movie worth seeing and talking about."
-Lisa Nesselson, VARIETY

"It alternates between between graphic, explicit sex scenes and murder scenes of brutal cruelty.  You recoil from what's on the screen.  Later, you ask what the filmmakers had in mind.  They are French, and so we know some kind of ideology and rationalization must lurk beneath the blood and semen... BAISE-MOI is more of a bluff.  The directors know their film is so extreme that most will be repelled, but some will devise intellectual defenses and interpretations for it, saving them the trouble of making it clear what they want to say."
-Roger Ebert, CHICAGO SUN-TIMES

One of recent cinema's most controversial texts, BAISE-MOI is an unapologetic display of graphic violence and explicit sex.  The audacity and effrontery of the film has led to violent debates and drastic censorship.  It is a film made very much in the punk mindset.  Quality is sacrificed for raw emotion.  It has upset many for its blurring of art and pornography as well as its association with exploitation.  Like the French New Wave before it, BAISE-MOI manages to unite low and high culture forms.  Porn and philosophy make an uneasy marriage in the film.

Suggested Secondary Screenings:  THIS FILM IS NOT YET RATED (Kirby Dick, 2006), THE PORNOGRAPHER (Bertrand Bonello, 2001), DESTRCITED (Various Directors, 2006), and THELMA AND LOUISE (Ridley Scott, 1991)

IRREVERSIBLE SCREENING

"An integrated work whose form clearly mirrors its content."
-Rick Groen, GLOBE AND MAIL

"Noe's summation is an ideological sucker-punch from a filmmaker who gets off on abusive relationships."
-Wesley Morris, BOSTON GLOBE

"Is there a point to this spew, a cry against the mongrel violence of men? Or is Noe merely a sadist who enjoys inflicting ugly, pitiless images on his audience?"
-Edward Guthmann, SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE

One of the most controversial and infamous films, IRREVERSIBLE continues Gaspar Noe's attempts to alienate his audience.  Based on the premise that 'time destroys everything,' IRREVERSIBLE employs a backward narration that reimagines the genre of the rape-revenge film.  Combining images and sounds that irritate and trouble, Noe assaults the spectator.  Now a cult film, its original release united debates over its sexual violence, censorship, and artistic expression.

Suggested Secondary Screenings:  5x2 (Francois Ozon, 2004) and MEMENTO (Christopher Nolan, 2000)

SEX IS COMEDY SCREENING

"There are insightful moments about the delicate relationships between a director and her cast, and about the mind games that go on both behind the camera and in front of it."

-Andrew Sarris, NEW YORK OBSERVER

"It's refreshing to see this side of Breillat, a self-reflective artist whose evident anger over the sexual state of the world doesn't entirely subsume her, or her humanity."

-John Anderson, NEWSDAY

"A rigorous and bracingly charming movie about moviemaking."

-Ty Burr, BOSTON GLOBE

Perhaps the least extreme of the films we will watch, SEX IS COMEDY is a commentary on what it means to represent sex on screen from the perspective of the actor and the director.  In this meta-film, a Breillat surrogate must work with two young actors as well as her crew to capture a moment of raw intimacy and intensity.  The director employs numerous and often contradictory strategies to achieve her goal and edges the border of exploitation, sadomasochism, and touches on issues of consent.  How far must one push oneself or others in the pursuit of art?  This is the central question of Breillat's film and her cinema overall.  As we continue with her work, a fascination with the obscene, that which should not be seen, will continue and SEX IS COMEDY is an excellent text that Breillat provides to explain her method and motivations.

Suggested Secondary Screenings:  IRMA VEP (Olivier Assayas, 1996), BEWARE OF A HOLY WHORE (Rainer Werner Fassbinder, 1971), DAY FOR NIGHT (Francois Truffaut, 1973), CONTEMPT (Jean-Luc Godard, 1963), BROKEN EMBRACES (Pedro Almodovar, 2009), THE FIVE OBSTRUCTIONS (Lars von Trier, 2003) and H STORY (Nobuhiro Suwa, 2001).

FAT GIRL SCREENING

"I was kind of mad at the way things had this arbitrary development ... That's what happens in real life... I thought a lot about this movie after I saw it -- days afterwards, a week afterwards."

-Richard Roeper, EBERT & ROEPER

"FAT GIRL is uncompromising and unforgiving, but ultimately more self-destructive than any of its characters."

-Jay Carr, BOSTON GLOBE

"There is a jolting surprise in discovering that this film has free will, and can end as it wants, and that its director can make her point, however brutally."

-Roger Ebert, CHICAGO SUN-TIMES

Catherine Breillat has described this film as a story about "a soul with two bodies."  FAT GIRL is a frank exploration of sisterhood and adolescent sexuality that has shocked audiences and enraged censors.  Revolving around the complicated relationship between Anais, a twelve-year-old ugly duckling, and her gorgeous older sister Elena, FAT GIRL is uncompromising, brutal, and unflinchingly honest.  The tension between Anais and Elena grows when Elena meets Fernando, an Italian law student, who seduces her with promises of love while Anais bears witness to the corruption of her sister's 'innocence.'

Suggested Secondary Screenings:  BLUEBEARD (Breillat, 2009), A REAL YOUNG GIRL (Breillat, 1976), MOUCHETTE (Robert Bresson, 1967), BABY DOLL (Elia Kazan, 1956), LOLITA (Stanley Kubrick, 1962), and AMERICAN PIE (Paul Weitz, 1999) [Just kidding, sort of, it might make a really great comparison paper.]

 

L'HUMANITE SCREENING

"Bruno Dumont's flawed masterpiece ... You probably won't feel comfortable when HUMANITE is over, but as you leave the theater you will feel more alive than when you entered."
-Stephen Holden, NEW YORK TIMES

"Ought to be seen, because it's a work of moral and spiritual mystery as stubbornly challenging as GONE IN 60 SECONDS is morally anesthetizing."
-ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY

L'HUMANITE begins with the epitome of the abject, a corpse.  Investigating the rape and murder of an 11 year-old girl, Pharaon De Winter struggles with himself and the harsh realities of the world.  Directed by Bruno Dumont, the film is symbolic and contemplative as it presents the landscape of the body and the body as landscape.  Paralleling the investigation, De Winter becomes intertwined in a bizarre love triangle between himself and his neighbors Domino and Joseph.  De Winter witnesses a similar crude brutality between Domino and Joseph as he tries to find a murderer.  Inbetween police procedural and avant-garde meditation on humanity, L'HUMANITE won three of the biggest prizes at the Cannes Film Festival in 1999.

Suggested Secondary Screenings:  MOUCHETTE (Robert Bresson, 1967) and TWENTYNINE PALMS (Dumont, 2003).

INSIDE SCREENING

"I leave you to discover, through covered eyes, the gut-splattering delirium to come."

-Nathan Lee, VILLAGE VOICE

"For those who like their blood by the barrelful, INSIDE is just the ticket.  Awash in red liquid that drips, oozes, spurts and pours, pic restarts the French gore genre with an over-the-top sadism sure to please fans of schlock horror."

-Jay Weissberg, VARIETY

"INSIDE is an instant modern classic en francais, along the lines of HAUTE TENSION, IRREVERSIBLE, and DANS MA PEAU.  Don't miss it."

-Staci Layne Wilson, HORROR.COM

A prime example of the new extreme horror genre currently making its way out of Europe.  Taking gore to a new level, these films are often linked to American 'torture porn' like SAW and HOSTEL, yet different.  Not an 'art film' like TROUBLE EVERY DAY or IN MY SKIN, but not artless by any means, INSIDE shows a parallel movement in French Cinema toward the extreme.  Despite their obvious differences, there are numerous similarities in theme, the permeability of skin, and form, techniques used to cinematically express pain, to the previous films under analysis. 

Suggested Secondary Screenings:  MARTYRS (Pascal Laugier, 2008), THEM (David Moreau and Xavier Palud, 2006), FRONTIER(S) (Xavier Gens, 2007)

TROUBLE EVERY DAY SCREENING

"... a film that is profoundly disturbing, yet hauntingly unforgettable."

-John Anderson, NEWSDAY

"Nothing Denis has made before ... could prepare us for this gory, perverted, sex-soaked riff on the cannibal genre."
-V.A. Musetto, NEW YORK POST

"Purposefully shocking in its eroticized gore, if unintentionally dull in its lack of poetic frissons."
-J. Hoberman, VILLAGE VOICE

"A hysterical yet humorless disquisition on the thin line between sucking face and literally sucking face."
-Lisa Schwarzbaum, ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY

Emphasizing mood over narrative TROUBLE EVERY DAY is an erotic modern-day horror story about a man and woman separated by thousands of miles, yet united by an insatiable taste for human flesh.  An American couple honeymooning in Paris shifts to a horror story when the groom is unable to control his libido for sex and violence.  He has come to Paris in search of an elusive doctor studying his particular ailment, which coincidentally afflicts the doctor's own wife.  Divided between his pure bride and the doctor's carnivorous wife, the man's impulses turn to a disturbing sexual violence.  An abstract horror film with a mysterious illness, a mad scientist, and cannibals, TROUBLE EVERY DAY eschews traditional narrative and either reinvents or destroys the horror genre in the process. 

Suggested Supplemental Screenings:  WHITE MATERIAL (Denis, 2009), BETTY BLUE (Jean-Jacques Beineix, 1986), NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD (George Romero, 1968)

TIRESIA SCREENING

"Full of powerfully emotional scenes, even if it's almost entirely untouchable -- obtuse, bewildering and almost agonisingly slow."

-Rich Cline, SHADOW ON THE WALL

"The overall intention remains inscrutable, despite the strong presence of the performers and Bonnello’s attempt to will significance into the material by holding each shot over a glacial time-span."

-TIME OUT LONDON

"Intense, intriguing, beautifully framed and intellectually challenging, TIRESIA defies easy categorisation (much like its principal character)."

-Anton Bitel, EYE FOR FILM

In a film movement linked by the connection between transgression and transcendence, Bertrand Bonnello's TIRESIA stands out as one of the New Extremes most difficult, frustrating, and rewarding works.  A film that demands you meet it more than half way as well as requires a fair knowledge of Greek mythology, TIRESIA is steeped in classical traditions as well as modernist filmmaking.  Following the imprisonment of a pre-op transsexual prostitute and her subsequent blinding and gift of prophecy, the film touches on the abject and issues of fate.  As an in-between body, on that challenges preconceived order, such as gender, Tiresia, the character, and TIRESIA, the film, are an interesting addition to transgender film.

Suggested Supplemental Screenings:  TRANSAMERICA (Duncan Tucker, 2005), HEDWIG AND THE ANGRY INCH (John Cameron Mitchell, 2001), ALL ABOUT MY MOTHER (Pedro Almodovar, 1999), XXY (Lucia Puenzo, 2007), BOYS DON'T CRY (Kimberly Peirce, 1999)

IN MY SKIN SCREENING

"Inescapably gripping... a harrowing portrait.  A remarkable debut film."
-Stephen Holden, THE NEW YORK TIMES

"Riveting.  Chilling.  Draws from the body horror of David Cronenberg and the feminine paranoia of Roman Polanski's REPULSION."
-Scott Tobias, THE ONION

"A body horror tour-de-force.  Witty.  Beautiful, Terrifying."
-Dennis Lim, VILLAGE VOICE

"A gorgeous, uncommonly assured and provocative debut unsettling.  Arresting."
-Mike D'Angelo, TIME OUT NEW YORK

IN MY SKIN ranks as one of the most powerful directorial debuts in recent years.  Previously the cypher Tatiana of REGARDE LA MER, Marina De Van, director and star of IN MY SKIN, delves deep into the mind of Esther, a corporate analyst.  After suffering a deep gash to her leg during an accident, Esther becomes fascinated with her own skin.  What begins as caresses, tugs, and pinches soon unravels into cuts, slices, and ruptures.  Esther transgresses her own skin and begins to experiment with self-cannibalism and auto-eroticism.  Despite its graphic and sometimes disgusting imagery, IN MY SKIN is a fascinating film that has a quiet beauty and touches on the connection between transgression and transcendence. 

Suggested Supplemental Screenings:  REPULSION (Roman Polanski, 1965), CRASH (David Cronenberg, 1996), and MARTYRS (Pascal Laugier, 2008)

REGARDE LA MER SCREENING

"Profoundly unsettling!  An impressive new filmmaker with a flair for implicit mayhem... owes strong debts to Chabrol and Polanski."
-Janet Maslin, NEW YORK TIMES

"Ozon may be a new master!... Think Rohmer meets Hitchcock!"
-Armond White, NEW YORK PRESS

"A menacing masterpiece!"
-Dennis Dermody, PAPER MAGAZINE

As James Quandt sees it, REGARDE LA MER is part of Francois Ozon's 'immature' period.  Despite this dismissive assessment, the film brought a new attention to Ozon's work as he transitioned from a short to feature filmmaker.  The film's disturbing story and infamous images should not overshadow Ozon as a true cinematic talent that communicates volumes through is frames and use of montage.  REGARDE LA MER centers around a young mother living with her infant daughter in relative isolation and the mysterious backpacker that interrupts their idyllic surrounding.  The film touches on Kristeva's notion of the abject as a disruption of system, identity, and order.  What unfolds during this terse 52-minute film is a violent exchange of identity that leaves the spectator restless, breathless, and disrupted.

Suggested Supplemental Screenings:  PERSONA (Ingmar Bergman, 1966) and BLACK SWAN (Darren Aronofsky, 2010) 

AFTERSCHOOL SCREENING

"Unsettles without illuminating, marred by narcotic pacing and a blank lead performance."

-Justin Chang, VARIETY

"It's both a supremely controlled exercise in form and tone and an intriguing exploration of the ways new technology intersects with age-old questions of dominance, control and individuality, particularly in the school setting."

-Andrew O'Hehir, SALON.COM

Similar to the themes of DEMONLOVER and the pacing of CACHE, AFTERSCHOOL is a deconstructed thriller examining the possible effects of new media's impact on young minds.  For centuries society has been question its relationship to entertainment and violence and AFTERSCHOOL continues this interrogation through the YouTube generation.  No one would argue that Campos is navigating new territory, but his direction is assured and thought-provoking.  In his first feature film Campos demonstrates a degree of clarity lacking in most debut filmmakers.  He is a perfect example of an American filmmaker inspired by and in conversation with the New European Extreme.  Haneke is a notable influence on Campos as both seem preoccupied with the effects of the new media landscape and its own preoccupations with violence.  A more disturbing version of Catcher and the Rye, AFTERSCHOOL taps into the fears associated with new media and the negative aspects of its interactivity.

Suggested Supplemental Screening:  BENNY'S VIDEO (Michael Haneke, 1992) and ELEPHANT (Gus Van Sant, 2003)

DEMONLOVER SCREENING

"I was struck by the complete lack of morality."

-Roger Ebert, CHICAGO SUN-TIMES

"Expect DEMONLOVER to become a midnight-movie staple in the coming years. And expect shards of it to roil your dreams for weeks."

-Ty Burr, BOSTON GLOBE

"It's an exasperating, irresistible, must-see mess of a movie about life in the modern world and so very good that even when its story finally crashes and burns the filmmaking remains unscathed."
-Manohla Dargis, LOS ANGELES TIMES

With DEMONLOVER, Olivier Assayas turned his filmmaking 180-degrees following his stately costume drama SENTIMENTAL DESTINIES (2000).  The film explores the back-door dealings of a large French communication conglomerate intent on purchasing the rights to a Japanese animation company specializing in Internet pornography.  Technology, torture porn, and transnationalism dominated the landscape of DEMONLOVER, a film that gleefully eschews coherence.  So many double crosses it is hard to keep up and several half-ideas drifting around, DEMONLOVER forms a fascinating commentary on our modern times and our increasing emphasis on the body as commodity. 

Suggest Supplemental Screening:  BOARDING GATE (Assayas, 2007) [The film feels like a companion piece to DEMONLOVER, they seem to be operating in the same cinematic world]

The film also stars Asia Argento, daughter of Dario Argento (the Italian horror master), who is often associated with the New Extreme as an actress (BOARDING GATE, THE LAST MISTRESS) and as a director (SCARLET DIVA, THE HEART IS DECEITFUL ABOVE ALL THINGS)

CACHE SCREENING

"But that word, 'fear' -- a fluid haze, an elusive clamminess -- no sooner has it cropped up than it shades off like a mirage and permeates all words of the language with nonexistence, with a hallucinatory, ghostly glimmer.  Thus, fear having been bracketed, discourse will seem tenable only if it ceaselessly confront that otherness, a burden both repellent and repelled, a deep well of memory that is unapproachable and intimate:  the abject."

-Julia Kristeva, POWERS OF HORROR

Before remaking his own FUNNY GAMES, Michael Haneke made CACHE, his masterful French thriller about repression, memory, and guilt.  The Laurents, a bourgeois family, become terrorized by anonymous surveillance videos of their home.  Operating both inside and outside the genre of the thriller, Haneke creates an aura of suspense and hanging dread by constantly playing against audience expectations.  Metaphorical and meta-cinema, CACHE avoids easy answers and provides spectators numerous avenues of exploration and investigation. 

Suggested Supplemental Screenings:  BENNY'S VIDEO (Haneke, 1992), LOST HIGHWAY (David Lynch, 1997), and HIROSHIMA MON AMOUR (Alain Resnais, 1959).

MAN BITES DOG SCREENING

"A deeply compelling, if ultimately confused, indictment of screen violence as entertainment, one that continues to shock and confound."
-James Kendrick, Q NETWORK FILM DESK

"It starts out as murderious black comedy.  Then, by making the violence increasingly unbearable, it turns the moral barrel on the audience.  It's a cruel trick, but that's the movie's rather tenuous point."
-Desson Howe, WASHINGTON POST

Part-mockumentary and part meditation on screen violence and audience complicity, MAN BITES DOG won the International Critic Prize at the 1992 Cannes Film Festival.  It follows two documentary filmmakers, Andre and Remy, who discover an ideal subject, Ben.  Charismatic, witty, and intelligent, Ben has one slight flaw... he is a serial killer.  Andre and Remy begin by simply documenting Ben's crimes and words of wisdom, but as the project continues they become increasingly entwined with the material they are filming.  The film stunned audiences and ignited controversy concerning screen violence and has become a scathing satire on the media violence and a meta-commentary on the thin line between observer, participant and accomplice. 

Suggested Supplemental Screenings:  RESERVOIR DOGS (Quentin Tarantino, 1992), NATURAL BORN KILLERS (Olivier Stone, 1994), GIMMIE SHELTER (The Maysels Brothers, 1970), and THE BRIDGE (Eric Steel, 2006)

I STAND ALONE SCREENING

“Fiercely intelligent.  Cinematically sophisticated… the most disturbing film of the decade.”

-Amy Taubin, THE VILLAGE VOICE

“Stunning… A rigorous cinematic intelligence at work… harrowing, sensational.”

-Gavin Smith, FILM COMMENT

“Phenomenal!  The confidence and gleeful skill of Gaspar Noe are the undeniable hallmarks of a major filmmaker in the making.”

-Andrew Johnson, TIMEOUT NY

I STAND ALONE (1998), Gaspar Noe’s first feature film, follows an embittered nameless butcher who is alone in the world.  Unable to find love or a job, the butcher is willing to place blame on everyone but himself.  Filled with hate, this racist, misogynist unemployed ex-con rages against the world with a short temper and death wish.  Rather than shy away from this abominable character, Noe unflinchingly enters the mind of this troubled being.  A sequel to CARNE (1992), Noe’s earlier short, I STAND ALONE is a cornerstone of the New Extreme in both content and form.  Its characters and form of cinema can only be described as cruel. 

For more information on Noe.

Suggested Supplemental Screening:  TAXI DRIVER (Martin Scorsese, 1976), FALLING DOWN (Joel Schumacher, 1993), and LA HAINE (Mathieu Kassovitz, 1995)

FUNNY GAMES SCREENING

The secondary screening will be Michael Haneke's FUNNY GAMES US (2007).  Considered by some to be a brilliant treatise on violence, media, and entertainment and others as intolerable cruelty, FUNNY GAMES is shocking and cerebral.  The film delves into the inherent blood lust of the cinema and reflects the spectators own perverse desires to see violence.  In many ways Haneke's film has been seen as a critique of violence in American cinema, which is ironic considering this a shot for shot remake of his original FUNNY GAMES (1997).  An interesting possibility for analysis might be too look at the FUNNY GAMES as a European Art Film and THE STRANGERS (Bertino, 2008) as both have similar content, yet remarkably different form.  As far as remaking his own film, Haneke is in good company.  Alfred Hitchcock remade himself in THE MAN WHO KNEW TOO MUCH (1934 and 1956).  Evoking numerous films and stories of violence Haneke touches on everything from Tom and Jerry cartoons to the famous Leopold and Loeb case.

Suggested Supplemental Screenings:  ROPE (Hitchcock, 1948), COMPULSION (Fleischer, 1959), SWOON (Kalin, 1992).  All based on the media sensation and murders of the Leopold and Loeb case.  These films, like FUNNY GAMES, perhaps link sexual desires, especially repressed desires, to violent and destructive behavior.

WEEKEND SCREENING

As an entry point into the New French Extreme, we will be screening Jean-Luc Godard's apocalyptic masterpiece of alienation WEEKEND (1967).  The film initial evokes a relaxing sojourn in the idyllic country side for a bourgeois couple.  However, the weekend quickly turns horrific through a series of traffic jams, auto accidents, class conflicts, and cannibalistic revolutionaries.  A sharp and shocking social critique of modern France, Godard's film is both arresting and prophetic (as it points to the political and social upheaval that would shake France in May of 1968).  The film displays the self-destructive aspects of capitalism and its associations with man as animal.

Suggested Supplemental Screenings:  LA CHINOISE (Godard, 1967)