Claire Denis

[iangj]

And there's VENDREDI SOIR, a tremendous piece of cinema, where her formalism is very much productive of meaning and affect. The a_film_by posters have got it wrong as far as Claire Denis is concerned. (I've been a fan since CHOCOLAT, though haven't yet steeled myself for TROUBLE EVERY DAY).

[zedz]

Denis is one of the most accomplished and continually inventive of contemporary filmmakers, and there's a great variety in the tone and content of her work. What is consistent is their concern with texture and mood over conventional narrative.

In Trouble Every Day, for example, the plot stuff seems to be almost deliberately underdeveloped, as if Denis was merely concerned with establishing the generic parameters (mad scientist / vampirism) so that she could conduct her own wild experiments on them.

Vendredi Soir is another case in point, where a slight premise develops within very modest parameters, but somehow blossoms into a significant work through its sideways glances at much grander topics (passion, identity, romantic fantasy). With this film, I particularly love how the dreamy style of the film, the occasional fantastic elements, and Denis' characteristic ellipses start the viewer questioning everything - does the film slip into fantasy at some point? If so, at what point does it happen? Do the lovers really meet up again after their separation? Does the hitchhiker ever actually get into the car? Why does the traffic suddenly clear in the middle of the film? The lovely thing is that the experience is equally valid if it's all real, all fantasy, or some mixture.

Denis also deserves to be celebrated for her brilliant, often counterintuitive use of music. Nenette et Boni's two musical set-pieces (God Only Knows, Tiny Tears) may be the most moving of them all, and she manages to achieve this with pieces already loaded with emotional baggage. And look how potently she uses Beau Travail's eclectic soundtrack. The Britten is fair enough (but pretty overwhelming if it's your first encounter with it), but who else would have thought of Safeway Cart? And then there's that stunning final solo by Lavant.

It's about time somebody released these films coherently on DVD. U.S. Go Home is so obscure it seems to have dropped off her filmography altogether in some quarters, and I've never had the opportunity to see No Fear, No Die.

[swingo]

Haven't seen any of the R4 or R2 PAL's of Trouble Every Day. but the R4 edition of it looks pretty well to my eyes.

The mexican edition of Nenette et Boni is outrageously awful -pan & scan- copy from a video source.


Axel.

[Cosomatli]

Haven't seen any of the R4 or R2 PAL's of Trouble Every Day. but the R4 edition of it looks pretty well to my eyes .

yeah, i agree, looks pretty decent

[Oedipax]

I'm wondering if anyone can shed some light on this. Doing a class reading on Catherine Breillat's Romance, I ran across the claim that Breillat and Claire Denis are sisters! The full quote from the article ("Deforming Femininity," Emma Wilson) follows:

In Cahiers du Cinema, Breillat was interviewed by her sister, director Claire Denis, whose work, particularly in Beau travail, also attempts to represent the body on film.

Whoa! I have never heard this before - and I kind of doubt its accuracy. For one thing, IMDB lists Breillat and Denis as having been born the same year, but in different months. An interview with Denis mentions in passing that she was an only child. And Breillat's difficulty with her one established sister is chronicled in Fat Girl.

I'm wondering if this is just the author's poor translation of remarks that might have been made in the Cahiers article - if they referred to themselves figuratively as sisters, being well-known French women filmmakers. Intriguingly, I did find an article that told of how Breillat and Denis were (at least at one point) neighbors in Paris.

Anyway, this bit of information (or at least the suggestion, or the idea) delighted me, suggesting at once all kinds of connections to be drawn between Breillat and Denis's films. Of course those links can still be made, but it's nowhere near as powerful symbollically if they are in fact not related, as seems to be the case. Anyway, if anyone knows for sure, I'd like to hear it.

I leave you this photograph to ponder

[backstreetsbackalright]

I really don't think they're sisters, but they do seem to have some sort of close relationship. When Denis spoke in Seattle a few years back, she referred to sharing a work space with Breillat. Although I love Denis and am unenthusiastic about the Breillat that I've seen, I think its definitely worthwhile to look at their work side by side.

[Don Lope de Aguirre]

sisters in the non literal sense!! even then i imagine they're referred to as sisters because they're both 'big' female french directors (who may or may not be close friends)...as to the quality of their work (imho) the gulf is best measured in kilometers!! denis is, put simply, on another level to breillat...

[Arn777]

I have just received the new French DVD of J'ai pas sommeil from Arte, and it has English subtitles, will check PQ tonight or tomorrow.

[MichaelB]

I've never had the opportunity to see No Fear, No Die.

In the early 1990s, I worked for a British distributor that briefly considered picking it up before realising that it would be legally undistributable in the uncut version, thanks to the dreaded 1937 Cinematograph Films (Animals) Act.

(I haven't seen it myself, but by all accounts the cockfighting footage is genuine)

[Oedipax]

I have just received the new French DVD of J'ai pas sommeil from Arte, and it has English subtitles, will check PQ tonight or tomorrow.

Ooh! Please keep us posted on that. That'll be great if it's superior to the R1 Wellspring, which had a lot of room for improvement...

(I haven't seen it myself, but by all accounts the cockfighting footage is genuine)

Well, the credits at the end say no animals were harmed, but the sequences do look quite convincing in the film. They certainly weren't faked in Monte Hellman's Cockfighter.

[Grimfarrow]

Can wait to see her new film.

[Oedipax]

Two new films in the works according to the latest Film Comment:

Thirty [sic] years after her debut film, Chocolat, Claire Denis is heading back to Cameroon with Isabelle Huppert and Christophe Lambert in tow to shoot White Material, produced by FC's favorite French production company, Why Not. After that she's lined up 35 Rhums, co-written with her perennial collaborator Jean-Pol Fargeau and featuring Alex Descas as a father trying to raise his daughter in Paris following his wife's suicide.

Thrilled to hear there's not one but two new ones in the works (and hopefully Vers Mathilde on DVD sometime in the interim...) And I suppose while I'm already spectating idly, maybe it wouldn't be too much to ask, in light of the recent and ongoing Rivette revival, that her documentary Jacques Rivette: Le Veilleur also be released, perhaps as an extra in a fantasy boxed set of the complete Out 1! Okay, back to reality...

[Don Lope de Aguirre]

No word from Arn777 yet... Saw this review

It looks very decent even if the sound is less than perfect! I find it very hard to imagine the US R1 topping this. A direct comparison would be interesting nonetheless....

Interestingly, Vendredi Soir is said to be quite mediocre.

The extras on both look quite appetizing!

[Arn777]

I am just checking it now, the PQ is fine, so does the sound which is totally adequate and not as bad as that review imply. Definitely worth to purchase.

[Grimfarrow]

VENDREDI SOIR might be a minor key work, but it is FAR, FAR from being anywhere near mediocre.

[Mise En Scene]

"Friday Night" is a minor masterpiece, IMO.

A plot question:

Spoiler

Did someone slap someone or something? There was a noise and the two stopped their romantic dealings. Well, it seems to me. I couldn't tell with Godard's luscious fragmented shots. And I haven't read the book, either.

Thanks!

[Michael]

Friday Night is a masterpiece - minor or major or whatever. There's nothing medicore about it. One of the most beautifully photographed movies I've ever seen.

[LQ]

Last night, I couldn't fall asleep so around 3 a.m. I popped in Friday Night . Watching it from half-lidded eyes that occasionally drooped for more than a single beat, in that semi-addled stasis brought on by insomnia turned out to be the ideal viewing state for this movie. In fact, I don't know if I'll ever appreciate it the same in a different (daylight?) context. Staying up all night with Laure and Jean was truly a beautiful experience. Paris with its streets slick with rain and cracked carmine-red painted interiors never looked so languorous and alluring, and the cinematography and editing captured perfectly all the glimpses of the city, details that a tired eye would linger upon, tiny magical flourishes, the curves of entwined bodies.. And the quiet, comfortable calm that the two shared was spellbinding. My only question-because I was pretty far gone at the end-

Spoiler

is it to be inferred that Jean...died? Laure touched him, spoke his name in such a manner that would suggest...and then we see her dashing around in the dawn, looking lost and alone.

[Michael]

LQ, very glad you finally got to see this gem.

Spoiler

Jean died? That's a bit too extreme and I never got that impression. He was simply konked out after a long night or maybe he was simply not a morning person. And pay very extremely close attention to Laure's expression in the final frame. She looks at us with a little smile on her face, sort of telling us to keep the secret between us, the viewers and her because well, we had just experienced her one-night-stand affair and she's still on her way to moving in with her boyfriend. What a magical night that was!

[LQ]

Haha okay, I definitely need to go back to the last scene then. 4-something a.m. is not the optimum time to catch ahold of fleeting secret smiles, I suppose How you just explained it is certainly fitting with the film. God, how beautiful Friday Night was. I had a magical night!

[Yojimbo]

VENDREDI SOIR might be a minor key work, but it is FAR, FAR from being anywhere near mediocre.

I have to admit to being very disappointed with 'Vendredi Soir', particularly after watching 'Beau Travail' not long prior.
Its not dissimilar to Wong-Kar Wai's overrated "In The Mood For Love", too much of a mood piece, or 'chamber work'

Though I loved 'The Intruder' and look forward to watching it again.

[Barmy]

Caught 35 Rhums, erm, twice over the weekend. After the first viewing I was a bit meh. I am not a huge fan of films where characters' relationships are something you need to figure out like some kind of mystery over the course of the film. However, on second viewing I felt that this was perhaps the best of her "smaller" films. Not as good as The Intruder and the (slightly overrated) Beau Travail, but very touching and well-crafted. =D>

[John Cope]

A superb study resource for Denis and her films.

[Oedipax]

A superb study resource for Denis and her films.

Wow, that was a trip - I scrolled down to the bottom and discovered one of my old film school professors had posted the first comment. Great professor (goes without saying if he's commenting on Claire Denis blog posts). Also, thanks for the link.