Classic film revival at the Alliance

9 films to be screened feature some of the world’s most celebrated classics, distinguished for their sheer literacy.


Anwer Mooraj May 03, 2014
anwer.mooraj@tribune.com.pk

Here’s a bit of good news for classic cinema buffs, especially those with a taste for the French connection. The Alliance Francaise de Karachi is unleashing a bit of nostalgic Gallic artistry in the form of Cinema Les classiques francais in May and June. Film enthusiasts, who missed these gems the first time they were screened, will be provided another opportunity to watch these masterpieces. There are films by Jean Renoir and Marcel Carne, two of the world’s greatest film directors, whose flashes of sublime extempore brilliance were evident during the golden age of French cinema. Marcel Pagnol, novelist and playwright best known for the Marseilles trilogy, who was the first film-maker to be elected to the Academie francaise, is also there. And so is Pierre Chenal with his bawdy Clochmerle (1947) set in Beaujolais, based on the satirical novel by Gabriel Chevalier which revolves around plans to install a public urinal in the village square.



The nine films that have been selected feature some of the world’s most celebrated classics, distinguished among other things for their sheer literacy. The two ripe old plums by Jean Renoir — La grand illusion (1937) and La regle du jeu (1939) created waves around the world when they first surfaced. Illusion makes the point that war is futile because of the common economic interests of the European nations. The Rules of the Game is about upper class French society at the outbreak of World War II, which seethes with atmosphere and portent, has been cited as one of the greatest films in the history of cinema. Orson Welles, who’s Citizen Kane is the quintessential American classic once said that La grand illusion was one of the motion pictures he would like to take to the Ark. Renoir dissected both human relationships and Europe’s decaying social and political structure. He imbued his work with a humanistic fatalism and unerringly stripped away superficial gaiety to reveal underlying melancholy.

Marcel Carne has five feature films — Le jour se leve; Hotel du Nord; Les visiteurs du soir, Le quai des brune and the brightest bulb on the tree, Les enfants du Paradis. As a film critic, addicted to occasional off-the-cuff editorialising, I would say that this selection is the pick of the very best of France, with enough collective energy to cause a cultural eclipse. Les enfants du Paradis (1944) originally known as The children of the gods, with reference to the seats in the theatre gallery, later known as The Children of Paradise, was shot during the German occupation. It is a complex, almost novelistic, investigation of the relationships between life and art, reality and illusion. Six hundred French critics polled in 1995 said this was the best film ever made. Francois Truffant, creator of 400 Blows once quipped “I would give up all my films to have directed Children of Paradise”.

Le quai des brunes (1938) known as Port of Shadows, a doom-laden masterpiece which with its ill-fated romance, shady underworld characters and brutal fatalism evokes the essence of classical film noir at its most primitive and most eloquent. Hotel du Nord is about a man who kills a woman in a suicide pact, and suddenly loses the nerve to take his own life. But gloom and doom are overtaken by Pagnol in La femme du boulanger (1938), an effervescent film about the wife of the local baker who runs off with a handsome shepherd. This galvanizes the entire village to join forces to bring her back…so they can all have their bread.

Published in The Express Tribune, May 4th, 2014.

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COMMENTS (2)

Ejaz Asi | 9 years ago | Reply

These are some excellent movies except Citizen Kane, which I could never figure. I would have expected some from Godard and Francois Truffaut but otherwise a very good list.

Parvez | 9 years ago | Reply

Thank you for that.......at least now we know.

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