Dear Charlie,
If you haven't been to the
Cinema Club lately, here are the three films we've seen so far this season.
· The Grief of Others (Les Secrets Des Autres –
sorry for the French inexact translation), a film directed by Patrick Wang and
based on the novel by LEAH HAGER COHEN. It was at the Cinéma Gyptis, on
Tuesday, 6th October.
Brief
Summary:
The Ryries have suffered a
loss: the death of a baby just fifty-seven hours after his birth. Without words
to express their grief, the parents, John (Trevor St John) and Ricky (Wendy
Moniz), try to return to their previous lives. The couple's children, ten-year-old
Biscuit and thirteen-year-old Paul, responding to the unnamed tensions around
them, begin to act out in exquisitely idiosyncratic ways. But as the family
members scatter into private, isolating grief, an unexpected visitor arrives,
and they find themselves growing more alert to the hurt, humor, warmth, and
burdens of others—to the grief that is part of every human life but that also
carries within it the power to draw us together.
“Leah Hager Cohen is one of our foremost chroniclers of the mundane complexities, nuanced tragedies and unexpected tendernesses of human connection...The Grief of Others is her best work yet.”
New York Times Book Review (cover)
· Pandora and the Flying Dutchman (Pandora et le Vaisseau
Fantôme) a film directed by Albert Lewin and based on the legend of the Flying Dutchman.
Brief Summary:
In
1930, singer Padora Reynolds, gorgeous, enigmatic, and facinated by danger and
destruction, has the men of a small Spanish town in despair. Just when race
driver Stephen Cameron thinks he's won her, a mysterious yatch appears in the
bay whose strange captain may be the legendary Flying Dutchman. Stephen has an
apparently more dangerous rival in the of an arrogant bullfighter; but
Pandora's friendship with the Dutchman may lead them both to a rendez-vous with
Fate...
· Barry Lyndon a film directed by Stanley
Kubrick and based
on the Victorian novel by William Makepeace Thackeray. It was at the
Cinémathèque, on Tuesday, 3rd November.
Brief
summary:
Barry Lyndon tells the complex
and subtle story of a sensitive, intelligent and ambitious man trapped in a
society which has no use for him. Despite the obstacle of his Irish birth in
relative poverty, Raymond Barry (Ryan O'Neal) manages by various stratagems and
devices to become the wealthy but ill-respected Barry Lyndon. Fooled into
leaving his home by the family of the girl he had hoped to marry, Barry becomes
a soldier in the war fought on the European Continent. His adventures teach him
how to manipulate people, paving the way for his success. His crowning achievement
as a social climber is his marriage to Lady Lyndon (Marisa Berenson), the
beautiful and wealthy widow of an English ambassador to the courts of Europe. His stepson, whom he
despises, becomes his nemesis.
P.S: Michael Horden was an
English actor who gave his voice for the ironic voice-over in Barry Lyndon, he
was also the narrator of Paddington (1975 TV series, here is the link to the video below, you should watch it, it's really good!). He also played Gandalf in the BBC radio adaptation of Tolkien's Lord of the Rings (1981)!
Carla.F
I could not go to see "The Grief of Others" and "Barry Lindon", but I'm definitely going to watch these movies ^^
ReplyDeleteThanks for the article :)