Cinema St. Louis
French Film Festival
August 28-30, 2009

Cinema St. Louis, the presenter of the annual St. Louis International Film Festival, is pleased to celebrate the city’s Gallic heritage and France’s continuing cinematic vitality with its first annual French Film Festival. This inaugural fest includes a trio of recent French films and a pair of highly anticipated revivals by two film masters, Max Ophuls and Jean-Luc Godard. All screenings will be in Washington University’s Brown Hall Auditorium, corner of Forsyth Boulevard and Chaplin Drive (two blocks west of Skinker Boulevard) All films are in French with English subtitles. All films are screened from 35mm prints.

Tickets

Tickets are $10 each; $8 for students with valid and current photo ID, Cinema St. Louis members with valid membership cards, and Alliance Francaise members.
Tickets can be purchased in advance by calling the Cinema St. Louis office at 314-289-4153; tickets will be available for pickup at will call at the screening. Phone sales are limited to full-price tickets only; discounts can only be obtained in person at the box office because ID is required.

Friday, Aug. 28

7 p.m.
Captain Ahab (Capitaine Achab)
Philippe Ramos, 2007, 97 min.

A French take on an American classic, “Captain Ahab” fills in the biographical and psychological background of the monomaniacal whaler of Herman Mellville’s “Moby Dick.” Told in five stylized chapters, the film begins with Ahab’s birth, details important sequences in his life, and finally concludes with the story of his death.
Hollywood Reporter says: “French director Philippe Ramos uses ‘Moby Dick’ for only the last fifth of his film ‘Captain Ahab,’ choosing to an invent a backstory that’s more Mark Twain than Herman Melville. There’s much to like in the sweeping tale of how a resourceful orphan grew up to become the fearless harpoonist and seeker of the great white whale. Virgil Leclaire has terrific screen presence as the young Ahab and, being new, his tale is more engrossing than the familiar story of the fated captain.”

9:15 p.m.
La France
Serge Bozon, 2007, 102 min.

Troubled by a letter from her husband, a soldier in World War I, young wife Camille disguises herself as a teen boy and sets off to find him, joining soldiers mobilized to the front. “La France,” however, is by no means a typical war film, as this band of brothers (and sister) periodically breaks into song. “La France” earned director Bozon the coveted Prix Jean Vigo, which has been given since 1951 to directors for a spirit of independence and extraordinary style, and stars two of the principals of “La vie en rose,” Sylvie Testud and Pascal Greggory.

Variety’s Scott Foundas writes: “Audacious in concept but superbly controlled in execution, what might easily have seemed a genre-bending stunt instead registers as a highly sensitive, inspired approach to the subject of men - and one woman - confronting the dehumanizing effects of war.” Nathan Lee in Village Voice echoes the praise: “’La France’ invents a curious and confident hybrid mode to accommodate, even reconcile, disparate modes and strategies: war film and musical, elegiac and avant-garde, cerebral and poignant, rigorous and flexible. This is something new - and, as yet lacking a distributor, not to be missed.”

Saturday, Aug. 29

7 p.m.
Made in U.S.A.
Jean-Luc Godard, 1966, 90 min.
Image © Rialto Pictures

Never available on 35mm or released on video in the U.S., “Made in U.S.A.” makes its much-belated St. Louis debut. A key work by New Wave icon Jean-Luc Godard, the film is a byzantine, politicized Cold War quasi-thriller. Loosely based on Donald Westlake’s “Nothing in the Trunk” and partially inspired by Howard Hawks’ “The Big Sleep,” the film more provocatively references the “Ben Barka affair,” the disappearance/murder of a left-wing, anti-colonialist Moroccan who was abducted by the French secret police. “Made in U.S.A.” stars Godard’s muse/ex-wife Anna Karina and regulars Jean-Pierre Leaud and Laszlo Szabo, with a cameo by singer Marianne Faithfull doing an a cappella rendition of the Stones’ “As Tears Go By.” Raoul Coutard contributes the gorgeous CinemaScope color cinematography.

The New York Press’ Armond White declares that “the chance to see ‘Made in U.S.A.’ on the big screen again provides an opportunity to rescue movie art and revive film enthusiasm.” Describing the film as “beautiful, goofy and explosive,” former Chicago Reader critic Jonathan Rosenbaum concludes: “Anna Karina was never lovelier in dazzling color and scope, and Godard’s ultimate statement about his love/hate for the aesthetics/politics of American movies/life is an event to be savored and celebrated.”

9:15 p.m.
Towards Zero (L’heure zero)
Pascal Thomas, 2007, 109 min.

In this breezily entertaining adaptation of a highly regarded (if lesser known) Agatha Christie mystery, an extended family gathers for a reunion at a manse in contemporary Brittany, with murder the inevitable result. The owner, a dowager aunt, is played by Danielle Darrieux, a grand dame of French film whose career began in 1931. The exceptional cast includes comedian Francois Morel (as crime-solving Inspector Bataille) and a host of young talents (Laura Smet, Chiara Mastroianni and Melvil Poupaud).

Variety enthuses: “Agatha Christie fans - and anyone who likes an old-fashioned whodunit, blithely played - will come away clucking from ‘Towards Zero,’ Gallic helmer Pascal Thomas’ second stab at the Queen of Crime’s oeuvre. Pic has the same low-key retro fun as his 2005 local hit, ‘By the Pricking of My Thumbs,’ and while thoroughly French, remains very faithful to the spirit of Christie, an author Thomas reveres alongside Balzac and Simenon.”

Sunday, Aug. 30

7 p.m.
Lola Montes
Max Ophuls, 1955, 115 min.
Image © Rialto Pictures

The Cinematheque Francaise offers a stunning restoration of “Lola Montes,” a late masterpiece by legendary director Max Ophuls (“The Earrings of Madame de ...,” “Letter From an Unknown Woman,” “La Ronde”) and a film that critic Andrew Sarris calls “in my unhumble opinion, the greatest film ever made.” Based on the tumultuous life of the 19th-century dancer and courtesan - lover of both Franz Liszt and King Ludwig of Bavaria - “Lola Montes” recounts the adventuress’ romances in flashback, a series of tableaux vivant narrated by the ringmaster of the circus at which she now works. Originally released in three languages - French, German and English - the mega-production features an international cast that includes Peter Ustinov, Anton Walbrook, Oskar Werner and France’s proto-sexpot, Martine Carol, as Lola.

Shot in CinemaScope, the film is a visual delight, with enraptured critics describing “Lola Montes” in unprecedented terms. Nathan Lee declares it “one of the most beautiful movies ever made. When the first image hit the screen, I caught my breath.” Phillip Lopate asserts that “Ophuls uses color with a dazzling, kaleidoscopic imagination,” and Dave Kehr says the film is “among the most emotionally and visually ravishing works the cinema has to offer.” And David Thomson says simply that “Lola Montes” is “one of the essential films ... beautiful and heartbreaking.”