In 1971, Jean Eustache films his grandmother Odette Robert. She tells him about her life: her unhappy youth, her marriage with a man who likes women, the death of her parents, of her children. She speaks about her tragedies, her life of humiliation and servitude, with a calm, almost neutral voice. In the same way she admits that “it doesn’t interest her to live”. Filmed in black and white, in a few steady shots and in a continuous way, this document is the real and moving testimony of the life of a woman of the beginning of the century.
Tag: FRANCE
Dedee is a prostitute, working in Monsieur Rene’s night club on Antwerp’s harbour. The porter is Marco, her pimp. Dedee is not happy, until she meets Francesco, an italian sailorman. They fall in love and Dedee begins to dream about an escape of her daily dullness.
Two segments. The first one arranges six stories from Cesare Pavese’s “Dialoghi con Leucò”, taken from classical mythology. The second segment is taken from Pavese’s novel “La luna e i falò”: after WWII the emigrant ‘The Bastard’ comes back to his village in the Langhe (northern Italy) to find that everyone he knew has died and the war has deeply changed relationships between people.
——UPGRADED——
Horty, a French foundry worker, wins a contest and is sent to see the sailing of the Titanic. In England, Marie, saying she is a chambermaid on the Titanic and cannot get a room, asks to share his room. They do, chastely; when he awakens, she is gone, but he sees her at the sailing and gets a photo of her. When he returns home, he suspects that his wife Zoe has been sleeping with Simeon, the foundry owner. Horty goes to the bar, where his friends get him drunk and he starts telling an erotic fantasy of what happened with him and Marie, drawing a larger audience each night.
“Maine-Ocean” is the name of a train that rides from Paris to Saint-Nazaire (near the ocean). In that train, Dejanira, a Brazilian, has a brush with the two ticket inspectors. Mimi, another traveler and also a lawyer, helps her. The four of them will meet together later and live a few shifted adventures with a strange-speaking sailor (Mimi’s client).
In 1616, a Flemish town is thrown into turmoil by news that the Spanish army will arrive within an hour. The cowardly men are of no help, so the women hatch a plan to avoid violence by charming the occupiers with their feminine wiles.
The eponymous heroine, played by Danielle Darrieux, is the potential bride of playboy Marcel. He wants to marry her to land an inheritance. Marcel’s plans are blown to bits when Amelie falls in love with a dashing prince.
Hoping to make a fresh start, Léo, a jazz musician, takes up temporary residence with his friend Bony, a young writer who is struggling to get his work published. One evening, Léo strikes up an acquaintance with a woman taxi driver, Cora; in spite of her impulsive and moody temperament, he cannot help being attracted to her. When Bony meets Cora, he too finds her irresistible, but he lacks Léo’s self-confidence to make his move. Cora is not a woman that any man can possess readily. She is like a wild animal, a creature that revels in its freedom. Will either Léo or Bony be able to tame her…?