Bertrand Mandico

[Mr Sausage]

Discovery seems more like a Purgatory concept, since Purgatory's where things have to be worked out. With heaven, maybe it's more like completion?

You've seen the full trilogy, so you're in a better position to work these things out than me. There's a lot in these movies, and I appreciate the handholds you're providing here.

[therewillbeblus]

I like that, especially if Discovery is applied to After Blue, which is probably the most challenging of the films for me to grasp, but makes sense if one sees 'discovery' as both wonderful, terrifying, and everything in between - in terms of not only the process of 'initiating', but the consequences inherent in the risk, whether you use your agency or not. There's also a clearer ambiguity in that film about whether or not tapping into one's darker sides can be beneficial.. perhaps that one is Mandico's perverse idea of living a life closer to the needle of 'moderatation'!

[Matt]

Outside of this trilogy and the short film collection from AI, has he done anything else worth seeking?

He’s done a handful of music videos, mostly for M83, which are on YouTube. I have not seen any of the newer (post After Blue) shorts.

The three 2023 shorts — The Last Cartoon - Nonsense, Optimistic, Pessimistic / Rainer, a Vicious Dog in a Skull Valley / Nous les Barbares — are on the Altered Innocence Blu-ray of She is Conann. I think they are mostly, if not entirely, made from unused footage from the feature. These were all aired as part of a TV special, "L'émission a déjà commencé," on the France 2 network, along with a very amusing prologue with dancing and puppets.

I think his continuing collaboration with Elina Löwensohn is really something special. She has worked steadily since the '90s (over 120 acting credits on IMDb), and she was such an indie It Girl in the middle of that decade but kind of disappeared into bit parts and shorts. She's been working with Mandico since 2011 and is seemingly game for anything with him. I imagine her getting a call from him saying, "You're going to be in nearly every scene of my new feature but you'll be wearing a dog mask the whole time," and her just replying, "What time should I be there?"

[kubelkind]

The three 2023 shorts — The Last Cartoon - Nonsense, Optimistic, Pessimistic / Rainer, a Vicious Dog in a Skull Valley / Nous les Barbares — are on the Altered Innocence Blu-ray of She is Conann. I think they are mostly, if not entirely, made from unused footage from the feature. These were all aired as part of a TV special, "L'émission a déjà commencé," on the France 2 network, along with a very amusing prologue with dancing and puppets.

A Christmas special too, no less!
I don't think these are Conaan outtakes, more like adjuncts to the feature using the same characters. Mandico is a big favourite with me too. His series of short films with Löwensohn are wonderful, a fertile longform collaboration. There are also two films directed by Löwensohn with Mandico as co-writer and producer (Rien ne sera plus comme avant (2022) and Odile dans la vallée (2017)) that I've not seen. Would love to though.

[Matt]

Altered Innocence has announced that Apocalypse After, their disc of Mandico’s short films, is going out of print. Jump on it now if you don’t have it.

[swo17]

These were all aired as part of a TV special, "L'émission a déjà commencé," on the France 2 network, along with a very amusing prologue with dancing and puppets.

This is included on the Altered Innocence Blu-ray and it's incredible! Godard meets Gondry?

[PfR73]

New film Dragon Dilatation is playing at Fantastic Fest.

[Matt]

Marion Cotillard, Alba Rohrwacher, and Jasmine Trinca are attached to star in Mandico's next film, Roma Elastica. IMDb has the logline as "The story revolves around an actress who is going make her last film in Rome in the 1980s." I can't imagine there won't be a part for Elina Löwensohn in there somewhere as well.

[MichaelB]

Anti-Worlds will be bringing out a Blu-ray box set of Mandico's first three features, Divergent View: The Feature Films of Bertrand Mandico.

In addition to The Wild Boys, After Blue and She Is Conann, the three-disc set will apparently be "extras packed", including an 80-page book, and it'll be a limited edition of 2,000 numbered copies. Mandico would appear to be directly involved with the project.

There's nothing on their website as yet, and neither has a release date been confirmed, but mailing list subscribers were tipped off this week.

[Peacock]

Please oh please include the early short films which are only available in France and which weren’t included on the Altered Innocence Short Films set.

I’ll probably end up double dipping on this regardless.

Of the features The Wild Boys is by far my favourite, but the other two in this set are still great. If you love the artificial world building of Sternberg, the glitter of Franco’s Shining Sex, the jewels of Carmelo Bené, the vibe of early Maurice Tourneur and the landscape of Cocteau’s The Testament of Orpheus then you will enjoy…

[Adam X]

Altered Innocence has announced that Apocalypse After, their disc of Mandico’s short films, is going out of print. Jump on it now if you don’t have it.

Mondo Macabro collaborated with them on this collection, and their identical edition is still very much available.

[Matt]

Anti-Worlds will be bringing out a Blu-ray box set of Mandico's first three features, Divergent View: The Feature Films of Bertrand Mandico.

This has now been announced and is available for pre-order. Tempting, but owning all the US Mandico disc releases, I don't think there's enough new supplemental material for me to feel compelled to buy it. I encourage everyone else to, though!

[Peacock]

Deviant Comedy is a nice inclusion though. And there are a couple of decent new supplements but yeah, a shame there’s not more. Hopefully if it sells alright we will get a short films boxset which includes the less well known titles released in France and not included on the Altered Innocence releases.

[Matt]

Deviant Comedy is a nice inclusion though.

Oh, I missed that in the announcement. That, plus the new interviews and the book, might be enough to persuade me.

I also missed that there's a trailer for Roma Elastica. Cannes pretty much passed me by this year.

[Jean-Luc Garbo]

I would buy a separate edition of Wild Boys since I don't have that one. I certainly don't need another copy of Conann tho. Also, thank god they got a transgender critic to write about Wild Boys.