Capital Celluloid 2015 - Day 76: Tue Mar 17

No1 Je Tu il Elle (Akerman, 1974):
Picturehouse cinemas across London. Details here.



'Comparable in force and originality to Godard or Fassbinder, Chantal Akerman is arguably the most important European director of her generation'. J Hoberman

Chicago Reader review of Je Tu il Elle:
Chantal Akerman directed and plays the lead in this early (1974) black-and-white feature that charts three successive stages of its heroine's love life. In the first part she lives like a hermit, eating only sugar, compulsively rearranging the furniture in her one-room flat, and apparently writing and rewriting a love letter; in part two she hitches a ride with a truck driver and eventually gives him a hand job; in part three she arrives at the home of her female lover, and they proceed to make frantic love. This is every bit as obsessive and as eerie as Akerman's later Jeanne Dielman and Toute une nuit, though not as striking on a visual level; as in all her best work, however, the minimalist structure is both potent and haunting.
Jonathan Rosenbaum

Here and above is an extract.


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No2: Life of Riley (Resnais, 2013): Cine Lumiere, 6.30pm


The last film from Alain Resnais runs at the Cine Lumiere from 13 March to 19 March and is also on an extended run at BFI Southbank. Details here.

BFI Southbank introduction:
At the Berlinale, weeks before he died, Alain Resnais’ final film won the nonagenarian a Silver Bear for opening new perspectives in cinema. A faithful yet mischievous adaptation of a play by his friend Alan Ayckbourn, it charts the responses of three couples – especially the women – to the news that their friend George Riley (never seen in the film) has just months to live. Stressing the theatrical artifice of a storyline which is itself about amateur dramatics and role-playing, Resnais elicits excellent performances from his cast, who speak French while inhabiting a surreal Yorkshire of the mind comprised of stylised sets, cartoons and roadscapes. A wise, witty, admirably airy look at life, love and death by one of film’s greatest modernists.
Geoff Andrew, Senior Film Programmer

Here (and above) is the trailer.

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