a world gone mad

Some thoughts on:

A world gone mad
The wartime diaries of Astrid Lindgren
book (2016) and film (2025)

I started reading the English edition of Lindgren's wartime diaries on my recent trip to Dusseldorf, and when I was in the middle of it, I had the opportunity to watch the film in the subtitled version. So here's a combined film and book review.

The English book contains only the translation of the diary entries mainly describing the course of World War II from the perspective of neutral Sweden, which is an interesting angle, especially for those of us, who are like most Europeans used to the perspective from warring factions on one of the other side. Although I haven't been able to locate a copy, I believe the German edition, which has more than twice as many pages, also includes facsimile pages of the original diaries, with clippings and all.

Family life only shines through very sparingly in the English edition, mainly on the occasion of family events such as her daughter's birthday and Christmas, when the presents are listed and menus as well. The family doesn't really come alive from that, so you have to be really interested in the recounting of the war from an unusual angle to make it through this book. Although it is also relatable in the sense that we are now again living in a world gone mad, with surging fascism and wars going on elsewhere, so the feel of watching disaster unfolding from the sidelines does resonate, although there is no real solution on offer.

The film by contrast, puts the family in the centre, with long appearances from several descendants, and lovely visits to the relevant properties, including Lindgren's flat in Stockholm (Wikipedia says it's open for visitors), their summer house, and the house of her parents, which I believe she bought later in life to keep it in the family. Seeing that her daughter Karin was ill for about half the duration of the war, it is good to see her fit and well at age 90.

The film also gives the origins of Pippi Longstocking more time than the diaries did. Apparently, young Karin conjured up the name out of thin air when asking her mother to tell her a story (according to Karin, not in the diaries), and while Astrid Lindgren was herself off work with an injury, she found the time to write it up. Spare a thought for the first publisher who received the manuscript and rejected it. I believe the second one took it on and the rest is history. I read the books multiple times as a child and may have retained an anarchist streak from the exposure

Passages from the war diaries are only used very sparingly in the film, read by an actress playing the writer reading or writing the diaries or engaging in family activities. So, altogether, although the book was useful in keeping track of what is or isn't in the original diaries, I found the film a much more enjoyable and enlightening experience than the book.

Sadly, there doesn't seem to be a UK release in the pipeline.

music making for all

Some thoughts on

Divertimento
Marie-Castille Mention-Schaar
starring Lina El Arabi, Oulaya Amamra
France 2022
showing on TV5monde
trailer

I had this film on my films not shown wishlist for a while, and now managed to catch it on TV5 monde. The TV5 blurb only gave first names for the characters and made it look like fiction, so I only found out from the end credits that this is based on real events.

Twin sisters Zahia and Fettouma Ziouani grow up in the 1990s studying music and wanting to become professionals as conductor and cellist, respectively. Coming from an Algerian family in the Parisian social housing suburbs of Seine St. Denis, they face prejudice and open hostility at Paris conservatoires but manage to bridge the cultures, setting up an orchestra called Divertimento among other things.

I love the way the film reflects the single-mindedness of Zahia in particular. There is absolutely nothing in it that isn't related to playing music, either as a help or as a hindrance. Fettouma gets about two seconds of dreaming of quiet conversation with a potential love interest, but Zahia rather counts that as a hindrance too. After that it's music for all and all for the music again.

A musical cliché that the film should have avoided is the young cellist starting her practice with the first movement of the first cello suite. As youtuber Alexis Descharmes has pointed out in his series about cellists in movies many years ago, these bars account for the majority of cinematic cello-playing. Play the Bach suites by all means but there are so many other movements to choose from. I fear the flashmob orchestra performing Ravel's Bolero is also at risk of becoming too widely used, but in defence of this film, it was made before the other recent film that uses it, namely The Marching Band (En fanfare). Which covers a similar subject matter in an interestingly different way.

More interesting music to discover through the film includes Bacchanale by Saint-Saens, which incidentally you can see on YouTube performed by Divertimento, conducted by Zahia Ziouani.

PS Interestingly I had seen each of the two lead actresses separately in their previous films, Lina El Arabi in Les Meilleures, and Oulaya Amambra in Fragile, both dating from 2021. Which is why I had Divertimento on my list.

Update 8.1.2026 I just discovered a TV documentary / interview with Zahia Ziouani from 2016 on YouTube.

becoming Franz K

Some thoughts on

Franz
by Agnieska Holland
Czech Republic 2025

We know Franz Kafka through so many reflections and distortions that the cultural phenomenon has long outgrown the real life writer and his work. Everything imaginable and its opposite has already been written about him so I don't need to feed the AI bots with more of that. Like everybody else on the planet, I have read more words about him than by him. Agnieszka Holland's film is also about the cultural phenomenon at least as much as about the person.

What I find really interesting is the reflected light falling on the other people in his life. I've always been a huge fan of Milena Jesenská, who only turns up quite late in this movie, and not quite like I had imagined her. I do recommend her journalism work,a selection of which I read a couple of years ago and forgot to review. I just saw that a new German version has been published (after the copyright expired) with a hefty 400 pages and a new title (see the cover below) - my copy only had 300. It's such a shame her letters to Kafka went missing. After seeing the movie, I've started reading his letters to her (in an edition I remember seeing on my parents' shelves when I was a child).

It was interesting to discover Felice Bauer, of whom I only knew the name, as well as Kafka's favourite sister, Ottla, who steals the show throughout the movie. The last lover, Dora Diamant is missing here, but she had a whole movie for herself (Die Herrlichkeit des Lebens (The glory of life)), which I sadly missed when it came out last year.

The other fascinating character in this story is the city of Prague. Luckily the city hasn't changed much since he was alive. All the important buildings in Kafka's life are still standing, enabling the director to jump back and forth in time effortlessly. Interestingly, the small and isolated German language community of Prague had an amazing run at producing writers in that generation, including Rilke, born 1875, Kafka, 1883, Egon Erwin Kisch, 1885 and Franz Werfel, 1890.

The movie poster used in Germany. Is the hand-written K part of the title or just a decorative element? Some sources cite the title as Franz, others as Franz K. Note that the sliced head echoes a metal sculpture of his head on display in Prague outside one of the (at least two) Kafka museums there. That sculpture also makes a brief appearance in the film.

The other important question is: will it get a UK release? Given Kafka's unbeatable brand recognition, I would expect it does, but I'll slap on my "films not shown" tag until that release is confirmed. Come to think of it, The glory of life, which came out in time for the centenary of Kafka's death, hasn't had a UK release yet. So maybe even the name Kafka doesn't guarantee a release these days ...

Heck, I even have a kafka tag, due to the fact that I visited Prague a couple of times when this blog was young and still had illusions ...

Review in epd-film

The new(ish) edition of Milena's journalism work (from 2020). I'm finding it rather hard not to buy the book when she looks at me like that, but I'm trying to establish whether there is anything in there that I don't have in my older collection of her writings (Alles ist Leben, published 1984 and republished several times with the same photo on the cover).

27 missing movies

Films not shown, special edition

After seeing Oxana at the cinema, I also watched the documentary I am Femen on YouTube (in Germany, it doesn't seem to work in the UK). After that the youtube bots launched an effort to show me all sorts of former Soviet Union / Eastern European films with age restriction, so I am trying to keep track of the interesting things and new countries I am discovering here. (Films from 2021 onwards I will also add to Films not shown.)

Losing innocence in Alma Ata (Теряя невинность в Алма-Ате) - Kazakhstan 2010. The first Kazakh film I've ever seen, though most of the dialogue is in Russian. From female director Zhanna Issabayeva (Жанна Исабаева) this is a collection of 13 stories on sexual beginnings, all very cute and also educational, as I knew nothing about that part of the world.

Metronom - slightly troubling Romanian film from 2022 (also added to my films not shown list for the 2020s) about teenagers in 1970s Bucharest discovering Western pop music and getting in trouble for it. I watched it on this YouTube channel, which specialises on Romanian films.

School of Senses - Érzékek iskolája Hungarian film from 1996, the colours look more like 1980s to me, which would put me off normally, but it does have visual poetry and a very watchable female lead (never mind the horrid bloke).

Лето, или 27 потерянных поцелуев (27 missing kisses) - Georgia 2000, Nana Dzhordzhadze, starring Nutsa Kukhianidze Released in Germany in June 2001 but not in the UK. Here is a version dubbed in German which I don't normally approve of but Georgian is really a language I know nothing about! (Apparently, as I just found out, it is part of the Kartvelian family which has no known relation to any other language family.)

The film may well be my favourite in this list so far. The protagonist is a blatant manic pixie dream girl, but the setting in post-Soviet Georgia offers striking visuals from the crumbling factory to the derelict ship and the old village with its rarely used cinema, so there's plenty of cinematic interest even if you have seen too many manic pixies in your life. Watch out for Pierre Richard.

A few days after watching the German copy, I watched it again in the Russian version (with the original soundtrack but the Georgian and French dialogue overdubbed) which revealed that our manic pixie speaks Georgian to her young friend but Russian to most other people and to herself. (The first version which Youtube found for me was dubbed into Czech, so I've now put the Russian version at the top, as it's the closest to the original version I could find.)

I learned that manic pixies always leave and enter the house through the windows, preferably in their night gown.

As this entry goes live, I am still discovering new stuff in this rabbit hole, so watch this space (although I may not reach the 27 movies of the title). Last updated 4.11.2025

The ones I watched after the post

45m2 - Greece, 2010, Stratos Tzitzis - does Greece count as Eastern Europe? Another dreamy pixie is hit by the economic fallout of the Greek financial crisis. Fittingly, this is a low budget chamber piece, much of which is filmed in the flat of the title.

Liebe mich (Love me) - Germany 2017, Nergis Usta, starring Lotta Doll. This is another pixie story set in the former Eastern bloc, this time in East Berlin, specifically in the Bötzowviertel in the Pankow district, with the Stierbrunnen on Arnswalder Platz popping up repeatedly. Loving the city vibes and the sense of place although I found parts of the dialogue a bit cringeworthy.

Kone Taevast Call of God/Зов Бога - Estonia 2022, Kim Ki-duk, starring Zhanel Sergazina. Posthumous work from the Korean director filmed in Kyrgyzstan. Dialogue in very easy Russian with English subs available. Interestingly weird depiction of a dream interrupted by phone calls from God, mostly in black and white. The dreamy love story turns dark very quickly, but it's only a dream, right?

Some that I haven't watched yet:

Козият рог (The Goat horn), Bulgaria 1994.

Plemya - Ukraine 2014 - a film entirely in Ukrainian sign language ...

Do svidaniya mama - Russia 2014, Svetlana Proskurina

Bonded parallels - Armenia 2009, Hovhannes Galstyan

Intimnuye mesta (Intimate parts) - Russia 2013, Natasha Merkulova / Alexey Chupov

the algorithms also came up with one movie I've actually seen when it was new:

Rouge baiser (1995) (where the rouge is an allusion to communist activities).

colours of time

Some thoughts on

La venue de l'avenir
Cédric Klapisch
France 2025
starring Suzanne Lindon, Cécile de France ...
released in Germany 14.8.2025

I was lucky to catch a subtitled preview of this latest oeuvre by Klapisch in a Düsseldorf cinema this week. The advance info wasn't very clear so I was expecting something family-heavy like Ce qui nous lie (Back to Burgundy). It turned out to be a much broader and more ambitious film that serves an astonishing number of my obsessions including family history,old photos, the handover of visual guide culture from sculpture and painting to photography and film (see the biographies of Renoir father and son), Paris in the Belle Epoque, as well as the music of Pomme (who plays a very cute supporting role that has nothing whatsoever to do with the story).

So the central and ancestral character is Adele (Suzanne Lindon), born in 1873 (which places her in the generation of my great-grandparents, six of whom were born before and two after that year). Her house in rural Normandy hasn't been opened since 1944, but now the local council wants to put up a shopping centre and a massive parking lot in its place, so Adele's 30 or so living descendants are convened to come to an agreement regarding the property. The four family delegates sent to the location discover lots of old photos inside as well as letters and an impressionist painting, so are able to piece together the life story of Adele, which is very cleverly (and very Klapisch-ly) interspersed with the present day lives of the descendants. (There are probably similarities with Woody Allen's Midnight in Paris, which I need to rewatch some time, to compare and contrast.)

Although I prefer the untranslatable word play of the original title (literally: the arrival of the future, which reflects all that excitement about modernity in the period), the German and English titles (Colours of time / Farben der Zeit) have a justification in referring to the colours, as those are obviously of prime importance in impressionist art, and the flashbacks are remarkably colourful even when they are pegged to monochrome photos.

There is a lot of art in the film, with the Musée d'orsay at Paris, the Musée d'art moderne André Malraux at Le Havre and Monet's garden all playing significant parts.

Official poster design. The red dress serves as a reminder that Paris in 1894 was just as colourful as today's world.

Monet's painting Impression, Soleil levant plays a role in the film.

NB the film was shown at Cannes this year but the Grauniad hasn't reviewed it?! Shocking.

PS: I have been following Klapisch's films on and off ever since Chacun cherche son chat (When the cat's away) was shown at the Phoenix Picturehouse in Oxford, back in 1996 - those were the days when weird little French films still got a UK release! Strangely, I haven't reviewed any of those that I saw since then, so I should at least list them if only to jog my memory:

• 1996 Chacun cherche son chat
• 1996 Un air de famille (I hated that one, and I have avoided the Jaoui/Bacri comedies ever since)
• 2002 L'auberge espagnole (I rewatch this at least once every 10 years when a sequel comes out)
• 2005 Poupees russes (sequel to Auberge espagnole)
• 2008 Paris
• 2011 Ma part du gateau
• 2013 Casse-tetes chinois (Auberge part 3)
• 2017 Ce qui nous lie
• 2025 La venue de l'avenir

Update 21.4.2026 It did actually get a UK release and showed up in the Phoenix Picturehouse Oxford this week, so I went and watched it again. Still love it to bits. Now it also has a review in the Guardian - Peter Bradshaw seems to like it only grudgingly.

on the origins of Femen

Some thoughts on

Oxana
France/Ukraine/Hungary 2025
Charlène Favier

The Ukrainian protest group Femen denounced the tyranny of Putin and Lukashenko long before it was fashionable, but has been widely ignored and belittled in the UK media. Even now, while everybody loves to hate Putin and love the Ukraine, we don't hear much about them. I have occasionally looked up their activities, if only because as a veteran of WNBRs, I have a cultural interest in naked protest activities, but without that, I wouldn't have heard anything about them in the last ten years.

So I was grateful to stumble over this biopic of Femen founder Oksana Shachko (1987-2018) and found it very enlightening in that it taught me a lot about the history of the organisation that I hadn't known.

In a nutshell, Shachko and two friends founded Femen in their home town of Khmelnytsky (western Ukraine) in 2008 to protest against the marketing of Ukraine as a destination for sex tourism. According to the film, a radio competition in New Zealand was about to send a man to Ukraine for a week's worth of free adventures with a local escort of his choice, and Femen's underwear protest succeeded in getting the trip cancelled. A year later, the activists moved to Kyiv and started using bare breasts as their main means of protest - and the space to write their slogans on.

They attempted protests in Belarus and in Russia as well, which led to violent persecution from the KGB. The three founding members fled to Paris to seek asylum there, and found that one of their members, Inna Shevchenko (who had joined the group in Kyiv in 2009), had set up a Femen training camp there and styled herself as the leader of the global Femen movement without consulting the founders (the film seems to suggest). Shachko returned to her career as an artist, combining the aesthetics of orthodox iconography with "blasphemic" content. The film sets glimpses of the last day of her life against flashbacks to her life in Femen.

All in all a very moving and tragic life story, and very timely too, as the issues haven't gone away. Released in Germany on July 24, 2025 (trailer). I don't have much hope for a UK release (therefore added it to the films not shown list), but would watch it again if it happened, if only because I had to put up with the dubbed dialogue in the German version.

Film poster for the release in Germany, X-Verleih.

PS: there's also a documentary with the real Oxana, called "Je suis Femen" (2014). Stop press, just found it on YouTube. This film gives the impression that as of 2014, the three founders were still ok with Inna Shevchenko's role as supreme leader. Separately, she talks about her art (in faltering French) here - and mentions that she left the Femen movement in 2015. This was filmed less than two weeks before she died.

Update 13.8.2025: My first attempt at catching the original version failed - it turned out that the cinema (in Germany) only had French or Ukrainian subtitles for it, and after it started running with the French ones, one of the five spectators complained. I'm sure the rest of us would have been fine, but the cinema insisted on switching to the dubbed version, so I left.

harmony and symphony

Some thoughts on

En Fanfare
Emmanuel Courcol
France 2024
UK release 16.5.2025: The Marching Band
in German cinemas shown as: "Die leisen und die großen Töne"

The Union Musicale de Walincourt is the band of a former mining town in the north of France (doesn't appear to be related to the real Walincourt in the Dept. Nord, which didn't have mining), where the last major factory is closing down and being dismantled. Accordingly the band or "harmonie" isn't all in harmony either and is threatened with extinction after the conductor is forced to work abroad. The story revolves around a major culture clash as an internationally famous conductor of major orchestras finds out he's the biological brother of one of the band members.

So it is a bit of Brassed off among the Ch'tis, with a lot of classical music making thrown in as well, and a medical/family drama stitching the bits together. I wouldn't normally consider a film about two blokes finding out they're brothers or exchanging tissue samples, so I'm really only looking at the musical bits here and they were amazing. Very convincing portraitures of the different musical worlds, how they seem to be lightyears apart, but then, with a bit of effort, one can bring them together.

Although IMDB lists "The Marching Band" as an English title, there's only a few seconds of marching involved, thankfully. (For more marching and outdoors musical mischief watch Tambour battant, CH 2019.) Watch out for Anne-Sophie Lapix playing herself in the evening news of France 2, and for a flashmob performance inside an official musical event ...

Compared to my own experience in UK ensembles, the harmonie members in the film are amazingly rude to each other - guess that's in part just the Ch'ti culture as opposed to Oxford privilege and politeness, so I'm hoping that won't put anybody off from joining their local band or amateur orchestra. Do sign up now while these things just about exist ...

source

quantum mechanics in the snow

some thoughts on

The Universal Theory
(Die Theorie von Allem)
Timm Kröger
Germany 2023

This film had a grand total of three screenings at Oxford's Ultimate Picture Palace, and I was lucky to catch the last one. IMDB doesn't even list a UK release for it, although the Observer had a review.

So a quantum mechanics meeting in the Swiss Alps gets derailed when the multiple universes theory gets a bit too real and weird things start to happen. I loved the black and white cinematography - films set in the 1960s should be in black and white really! - and the portrayal of the 1960s physicists, and also the underlying romance thread. Not everything made sense, but that's very fitting for a film about quantum mechanics, and I tend to like things I don't understand completely. Also, to be taken as evidence on how weird a European movie must be to have a chance of even a fleeting appearance in UK cinemas.

I am sure that people more knowledgeable in sci fi and classic American cinema will find lots of references to all sorts of things (as some reviewers have pointed out), but I'm more of a naive viewer in that respect and can enjoy the film on its own merits.

A good one to see on the big screen with the glorious Alpine views if you can, but I might also be tempted to rewatch it in a smaller format at a later point. Also, I'm a bit tempted to watch Drei Männer im Schnee to compare and contrast - also black and white Alpine scenery, I expect, but no quantum mechanics, as far as I remember from reading the book multiple times when I was growing up.

Not adding this to my films not shown list as it was obviously shown, if ever so fleetingly, but will add the tag regardless.

blue riders on film

Some thoughts on

Münter & Kandinsky
Marcus O. Rosenmüller
Germany 2024

I didn't quite get my act together to catch the Münter & Kandinsky exhibition at the Tate Modern this summer, but I made up for it by watching the movie at Dusseldorf, and I also visited the Macke Haus at Bonn and revisited some of the Blue Rider works at the K20 at Dusseldorf this month. Earlier this year, I saw the Kandinsky and af Klint exhibition and read the book about the women of the Blue Rider, so all in all I feel I have my blue riders lined up reasonably well this year.

So, the film - a bit like the one about Hilde Coppi I saw a day earlier - is pegged to the female protagonist being troubled by Nazi officials, and then reflecting on the twists and turns of her life that brought her to this point. Unlike Coppi, Münter manages to outwit the Nazis in that her stash of Kandinsky paintings remains undiscovered when they raid her house. Looking back from that point, it's a pretty straight telling of the story of Münter's life from the time she signed up for Kandinsky's art course in Munich to the time he ghosted her as we would say now.

I've seen critics moaning that there is too much soap opera in this film and not enough art, but I was reasonably happy with the coverage of the art. The artsy angles of the locations, from the light-flooded landscapes to the hand-painted staircases, come out well, and I felt I did get to relate to Münter's creative process sufficiently. I was also excited to see that she appears to have taken lots of photos as well - will look out for those. Maybe the title is a bit of a misnomer, as Kandinsky spends much of the time withdrawing himself from her attentions, and accordingly we see less of him and also get less than perfect insight into his creative work (ironically, IMDB lists a Russian title for the movie which translates as "Kandinsky and his muse" managing to be both offensive and a misrepresentation of the film). Also, the other artists of the group, Marc, Macke, Klee, Jawlensky, Werefkin only drift by rather fleetingly. So to fix that, one could have reduced the time frame to the time when all of them were alive (until 1914) and the title characters were together. Or have separate biopics for the others. I would be really keen on one covering Macke and Klee's trip to Tunis - but that's obviously another story for another movie. But as a Münter biopic, and in terms of flying the flag for female artists wronged by the arts world, this film does the job.

IMDB

PS 25.11. Upon my return I read the review in epd-film - they object that the film does too much telling as opposed to showing, and that it is a lot more conventional than the work of the artists concerned. Which is of course true, but in a biopic, we just want the story of the relevant life or lives to be told. A piece of film art as revolutionary as the Blue Rider paintings were would be interesting but would not serve this purpose. I would also watch it though.

troubling history

Some thoughts on

In Liebe, Eure Hilde (From Hilde, with love)
Andreas Dresen; starring Liv Lisa Fries
Germany, 2024

As I'm a massive fan of Babylon Berlin and Charlotte Ritter as played by Liv Lisa Fries, I would have watched anything with Fries in a vaguely pre-1945 role, and was lucky to catch this new film in Germany a few weeks after its release.

In a sense the role of Hilde Coppi is not that far away from Charlotte Ritter, only a couple of years younger and also a secretary, so one could almost read this as a Babylon Berlin sequel in which a romantic summer is interspersed with a rather brutal awakening. Except that Babylon Berlin was fiction and this story is real. And very much underappreciated so far.

I think I had heard the term Rote Kapelle for this network of anti-Nazi resistance activists before, but that's about as far as my knowledge went. (Wikipedia translates it as "red orchestra," but note that a Kapelle is rather a small orchestra as you would employ for a dance event or as a marching band, emphatically not a symphony orchestra.) None of the names rang any bells. The simple explanation: The resistance people who were celebrated (to a degree and not by all) in (western) Germany were christian-conservative nationalists who wanted to save their fatherland from that evil spirit that was bound to drive it over a cliff. Many of the members of the Rote Kapelle, on the other hand, were communists. (Note, however, that the Nazis liked to brand resistance activists with this label to tarnish them as communists - in reality some may have become involved with other motivations, eg humanitarian.) Thus, even though I think many more of them perished than from the July 20 coup attempt or the White Rose student movement, their memory was all but wiped out in the west - but celebrated in the GDR.

The other thing that left me stirred and shaken is that the film's protagonist Hilde Coppi, born in May 1909, is exactly the same age as my paternal grandparents whom I knew well in their later lives. Like them, she saw her world fall apart in her mid twenties, when fascism took over - something I often think about as it's now happening again. Ruth and Richard managed to keep a low profile and survived with luck, whereas Hilde happened to get involved with those communists and shared their fate. With some change of makeup, the same actors could have played my grandparents (in a less eventful movie) - and conversely, with a different set of personal contacts, my grandparents could have ended up in the red orchestra. Very troubling stuff.

Focussing on Hilde Coppi is also a clever trick as it enables the storytelling to avoid the gruesome torture that must have been inflicted on other members of the Rote Kapelle. Due to her rather marginal role and the fact that she was pregnant when she was arrested, she didn't get the worst treatment, and we are left to imagine what may have happened to her husband and his friends.

And then, if you're not sufficiently stirred by the end, there is a special guest for you - Hilde's son, whose birth in prison we witnessed in some detail, speaks an afterword. Now 81, historian Hans Coppi Jr. doesn't specifically talk about the present resurgence of fascism, but we are left to imagine what he thinks of it.

UPDATE: to be released in UK cinemas from June 27, 2025. Phoenix Picturehouse has scheduled a preview on the 24th. Guardian Review.

all about the gaze

Some thoughts on

Dans la ville de Sylvia (In the city of Sylvia)
José Luis Guerín, starring Pilar López de Ayala
France, 2007

When I researched the adventures of my great-grandparents in Belle Epoque Strasbourg (1901-1908) I started following the #Strasbourg tag on tumblr and mastodon, and via tumblr I discovered this movie which is set in central Strasbourg (not many movies are, actually, I'd struggle to name another one?!). Took me a while to get hold of it, but this week I got lucky and found a DVD in the library of the Maison Francaise.

So, in Strasbourg, we follow the footsteps of a slightly clumsy young artist who returns to the city in search of a young woman he met there six years earlier. He spends three days looking intensely at a number of women in the streets and in a cafe, stalks one of them (Pilar López de Ayala, who played an obsessive lover herself in Juana la Loca), but eventually has to admit defeat. The conversations of the people he observes in the cafes are strangely muted, so we are left with what is essentially an Eric Rohmer film without the dialogue. Just the glances.

And the glances are getting a bit uncomfortable in a male gaze kind of way. The searchlight of the artist's eyes rests on the young women a little longer than would be socially acceptable, and we as audience become complicit in this intrusive male gaze. I don't think that the sketches he draws are a viable excuse these days. I was left wondering what kind of discussions the male director and female cinematographer (Natasha Braier) had about this at the time, and whether they would see it the same way today. The stalking bit in the middle is explicitly discussed in words, but the gaze isn't. However, it is alluded to in the presence of advertising displays which also appear to take part in the network of gaze connections. A recurring graffity tag reading "je t'aime" also appears to comment on the obsession.

It is a shame, in a way, that the young artist doesn't pay more attention to the lovely city that surrounds him, which also happens to be a model of sustainable transport. We do get to see a lot of the modern tram system (handy device for the cinematographer to reflect or hide people), and there are bikes everywhere. In a very refreshing contrast to most movies, I don't recall seeing any cars in this one. The tumblr where I first saw this movie mentioned is a blog that matches up stills from films with an online map of the locations. Would be fun to revisit Strasbourg and follow the trail of 7 locations listed, without staring too much at all the elusive Sylvias out there.

Still from the stalking sequence, where an ad display looks on. (source)

PS after consulting IMDB on other films shot in Strasbourg, these might be of interest:

Tous les soleils (2011)

Baden Baden (2016)

quite a few films listed in IMDB with Strasbourg as filming location are actually meant to show Paris, including Amelie. Not sure about Truffaut's last one Vivement Dimanche, will have to investigate.

films not shown - part 3

My first list of films we're not allowed to see in UK cinemas included films released until 2012, the second one from 2012 to 2020, and I was tempted to let matters rest, but in the post-pandemic harvest of films there were a couple of no-shows that shocked me into launching a third instalment, and a trawl through my tumblr "french cinema" tag brought up enough material to launch a new, post-plague list.

As in the second instalment, there will be just one list of films running chronologically forward, so starting with the earliest ones. I’ll start with films produced in 2021. Within each year, the films that I actually managed to see are listed first. Oh, and female directors are now also highlighted in bold font.

So, here we go again:

Les meilleures (Besties) - France 2021, Marion Desseigne-Ravel, starring Lina El Arabi and lots of unknown young talents. A bit like Westside Story in the Paris banlieue, oh and the rival gangs are all girls. Much as I object to the gang stupidity turbocharged by smartphones, the forbidden love story is really engaging.

Ma nuit (My night) - France 2021, Antoinette Boulat, starring Lou Lampros. A random night-time walk through the city, what's not to like. Don't go looking for a plot though. Caught this one on TV5 Monde

Une histoire d'amour et de désir - France 2021, Leyla Bouzid, starring Sami Outalbali, Zbeida Belhajamor - lovely little boy meets girl story driven by the very energetic girl, although the boy's hangups and tribulations are arguably the main topic. I was lucky to catch it on TV5 Monde. It was also shown at the BFI London Film Festival, apparently.

Fragile - France 2021, Emma Benestan, starring Yasin Houicha and Oulaya Amamra. Again, like in the previous one, a pretty but hopeless boy has to be rescued by an energetic girl, this time on the Mediterranean coast (Sete) rather than in Paris. A cute fairytale with a lot of dancing.

Ils sont vivants - France 2021, Jérémie Elkaïm, starring Marina Foïs. Funny while the UK political system is self-destructing over the arrivals of refugees in small boats, which is basically a problem caused by Brexit, film makers on the other side are still aware that this is about human beings, and they're not afraid of telling stories of people risking their livelihoods to help refugees (see also: Damien veut changer le monde, 2019, hence in this entry). This one is based on a real story apparently, following the learning curve of a widow who accidentally gets in contact with the refugees "jungle" of Calais and entangled with an Iranian man. Shown on TV5 Monde September 2025.

Vous ne désirez que moi (I want to talk about Duras) - France 2021, Claire Simon, starring Emmanuelle Devos. Film about the writer Marguerite Duras.
Une jeune fille qui va bien (A radiant girl) - France 2021, Sandrine Kiberlain, starring Rebecca Marder.

La grande magie (The great magic) - France 2022, Noémie Lvovsky. Nice as an absurd fairy tale from the Belle Epoque. I wouldn't normally approve of the musical bits, but as it's all absurd anyway, people breaking into song at random times just goes with the spirit. For a film coming from a female writer/director, it's a shame that the female cast (other than herself as the magician's wife) are rather marginalised, specifically Judith Chemla and Rebecca Marder whose characters disappear in different ways. Ultimately, this boils down to a film about two blokes, of which there are too many already.

Stella est amoureuse - France 2022, Sylvie Verheyde, starring Flavie Delangle. After Stella, a second film based on Verheyde's own youth, now covering the year when Stella turns 18 in the mid-80s (almost contemporary to my growing up as Verheyde was born in 1967). Delangle is suitably gloomy and enigmatic filling almost every screen and smoking way too much. Not very convincing as a hetero lover though, I kept thinking she should try one of her gang of "copines". And that was before I found out what she did before ...

Wunderschön - Germany 2022, Karoline Herfurth starring Emilia Schüle, Nora Tschirner. Exploring the lives and tribulations of several interconnected women, this could be read as a feminist manifesto. I caught this after the premiere of its sequel (Wunderschöner, listed under 2025, below),

I love Greece - France 2022, Nafsika Guerry-Karamaounas, starring Stacy Martin. I caught this on TV5 monde by accident and quite enjoyed it. Beautiful humans caught in their own bubbles while pretending to be sociable, all in very photogenic Greek settings with hints of financial crises. Starring nobody I ever heard of before.

Annie Colère (Angry Annie) - France 2022, Blandine Lenoir, starring Laure Calamy, Zita Hanrot, India Hair. A very warm and supportive portrait of women in the MLAC (Mouvement pour la liberté de l'avortement et de la contraception) movement in the early 1970s, which provided safe abortions and contraception at a time when abortion was still illegal but the drive towards legalisation was so powerful that there was little risk of prosecution. The story ends with the law championed by Simone Veil, which passed on 17.1.1975. Shown on TV5 Monde in August 2025 - looks like they missed the 50th anniversary of the Loi Veil.

Metronom - Romania 2022, Alexandru Belc, starring Mara Bugarin. Teenagers in Bucharest, 1972, as the state cracks down on their attempts to connect with Western culture (note the very good use of The Doors in the soundtrack). Available on YouTube in the UK. I discovered this in a youtube rabbit hole that opened up after I watched "Je suis Femen" (because of the Oxana film listed below, under 2025).

Habib, la grande aventure - Belgium/France/Switzerland 2022. Young Habib wants to be an actor. Or maybe he just wants to be Franciscus of Assisi. Or maybe both. Watch out for Catherine Deneuve playing herself.

Amore mio - France 2022, Guillaume Gouix, starring Alysson Paradis and Elodie Bouchez. Lovely sisterhood vibes but maybe not a commendable instruction on how to deal with trauma? Alysson, younger sister of Vanessa Paradis, is a revelation. Shown on TV5 monde in October 2025.

Kone Taevast (Call of God/Зов Бога) - Estonia 2022, Kim Ki-duk, starring Zhanel Sergazina. Posthumous work from the Korean director filmed in Kyrgyzstan. Dialogue in very easy Russian with English subs available on YouTube. Interestingly weird depiction of a dream interrupted by phone calls from God, mostly in black and white. The dreamy love story turns dark very quickly, but it's only a dream, right?

Une histoire d'amour (A love story) - France 2022, Alexis Michalik, starring Juliette Delacroix and Marica Soyer - the title and the first half hour seem to be promising an all-female update on the classic film Love Story, but it turns out the main story is really between the dying woman's brother and her daughter - a past and a future writer. Works for me too, but the fact that the uncle is played by the director leaves me with the impression that he used the two women (played by actresses I hadn't seen before) as a bait for the story he was really interested in - about a writer's redemption catalysed by a literary-minded girl. Shown on TV5 monde in December 2025.

Divertimento - France 2022, Marie-Castille Mention-Schaar, starring Lina El Arabi, Oulaya Amamra. Based on the real lives of conductor Zahia Ziouani, her cellist sister Fettouma, and their community orchestra Divertimento, this is an amazingly single-minded biopic putting their musical ambitions above everything. Read my review here.

Les survivants - France 2022, Guillaume Renusson, starring Zar Amir Ebrahimi. Billed as a "Western" set in the snowy Alps, this is another French film about the good people helping refugees. Funny we don't get to see any such films here in the UK.

Le monde d'hier - France 2022, Diastème, starring Lea Drucker. Political thriller sailing scarily close to recent events and the general rise of fascism. I had this on while fixing fiddles so may have missed some clues.

Un beau matin (one fine morning) - France 2022, Mia Hansen-Love starring Lea Seydoux.

Coup de chance - France 2023, Woody Allen, starring Lou de Laage - managed to catch this in Dusseldorf in a (rare for Germany) subtitled screening. May yet write up some thoughts about it.

La fille de son père (No love lost) - France 2023, Erwan Le Duc, shown at the Maison Francaise d'Oxford. Much like in the director's first feature film, Perdrix (2019), I am loving the sense for the absurdity of life here.

La fille d'Albino Rodrigue - France 2023, Christine Dory, starring Emilie Dequenne and Galatéa Bellugi as her daughter. Shown on TV5monde after the untimely death of Dequenne, this is a crime drama based on real events. Scary stuff but Galatéa Bellugi is impressive and very convincing - reminiscent of Dequenne's debut in Rosetta. Have also added her more recent film Gloria to the list (2024).

Avant l'effondrement (Before the collapse) - France 2023, Benoît Volnais and Alice Zeniter. Shown on TV5 monde January 2026. Young people trying to save the world but being thrown off course by a stray pregnancy test.

Le théorème de Marguerite - France 2023, Anna Novion, starring Ella Rumpf.
Le ravissement (The rapture) - France 2023, Iris Kaltenbäck starring Hafsia Herzi.
Je verrai toujours vos visages (All your faces) - France 2023, Jeanne Herry, starring Leila Bekhti.
A la joie (Cheers to joy) - France 2023, Jérôme Bonnell. A lockdown chamber piece on love in the times of Covid, apparently. Now available on DVD eg in Germany.
Bonnard, Pierre et Marthe - France 2023, Martin Provost, starring Cécile de France. I'm not a huge fan of Bonnard's art (after seeing an underwhelming exhibition of it at the Tate Modern) but I do want to see Cécile de France as his companion.
Stella - ein Leben - Germany 2023, Kilian Riedhof starring Paula Beer - inspired by the story of of Stella Goldschlag, a Jewish woman in Nazi Germany who worked for the Gestapo denouncing many hundreds of Jews living undercover.
Luise - France 2023, starring Christa Theret. Available on YouTube.

En fanfare (The marching band) - France 2024, Emmanuel Courcol. A very interesting culture clash happening in the de-industrialised northern tip of France involving a local wind band and a high-flying conductor of symphony orchestras. Read my review here. Shown in German cinemas as: "Die leisen und die großen Töne".

Vingt dieux (Holy cow) - France 2024, Louise Courvoisier. Charming and raw coming-of-age story set in the dairy-farming villages of the French Jura. I wouldn't survive a week there, but I guess for 90 minutes on the silver screen it's safe. Shown in German cinemas as Könige des Sommers.Actually getting released in UK cinemas on April 11, 2025, according to this Guardian article singing its praise. My guess is that a strong focus on specifically French food improves the chances of French movies of getting released here.

Münter & Kandinsky - Germany 2024, Marcus O. Rosenmüller, starring Vanessa Loibl. A biopic of the star artists of the Blauer Reiter. Managed to catch this in the cinema in Germany, read my review here.

In Liebe, Eure Hilde (From Hilde, with love) - Germany 2024, Andreas Dresen, starring Liv Lisa Fries. Managed to catch this in the cinema in Germany, and it left me rather stirred and shaken. Read my review here. Might still get a UK release, seeing that films with Nazis are inexplicably popular in the UK.

Drømmer (Dreams) - Norway 2024, Dag Johan Haugerud, starring Ella Øverbye. I caught the middle one of the Love / Dreams / Sex trilogy on its release in Germany, where it won the main prize at the Berlinale and seems to be making a bit of a splash.

Les barbares - France 2024, Julie Delpy, starring Sandrine Kiberlain, Julie Delpy, and a very lovely family of Syrian refugees washed up in a small village in Britanny. Very heartwarming stuff that needs to be spread widely in this day and age. The story is set after the start of the war in Ukraine, as the village had signed up to host Ukrainian refugees and got the Syrians instead, but before the fall of Assad.

Hiver a Sokcho - France, South Korea 2024, Koya Kamura

La mer au loin France 2024, Saïd Hamich. Life and loves of a young Moroccan immigrant in Marseille. Nothing new but I enjoyed the intercultural vibes here.

Die Herrlichkeit des Lebens - Germany 2024, Judith Kaufmann, starring Henriette Konfurius. Released in Germany ahead of the centenary of Kafka's death, this film covers the last year of his life and his relationship with Dora Diamant.
Langue Étrangère - France 2024, Claire Burger - supposedly released in Germany on October 24, but haven't been able to find it ... German title: Tandem - In welcher Sprache träumst du? It had a 5/5 review in epd-film, so not sure why it disappeared without a trace within two weeks.
Pauline grandeur nature - Switzerland 2024, Nadège de Benoit-Luthy, starring Déborah François. I've decided I want to see more of Déborah François, so adding her work systematically.
Everybody loves Touda - Morocco 2024, Nabil Ayouch, starring Nisrin Erradi. Released in German cinemas 31.5.2025.
L'amour ouf - France 2024, Gilles Lellouch, starring Adèle Exarchopoulos
Gloria - Italy 2024, Margherita Vicario starring Galatéa Bellugi
Monsieur Aznavour - France 2024, Mehdi Idir, starring Tahar Rahim. Biopic of Charles Aznavour focusing on his early years and migration background.
L'attachement - France 2024, Carine Tardieu, starring Valeria Bruni Tedeschi.
A son image - France 2024, Thierry de Peretti starring Clara-Maria Laredo

Wunderschöner - Germany 2025, Karoline Herfurth starring Emilia Schüle, Nora Tschirner. Exploring the lives and tribulations of several interconnected women, this could be read as a feminist manifesto. I caught this on its premiere day but missed part 1 (now listed under 2022) Luckily, the cinema where I saw the sequel also showed the first part a couple of days later. Obviously, the grammatical structure of the titles (lovely, lovelier ...) suggests there is a loveliest part 3 in the pipeline as well.

Oxana - France/Ukraine/Hungary 2025, Charlène Favier. A moving biopic of Femen cofounder Oksana Shatchko (1987-2018), released in Germany 24.7.2025. See my review here.

La venue de l'avenir (Colours of Time) - France 2025, Cedric Klapisch, starring Suzanne Lindon, Cecile de France. Klapisch mixes time travel with family and art history to a very colourful impression, see my review here. Update: this one did actually get a UK release on 17.4.2026, and I did watch it again to celebrate.

Franz K. - Czech Republic 2025, Agnieszka Holland. A wild postmodern ride reflecting the cultural phenomenon Kafka as much as the person. See my review.

Rote Sterne überm Feld - Germany 2025, Laura Laabs, starring Hannah Ehrlichmann. After a spectacular action on the Reichstag building in Berlin, an anarchist / anticapitalist militant tries (and fails) to keep a low profile in the Mecklenburg countryside of her childhood. A rather turbulent story dredging up several chapters of German history as well as a dead body from the local peat bog.

C'était mieux demain - France 2025, Vinciane Millereau, starring Elsa Zylberstein

A world gone mad: The war diaries of Astrid Lindgren - Germany, Sweden 2025, Wilfried Hauke. Lovely documentary featuring the writer's descendants as well as the places where she lived, with an actor reading from her war diaries.

Romería - Spain 2025, Carla Simón starring Llúcia Garcia. Lovely film of self and family discovery in Catalan, Spanish, French and Galician. Set in Galicia in the 00s looking back to the 80s. Actually shown in Oxford cinemas in May 2026 - I didn't expect that to happen.

8 - Spain 2025, Julio Medem
Différente - France 2025, Lola Doillon, starring Jehnny Beth. Trailer here.
Mädchen Mädchen - Germany 2025, Martina Plura -a gen Z remake of the eponymous 2001 feminist teen comedy, which I quite liked at the time. Der Spiegel compared old and new at length and had warm words for both. And they even remade the famous bike szene, which most humans must have seen by now.
La chambre de Mariana - France 2025, Emmanuel Finkiel, starring Mélanie Thierry
Des preuves d'amour - (Love letters) France 2025, Alice Douard, starring Ella Rumpf, Monia Chokri, Noémie Lvovsky. In cinemas in Germany in December 2025
Le rendez-vous de l'été (That summer in Paris) - France 2025, Valentine Cadic, starring Blandine Madec. The summer in question is that of the Olympics 2024. Released in Germany 4.6.2025.
Les Musiciens - France 2025, Grégory Magne. Somebody inherits a quartet of stradivarius instruments but struggles to get four players to play them harmoniously. Trailer.
Rondallas - Spain 2025, Danile Sanchez Arevalo. A village band in Galicia trying to make a comeback after a disaster. Released in cinemas in Germany on 16.7.2026. I'm hoping for some Galician music and dialogue here, but am worried as the review in epd film mentions a piece by Coldplay.

Rose - Germany 2026, Markus Schleinzer, starring Sandra Hüller. Impressive black and white drama set in the aftermath of the Thirty Years War, as a woman who fought the war in men's clothes claims inheritance of a deserted farm.

Pour le plaisir - France 2026, Reem Kherici. Comedy inspired by the real-life story of the invention of the vibrator "Womanizer". For a film that's all about orgasms, it isn't particularly sexy and doesn't dare to approach the subject as closely as, for instance, the Beautiful Agony videos. There are bathroom doors closing, duvets drawn, orgasmic responses ridiculed in cartoonish versions - every method in the book is used to not show an orgasm. Essentially, just another French family comedy where the storyline happens to be the invention of a sex toy. Also, shockingly heteronormative. I watched the only undubbed showing that was still available a few weeks after its release in Germany and was all on my own. Maybe word has spread.

LOL 2.0 - France 2026, Lisa Azuelos, starring Sophie Marceau. After 17 years, a sequel to the lovely LOL (featured in my original films not shown entry under 2008), but now without Christa Theret who played the daughter back then. Apparently it's about a different, younger daughter now who moves back in with mum. Released in Germany 18.6.2026. Just to add to my frustration, I've just watched the trailer.
Etwas ganz Besonderes - Germany 2026, Eva Trobisch.
Ingeborg Bachmann - Jemand, der einmal ich war - Germany 2026. The ubiquitous Sandra Hüller acts out a day in the life of the German poet.

---

to be continued ... - last updated 11.8.2026

One of our lovely independent cinemas here, not their fault that they're not getting all these films. (Own photo) I used this photo in the second instalment already, so will replace it here as soon as I have a better idea.

the tongue of the Sun

la lengua del sol

a film by José Luis Gutiérrez Arias, starring Flavia Atencio, Raul Mendez
Mexico 2017
(DVD with bad English subtitles available from HMV)

I am a sucker for the kind of chamber play that juxtaposes two humans in a room, like Room in Rome and En la cama, so here’s a third movie to compare these two with (or a fourth, if I include Now and Later). Like the earlier Chilean film En la cama, we have a hetero couple, but many other things reminded me of Julio Medem’s Room in Rome (if only because I’ve watched that one more often than the Chilean film).

The story is an entirely different one, as our Mexican characters face the end of the world (apparently expected to come from a ginormous solar protuberance, hence the title of the movie), but the elements shared with Medem’s film include the interlude of a third person knocking on the door, dramatic scenes in the bathroom, attempts at singing (more successful in Rome), and a similar tragedy in the backstory of one of the characters, as well as various gaps in what biographical information they are prepared to share.

On the end of the world side of things I appreciated the light-heartedness with which the protagonists (most of the time) make the most of the time that remains. Not having a future can liberate you of worries – even though the element of fear is also expressed. As our civilisation seems to be hell bent on self destruction, I am sometimes feeling that lightness too – doesn’t matter too much what we eff up now, as everything is effed up wholesale and for the next few centuries anyhow. The slightly esoteric plan they're hatching in the last part of the film reminded me of the famous aphorism the German science writer Hoimar von Ditfurth (1921-1989) used for a book title, which goes along the lines of "if I knew the world were to end tomorrow, I would still plant a little apple tree today."

All in all it's a very lovely and charming little film, which I'll happily watch again once I've had a chance to revisit En la cama and Now and Later. The question remains how this obscure Mexican no-budget film from 2017 ended up on the UK high streets in 2020 even though, of course, it hadn’t been released in UK cinemas. My theory is that some marketing genius realised that in a way it is about people in lockdown, so very timely for 2020. Which would also explain why after we left the lockdowns behind, the DVD is now sold for next to nothing.

HMV

the library of rejected manuscripts

I came across a lovely little film available on DVD in Germany (and sold at discount price by now), which revolves entirely around the book publishing business, so as an author I feel obliged to spread the word and say a few things about it.

Le mystère Henri Pick - France 2019, Rémi Bezançon, starring Fabrice Luchini, Camille Cottin, Alice Isaaz.

The central concept is a library of rejected manuscripts that have never been published, which a librarian in a remote village in Brittany set up in a spare room. (I just love the idea, which is referenced in the Spanish title, so I chose that poster for illustration, below.) There, a young editor of a major publisher discovers the manuscript of a novel under the name of the Henri Pick of the title, a deceased local pizza baker who had never been known to read or write anything in his lifetime. The book becomes a sensational success, but a cynical old literary critic (Fabrice Luchini) smells a rat and embarks on a quest to find out who really wrote the book and how it ended up in the library of rejected manuscripts.

I have seen Luchini in more movies than I care to remember, but strangely I don't get fed up with him, and I am enjoying his mature works combining literature with bicycle use (see also: Alceste a bicyclette (Bicycling with Moliere) - France 2013). The film is every bibliophile's dream in that the main locations are the library mentioned, the offices of a major publisher (Gallimard, who happen to be the publishers of the original novel by David Foenkinos, Le Mystère Henri Pick), and various living rooms of bookish people with very decent bookshelves. For the occasional breath of fresh air, the characters get to cycle around that village in Britanny. All very lovely and I'll happily watch the film again fairly soon.

One does end up wishing the story was real. The one thing I definitely don't believe to be true in real life is the assertion that a major publisher has an archive of all manuscripts they ever received. In my experience, they can barely be bothered to return them to the author. I've seen submission guidelines saying that they will destroy the manuscript if rejected, unless you add a franked return envelope.

Not released in the UK, so I'll add it to my list of films not shown in UK cinemas.

the great deception

Madame Mills, une voisine si parfaite
(France 2018, dir: Sophie Marceau)

This movie is currently showing on TV5Monde, possibly as part of a series on Sophie Marceau (they showed Arrêtez moi last week, which was interesting as well). I wouldn’t normally watch a comedy with Pierre Richard, but since seeing La Boum when we were both a few decades younger, I have watched quite a few films with Sophie Marceau and I was keen to expand my collection, especially as she’s directed this one as well.

So, for people who know about this kind of comedy, it would probably be easy to dismiss this as a Pierre-Richard-does-Tootsie kind of dinosaur. My angle, however, is: Aren’t we all inventing our own reality? So here’s what I think the film is about.

The naming of Mrs. Mills character is of course a reference to Mills & Boon. Sophie Marceau plays Hélène, who has inherited a publishing house that used to be successful in romantic novels, but is struggling to adapt to the 21st century, as an investor based in Toronto is breathing down her neck. (It’s on the checklist for French movies being made these days: you have to have a few sentences in English in the dialogue, and at least one city outside the Francophonie.)

Pierre Richard moves in next door to her in the disguise of Mrs. Mills. The charming old lady starts invading Hélène’s life, claiming she’s a superfan of the romantic novels her house produces. Hélène has a eureka moment and hires Mrs. Mills as the Instagram-friendly, relatable, public face of her outmoded brand of escapism.

But who is really deluding whom, apart from everybody deluding themselves? Most will agree that romantic novels, comedians and conmen are deceiving us, but how about publishing in general, social media, modern art? And the whole globalisation thing? Perhaps we’re all being deceived all the time, it’s just that some deceptions, like Pierre Richard in drag (what big hands you have!), are more obvious than others.





According to IMDB, it was released in Germany on July 4, 2019 as well as in Greece. No other cinematic releases outside of France.



PS Looking up filmographies to work out how many of her films I've seen (current estimate: 19/46) it struck me that she regularly works with female directors. Since 2000 she starred in 21 films, of which 11 were directed by women. That includes 2 she directed herself but still a very impressive record.

o perfume da memória

So now YouTube has started helping me with the slightly neglected films_not_shown tag. It recommended to me the Brazilian movie "O Perfume da Memória" (2016) by Oswaldo Montenegro, which was so good I now seriously need to watch more random videos to confuse the algorithm.

I had never heard of Oswaldo Montenegro before (and Wiki tells me he is mainly a musician), but the impression from this film is that he managed to create stylish movies on a negligible budget by doing everything himself (with two actors and two musicians and probably a small technical staff), in a flat, and it turns out amazing. Oh, and then he makes the film available on YouTube on his official channel. Clearly committed to bypass capitalism.

So, the movie. My theory is that Montenegro saw Julio Medem's Room in Rome (2010) and decided to do a fully clothed response to it. Which is hilarious in that Room in Rome itself is a response to an Argentinian film, En la cama (2005), so this subject of one night in a room is playing ping-pong across the Atlantic. Next stop Stockholm?

Art is important in Medem's movie, but Montenegro adds a bit of poetry, and the two musicians playing his score on cello and flute (Madalena Salles y Janaina Salles - are they mother and daughter?). And a fairly serious plot twist. So not a remake, but I stand by my theory that Medem's film inspired Montenegro's.

Oh, and Montenegro also does the voiceover. He literally tells the story and you can hear his voice. I watched the version with Spanish subtitles (YouTube seemed to know that I don't want to be dragged out of romance language heaven by English ones), but a version with English subtitles is also available on his channel.

fleur de tonnerre

A year ago I got the impression that the situation was perhaps improving re the showing of films in more interesting languages than English in UK cinemas, but this seems to have been a blip. This year has been a bit of a disaster in this respect, so I am left to catch up with my DVD collection and to watch out for movies shown on TV5Monde (no longer on Sky in the UK, but free on the Internet here).

This week I watched Fleur de Tonnerre, a biopic of Hélène Jégado who was executed for five murders but is alleged to have killed dozens and may have been the most prolific serial killer ever. The weapon of choice being arsenic, this counts as history of chemistry as well as history of crime.

Her life unfolded in rural Brittany, with the folk belief in Ankou as an impersonation of death, combined with her psychiatric problems, appear to have led Jégado to believe she had to obey Ankou's orders and kill people. The film handles this somewhat disturbing story with subtlety. Rural Britanny in the first half of the 19th century comes across as a dark place -we also meet people who operate a moving lighthouse in order to lure ships onto rocks and then scavenge the wrecks. Tellingly, the move into the city of Rennes spells the end of Jégado's killing career as her new employer discovers her phiol of arsenic and sends it off for analysis.

Déborah François is impressive in this - it took me a while to realise that I had seen her in three other films before, including Mes cheres etudes, Female agents, and the page turner. She made her debut with the Dardenne brothers. She also appears as the artist's wife in Cezanne et moi which I haven't seen yet, see above.




There also is an English title (Poisoning Angel) for the film and a poster in English, but IMDB doesn't list any release date for the UK.

back to Basque roots

Three years after Ma ma, Julio Medem has a new film out (in Spain), so I am building up excitement. From the trailer and the reviews in the Spanish press it looks like a welcome return to the cryptic complexity of his early films based in the Basque country, such a Vacas and Tierra, which I haven't really understood to this day ...

It's called El árbol de la sangre (The tree of blood), and here is what I could find about it:

IMDB

Julio Medem returns to his origins, says Milagros Martín-Lunas in El Independiente.

Old style Medem with the brakes taken off, says John Tones.

A compendium of his themes and obsessions, says Manuel Lombardo in the Diario de Sevilla.





My guess is that it will not be shown in UK cinemas, but watch this space!

more films we're not allowed to see

UPDATE 16.6.2024 - the new list for films from 2021 onwards is here: films not shown - part 3

Back in 2010 I started a blog entry listing interesting (mostly European) movies that did not get a cinematic release in the UK. Many updates later, this entry has become just a little bit unwieldy, with two lists running in opposite directions, so I suspect I’m the only one who still finds anything in that entry (although it has been viewed more than 2500 times and is among the five most-viewed entries of all time).

Thus, I decided to start from scratch with a clean slate and just one list of films running chronologically forward, so starting with the earliest ones. I’ll start with films produced in 2012, because that’s where the old review/appreciation list fizzles out (unlike the watch list, which also included films that were more recent and those that I hadn’t seen yet). Within each year, the films that I actually managed to see are listed first. Oh, and female directors are now also highlighted in bold font (work in progress).

So, without further ado, off we go:

Camille redouble (Camille rewinds) - France 2012, Noémie Lvovsky - Charming if slightly illogical time travel story featuring the director in the lead role. It was - released in around a dozen countries but no UK date in sight.

La fille de nulle part - France 2012, Jean-Claude Brisseau - this low-budget ghost story looks like poor old Brisseau is now reduced to filming in his own flat and playing the lead himself, but it is still interesting.

Mapa para conversar (A map for love) - Chile 2012, Constanza Fernandez, starring Andrea Moro, Mariana Prat, Francisca Bernardi - three women in a cute little chamber piece mostly set on a small boat. Restrictions clear the mind, as one of the characters says. Available on DVD from the lovely peccadillo pictures.

Des morceaux de moi (Pieces of me) - France 2012, Nolwenn Lemesle, starring Adele Exarchopoulos (before she became famous in that other role) - growing up in a dysfunctional family in the middle of nowhere (in this case Picardie, northern France) can be hell, as the contrast between Adele Exarchopoulos' character, Erell, and everything around her demonstrates. Erell tries to cope by recording a video diary of her daily life, thus locking up her teenage trauma in a little box which she can eventually leave behind.

La vie d'une autre (Another woman's life) - France 2012, Sylvie Testud, starring Juliette Binoche, see my review here.

El amigo aleman (The German friend) - Germany, Argentina 2012, Jeanine Meerapfel, starring Celeste Cid - a slightly confused story of confused identities as the the daughter of Jewish refugees from Nazi Germany gets entangled with the son of Nazi refugees from postwar Germany, with both protagonists moving back and forth between Argentina and Germany.The fact that in both families the parents talk German to their children who answer back in Spanish reflects the mix-up. I do have a soft spot for Sulamith though, played by Celeste Cid.

Una pistola en cada mano - Spain 2012, Cesc Gay - Shown in Germany (Ein Freitag in Barcelona), and at the London Spanish Film Festival 2013.
Die Vermessung der Welt (Measuring the world) Germany 2012, Detlev Buck. Adaptation of Daniel Kehlmann's bestselling novel.
Klip (Clip) - Serbia 2012, Maja Milos
Weil ich schöner bin - Germany 2012, Frieder Schlaich
3 - Uruguay, Argentina, Germany 2012 - Pablo Stoll - oops, there are too many movies called 3, I was looking for this one and first found the one below, and got all confused.
Tres - Ecuador, Argentina, Germany 2012
3 Zimmer/Küche/Bad (Move) - Germany 2012
Baad el Mawkeaa (After the Battle) - France / Egypt 2012
Después de Lucía - Mexico / France 2012
A perdre la raison - Belgium 2012, Joachim Lafosse, starring Emilie Dequenne
Buscando a Eimish - Spain 2012, Ana Rodríguez Rosell, starring Manuela Vellés, Emma Suárez - shown at the London Spanish Film Festival 2012
Joven y alocada - Chile 2012, Marialy Rivas
Goltzius and the Pelican Pelican Company - UK 2012, Peter Greenaway

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Angélique (I) - France 2013, Ariel Zeitoun - A fresh-looking new adaptation of the bestselling history romances by Anne and Serge Golon. I admit I watched part of it during travels in a hotel room and kind of liked it, so I ordered the DVD. Review to follow.

Landes - France 2013, François-Xavier Vives, starring Marie Gillain - gloomy reflections on life, boredom and social problems in the vast pine forests near Bordeaux set in the early 20th century. Compare and contrast with Therese Desqueyroux, starring Audrey Tautou, which did get a UK release.

Jack et la mécanique du coeur (Jack and the Cuckoo-Clock Heart) - France 2013, Stéphane Berla, Mathias Malzieu - interesting CGI-fairy tale in a surreal steampunk-style setting. One could spend hours unpicking cultural references from Jules Verne through to modern ones.

Las brujas de Zugarramurdi (Witching and bitching) - Spain 2013, Alex de la Iglesia, starring Carolina Bang, Carmen Maura. Shown at various festivals in the US and UK. Too much horror and buddy movie for my tastes, so I won't even attempt to review it, but here's the New York Times' take on it.

Arrêtez-moi - France 2013, Jean-Paul Lilienfeld, starring Sophie Marceau, Miou-Miou. Powerful and disturbing chamber drama about lives destroyed by domestic violence.

Chez nous, c'est trois! - France 2013, Claude Duty, starring Noémie Lvovsky. Very cute little film with a funny sideplot relating to the age-old question of how many kisses people in France exchange for greetings, hence the title. The main plot is about a struggling film director played by Noémie Lvovsky, who in real life directed the equally charming Camille redouble just the year before (listed above) so it could also be read as a reflection on the lack of global success of that work.

Flores raras (Reaching for the Moon) - Brazil 2013, Bruno Barreto
Ayer no termina nunca (Yesterday never ends) - Spain 2013, Isabel Coixet - shown at the Berlin International Film Festival 2013, and at the London Spanish Film Festival 2013
La marche - France 2013, Nabil Ben Yadir, starring Hafsia Herzi - I only know about this film because the trailer is on a DVD I own, probably one I bought in France.

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Todos estan muertos - Spain/Germany/Mexico 2014, Beatriz Sanchis, starring Elena Anaya - the first full-length feature from Sanchis is a nice little film on a former pop singer traumatised by the accidental death of her brother and bandmate. Mecano may have been a musical inspiration. Only released in Spain and Mexico, and shown at a few festivals.

Les yeux jaunes des crocodiles - France 2014, Cécile Telerman, starring Emmanuelle Béart - a spirited defense of authors' rights, in a way. Based on the best-selling novel by Katherine Pancol.

Die geliebten Schwestern (Beloved sisters) - Germany 2014, Dominik Graf, starring Hannah Herzsprung. Young poet Friedrich Schiller's love life - it's complicated.

On a faillie être amies (Almost friends) - France 2014, Anne Le Ny, starring Karin Viard, Emmanuelle Devos, Roschdy Zem. Some nice scheming going on in this female-led comedy where the male chef serves as a trophy husband.

Arrête ou je continue (If you don't, I will) - France 2014, Sophie Fillières, starring Emmanuelle Devos, who gets lost in the woods and finds herself. Otherwise somewhat depressing relationship breakdown.

Respire (Breathe) - France 2014, Mélanie Laurent - shown at lots of festivals around the world, released in half a dozen countries. Managed to catch it on TV5 at some point but memories are evaporating fast. Felt kind of ethereal.

Ocho apellidos vascos (Spanish affair) - Spain 2014, Emilio Martínez Lázaro - only shown at the London Film Festival 2014.
Sous les jupes des filles - France 2014, Audrey Dana
Marie Heurtin (Marie's story) - France 2014, Jean-Pierre Améris, starring Isabelle Carré
Week-ends - France 2014, Anne Villacèque - released in Germany as "Wochenenden in der Normandie"
Au fil d'Ariane (Ariane's thread) - France 2014, Robert Guédiguian - released in Germany in Dec 2014 as "Café Olympique - Ein Geburtstag in Marseille"
Las insoladas (Sunstrokes) - Argentina 2014, Gustavo Taretto - released in Germany in August 2015.
Qui vive (Insecure) - France 2014, Marianne Tardieu, starring Adele Exarchopoulos
Une rencontre (A chance encounter) - France 2014, Lisa Azuelos, starring Sophie Marceau.
Tu veux ... ou tu veux pas? (Sex love and therapy) - France 2014, Tonie Marshall, starring Sophie Marceau (I'm on a roll adding all of Sophie Marceau's movies since 2012, as none of them have been shown in the UK.)

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Jamais contente - France 2015, Emilie Deleuze - starring nobody I've ever seen before, this is a 21st century version of La Boum where the girl gets to sing in a band rather than going to a party. I wanted her band to be more punk though.

Qui c'est les plus forts? (You'll never walk alone) - France 2015, Charlotte de Turckheim, starring Alice Pol, Audrey Lamy. Charming comedy ticking off all the social issues of our time, maybe too obvious in its box ticking, but extra kudos to the director for casting herself in an unlikable role.

Je suis a vous tout de suite (I'm all yours) France 2015, Baya Kasmi, starring Vimala Pons. Billed as a comedy about a woman who can't say no, it has some rather dark undertones too, but overall manages to keep a warm tone and feelgood vibe. I didn't know Vimala Pons before, will have to watch out for other work. Intriguingly, she did an earlier short film with Baya Kasmi, called "J'aurais pu être une pute" which could almost be connected to this film.

Journal d'une femme de chambre (Diary of a chambermaid) - France 2015, starring Léa Seydoux, shown at the Berlinale, all of which is sadly no guarantee that we will get to see it here (except in the French Film Festival UK showing in a small number of cities.)
Mi gran noche (My great night) - Spain 2015, Alex de la Iglesia, starring Carolina Bang.
Le gout des merveilles - France 2015, Eric Besnard.
Go home - France 2015, Jihane Chouaib
Je suis un soldat - France 2015, Laurent Larivière
La taularde (Jailbirds) - France 2015, Audrey Estrougo, starring Sophie Marceau.

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Corps étranger (Foreign body) - France/Tunisia 2016, Raja Amari, starring Sarra Hannachi. Very intimate portrait of one refugee's story.

À tous les vents du ciel (Twisting fate) - France 2016, starring Noémie Merlant. Yes, she may be a bit of a manic pixie dream girl stereotype, but the film is amazing in the extent to which it focuses on her and lets all male characters drop by the wayside. (Update April 2022: just spotted the name of Noémie Merlant here, who later shot to fame with portrait d'une jeune femme en feu, I hadn't made the connection at all, and she plays a character much younger than her real age here)

Rupture pour tous (Love is dead) - France/Belgium 2016. Charming and timely little comedy involving nobody I've ever heard of before.

Fleur de tonnerre (Poisoning angel) - France 2016, Stéphanie Pillonca, starring Déborah François - brilliant and quite a bit scary, see my review. IMDB lists no foreign releases at all - not the image of Brittany and of French women that people want to project ...

Maman a tort (Trainee day) - France 2016, starring Emilie Dequenne - bookended by fleeting party scenes reminiscent of La boum, a 14-year-old girl has her moral compass comprehensively crushed by a week-long work-experience at her mum's insurance company. Bottom line: yes capitalism is evil but just play along and find somebody weaker who can suffer so you don't have to. I might have to channel that anger into a separate blog entry.

O Perfume da Memória - Brazil 2016, Oswaldo Montenegro - amazingly stylish chamber piece in the spirit of Room in Rome and En la cama. Montenegro appears to have made it with his own resources and released it free on YouTube. See my review here.

Sex cowboys - Italy 2016, Adriano Giotti. Mildly interesting little no-budget movie made with people who don't even have a profile picture on IMDB. Selling out your sex life on only fans or whatever the 2016 precursor was comes with unintended consequences. Note that the girl gets a complex character, while the boy is mainly there as the love interest.

Egon Schiele: Tod und Mädchen (Death and the maiden) - Austria / Luxembourg 2016
Paula - Germany 2016, Christian Schwochow. A biopic of painter Paula Modersohn-Becker.
Marie Curie - France 2016, Marie Noelle.
Vor der Morgenröte - Stefan Zweig in Amerika (Stefan Zweig: Farewell to Europe) - Germany 2016
Orpheline - France 2016 - starring Adele Exarchopoulos, Adele Haenel, Gemma Arterton.

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Luna - France 2017, Elsa Diringer, starring Laëtitia Clément - A male victim of a gang assault and a female member of the assaulting gang meet again, a love story as an almost-thriller due to the dark secret lurking in the past. Impressive work from unknown young actors.

Aus dem Nichts (In the fade) - Germany 2017, Fatih Akin - UK release June 2018!!! - on time for the end of the court case against the neo-nazi terror group NSU, the real-life inspiration behind the story.

Plonger (Diving) - France 2017, Mélanie Laurent, starring Maria Valverde. Ignore the trailer, the film is much more interesting than the trailer suggests.

La belle et la meute (Beauty and the dogs)- France 2017, Kaouther Ben Hania, starring Mariam Al Ferjani. Haunting depiction of the aftermath of a rape not shown - it's all to be read from the face of Mariam Al Ferjani.

Prendre le large (Catch the wind) - France 2017, Gaël Morel, starring Sandrine Bonnaire and Lubna Azabal. A textile company moves production from France to Morocco - one of the workers takes up the insincere offer to keep the job and move along. I'm sure I've seen another French film with a small group of workers moving after their jobs ... ah, found it, it's actually from the same year but I had forgotten to include it in this list after I watched it, so adding it now below:

Crash Test Aglaé - France 2017, Eric Gravel, starring India Hair, Yolande Moreau, Julie Depardieu. In this case it's a car factory relocating to India, and the heroines take a car to follow their jobs in easterly direction.

Djam - France 2017, Toni Gatlif, starring Daphne Patakia. Kind of a road movie without transport, and the title character trying to get from Lesbos to Istambul and back. A lot of spontaneous and informal music making happens on the journey otherwise marked by troubles and tribulations. Also dealing with the issue that many refugees have been risking their lives in the attempt to get from Turkey to Lesbos. Some similarities with Tony Gatlif's 2004 movie Exils, which is also set on the EU's southern border, namely between Spain and Morocco.

La mélodie - France 2017, Rachid Hami. This one is based on an earlier Brazilian movie called The violin teacher. Said teacher leads a bunch of kids in a disadvantaged suburb of Paris from zero to a performance at the Phiharmonie. Unlike the treatment such stories get in Hollywood, we don't have a love story thrown in and get only the bare bones of biographical background on the protagonists, which I think is a deliberate choice to show that once they caught the music bug, the project became the most important thing to them, so everything else has to fade into the background.

La lengua del sol (the tongue of the Sun) - Mexico 2017, José Luis Gutiérrez Arias. Lovely little film about the end of the world, so very topical in this day and age, also a nice chamber play in the style of Room in Rome and En la cama. See my review here.

Rodin - France 2017, Jacques Doillon, starring Vincent Lindon and Izïa Higelin
Le Semeur (The sower) - France 2017, Marine Francen - a 19th century man-sharing plot in a village where only women survived the war.

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El arbol de la sangre - Spain 2018, Julio Medem. See my review here. Medem returns to his Basque roots, which are probably too obscure for UK distributors.

Madame Mills, une voisine si parfaite - France 2018, starring and directed by Sophie Marceau. Wouldn't normally consider watching a comedy with Pierre Richard, but loved this one, see my review here.

Ma mère est folle (My mother is crazy) - France 2018, Diane Kurys, starring Fanny Ardant. Charming and stylish, even though maybe a bit too close to home ...

Joueurs (Treat me like fire) - France 2018, Marie Monge, starring Stacy Martin. Dark stuff from the world of underground gambling, with a compelling lead.

La belle et la belle (When Margaux meets Margaux) - France 2018, Sophie Fillières, starring Sandrine Kiberlain. The 20 and the 45-year-old version of Margaux cross paths and the older tries to be helpful. It is never revealed which rip in the space-time continuum supposedly made this possible, but the encounter is fun to watch.

Sofia - France/Morocco 2018, Meryem Benm'Barek-Aloïsi. Life is complicated for an unmarried woman giving birth in Casablanca, Morocco. There is no good solution, but the female family members stick together and muddle through somehow, which is more disturbing than uplifting, but I found the grumpy young mother in denial (Maha Alemi) very watchable.

Victor et Célia - France 2018, Pierre Jolivet, starring Arthur Dupont, Alice Belaïdi. Given that I have no interest in hair and beauty salons, there is an amazing number of French films set in this environment that I actually like, and this one joins the ranks of Venus Beaute and Caramel. Alice Belaïdi is a revelation, she also had a smaller role in Les tribulations d'une caissière, 2011.

La dernière folie de Claire Darling - France 2018, Julie Bertuccelli, starring Catherine Deneuve and her daughter, Chiara Mastroianni. Charming and surreal drama about letting go, kind of fits my age now.

Normandie nue (Naked Normandie) - France 2018, Philippe Le Guay
Amoureux de ma femme - France 2018, Daniel Auteuil, starring Adriana Ugarte. Released in Germany in October 2018.
Sin rodeos (Empowered) - Spain 2018. Shown at the London Spanish Film Festival in September 2018, but no release date scheduled at that time.
Un homme pressé - France 2018, starring Fabrice Luchini, Leïla Bekhti.
L'amour est une fête - France 2018, Cédric Anger
LikeMeBack - Italy/Croatia 2018, Leonardo Guerra Seràgnoli

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Damien veut changer le monde - France 2019, Xavier de Choudens. Charming comedy on illegal ways to help migrant kids stay. Outside France it has been released only in Turkey, Lebanon, Morocco.

Tambour battant - Switzerland 2019, François-Christophe Marzal - with a bunch of unknown actors, this is a musical fable about the incursion of modernity into a Swiss mountain village. Women get the vote (it's 1970!) and the rebel faction of the village band uses modern contraptions like saxophones and tambourines.

Une fille facile - France 2019, Rebecca Zlotowski. Coming of age story set in the obscene wealth of Cannes marina. Not quite sure what to make of this.

Poissonsexe - France 2019, Olivier Babinet, starring India Hair. I got the impression that this was a very strange film, set in a near future where marine life faces extinction and humans may also struggle keeping reproduction going? I only gave it half my attention while doing something else though, so I may have missed some of the subtle clues.

Fabuleuses (Fabulous) - Canada 2019, Mélanie Charbonneau. Fabulous film about three young women, one is a successful influencer, one wants to be her, and one wants to be a professional cellist and objects to the whole influencer nonsense. I was very grateful that the young cellist plays the prelude of the fourth suite, not the one of the first which you'll hear in every other movie that has ever included a cello. I only understood 10% of the dialogues in français québécois (some characters were more understandable than others), so may have to watch it again to see if I can decipher a bit more. I think part of the problem is that it is both heavily coloured by English and invaded by English vocab, but as both the English and the French part of the speech sound the same to me I struggle to keep up with the switches.

Le mystère Henri Pick - France 2019, Rémi Bezançon, starring Fabrice Luchini, Camille Cottin, Alice Isaaz. Lovely and very bookish film, see my review here.

J'irai où tu iras - France 2019, Géraldine Nakache, starring Leila Bekhti. I'd watch Leila Bekhti in anything, and she does a good job here as the alien recently landed on her sister's planet of Celine Dion superfans (the title is from a Dion song too). I resented the talking cars and the attempts at comedy on the back of disability.

Curiosa - France 2019, Lou Jeunet, starring Noemi Merlant. Interesting reflections on the early adoption of photography as a medium torn between poetry and pornography. For that alone I would not mind watching it several times. People more interested in the human stories may find the characters a bit cold and aloof perhaps.

Tu mérites un amour (You deserve a lover) - France 2019, starring, written and directed by Hafsia Herzi

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In corpore - Australia 2020, Sarah Jayne and Ivan Malekin, starring Clara Francesca. Available on Youtube. Four couples around the globe (Melbourne, Malta, Berlin, New York) are having very loving physical intimacy, but trouble elsewhere in their relationships. Just stay in bed, I would say. Also, possibly the first time I have been exposed to spoken Maltese, which is a very intriguing language as it is a mixture of Romance and Arabic heritage.

Cigare au miel - France 2020, Kamir Aïnouz starring Zoe Adjani. Coming of age story of Selma who faces slightly mixed expectations from her professional parents of Algerian background (somewhat autobiographical from writer/director Kamir Aïnouz). Zoe Adjani (Isabelle's niece) is a revelation, shame that this film didn't spark a breakthrough for her.

Jumbo - France 2020, Zoé Wittock, starring Noémie Merlant, shown at Sundance 2021.

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last updated 20.8.2026

One of our lovely independent cinemas here, not their fault that they're not getting all these films. (Own photo)