Bruno Dumont on the Bertolt Brecht quote “If the people and the party disagree, dissolve the people” in France: “That sentence we owe to the journalist.” Photo: Anne-Katrin Titze
In the second instalment with Bruno Dumont on France, we discussed the clothes worn by Léa Seydoux, a scene with France and Charles Castro (Emanuele Arioli) in the Alps, repetition and resemblance, the internal self of France (Seydoux) and a song with Christophe, a moment of grace and the cinematic expression of the narrative.
Bruno Dumont on the clothes worn by France (Léa Seydoux): “Well, in a way the costumes (by Alexandra Charles) are doing the same work that the music (by Christophe) is doing on its end. They are participating in the cinematic expression of the narrative.”
France never wears the same expensive designer outfit twice. The slinky jewel-tone dresses, the short skirts, and luxurious turtlenecks are juxtaposed with...
In the second instalment with Bruno Dumont on France, we discussed the clothes worn by Léa Seydoux, a scene with France and Charles Castro (Emanuele Arioli) in the Alps, repetition and resemblance, the internal self of France (Seydoux) and a song with Christophe, a moment of grace and the cinematic expression of the narrative.
Bruno Dumont on the clothes worn by France (Léa Seydoux): “Well, in a way the costumes (by Alexandra Charles) are doing the same work that the music (by Christophe) is doing on its end. They are participating in the cinematic expression of the narrative.”
France never wears the same expensive designer outfit twice. The slinky jewel-tone dresses, the short skirts, and luxurious turtlenecks are juxtaposed with...
- 12/8/2021
- by Anne-Katrin Titze
- eyeforfilm.co.uk
One of the most acclaimed directors working in France today, Bruno Dumont doesn’t tend to repeat himself. In the last decade, he has gone from making a supernatural thriller set in the countryside (“Outside Satan”) to a classical biopic (“Camille Claudel 1915”) to a whimsical TV series about bumbling detectives (“Lil Quinquin”) and a surrealist comedy of manners (“Slack Bay”).
For his Cannes-premiering “Joan of Arc,” however, Dumont is returning to recent turf. The period drama follows 2017’s “Jeanette: The Childhood of Joan of Arc,” a deadpan portrait of the future martyr’s childhood that was set to heavy metal music. For “Joan of Arc,” Dumont follows his “Jeanette” star Lise Leplat Prudhomme into the famous 15th century saga as she leads the French army on a holy mission that leads to charges of heresy and, eventually, her death.
Like “Jeanette,” the new movie draws on a revisionist approach to...
For his Cannes-premiering “Joan of Arc,” however, Dumont is returning to recent turf. The period drama follows 2017’s “Jeanette: The Childhood of Joan of Arc,” a deadpan portrait of the future martyr’s childhood that was set to heavy metal music. For “Joan of Arc,” Dumont follows his “Jeanette” star Lise Leplat Prudhomme into the famous 15th century saga as she leads the French army on a holy mission that leads to charges of heresy and, eventually, her death.
Like “Jeanette,” the new movie draws on a revisionist approach to...
- 5/6/2019
- by Eric Kohn
- Indiewire
Streaming service acquires rights for Us and UK.
Global streaming service Mubi has secured theatrical and digital rights to a brace of buzz titles from this year’s Cannes Film Festival: The Happiest Day In the Life Of Olli Maki, which won the Un Certain Regard prize, and Bruno Dumont’s Cannes Competition title Slack Bay.
The curated VOD service has acquired rights for the Us and UK/Eire on Olli Maki and has also acquired Svod window rights for the film in Latin America.
The film marks the feature debut of Finland’s Juho Kuosmanen and tells the true story of Finnish boxing hero, Olli Mäki as he attempts to win the world championship featherweight title in the summer of 1962.
Slack Bay
For Slack Bay, Mubi has taken theatrical, home entertainment and digital rights in the UK/Eire, and the film will be released in partnership with New Wave Films, marking their second...
Global streaming service Mubi has secured theatrical and digital rights to a brace of buzz titles from this year’s Cannes Film Festival: The Happiest Day In the Life Of Olli Maki, which won the Un Certain Regard prize, and Bruno Dumont’s Cannes Competition title Slack Bay.
The curated VOD service has acquired rights for the Us and UK/Eire on Olli Maki and has also acquired Svod window rights for the film in Latin America.
The film marks the feature debut of Finland’s Juho Kuosmanen and tells the true story of Finnish boxing hero, Olli Mäki as he attempts to win the world championship featherweight title in the summer of 1962.
Slack Bay
For Slack Bay, Mubi has taken theatrical, home entertainment and digital rights in the UK/Eire, and the film will be released in partnership with New Wave Films, marking their second...
- 6/2/2016
- by michael.rosser@screendaily.com (Michael Rosser)
- ScreenDaily
Juliette Binoche in Slack Bay.
Sharmill Films has acquired Bruno Dumont.s Slack Bay (Ma Loute), starring Juliette Binoche, out of Cannes.
Slack Bay premiered in official competition, and is about the disappearances of tourists from a picturesque coastal community in the north of France in 1910, and the increasingly bizarre behaviour of the local townsfolk.
Binoche co-stars with Fabrice Luchini and Valeria Bruni Tedeschi.
Dumont's credits include L'il Quinquin, Camille Claudel 1915 and Hors Satan.
The film received mixed reviews at Cannes, with THR's Todd McCarthy calling it "arresting".and The Telegraph's Tim Robey labelling the film "hard to swallow".
Slack Bay's rural period setting and its apparently idiosyncratic, darkly comic tone would suggest that Sharmill are shooting for The Dressmaker crowd, with Binoche subbing in for Kate Winslet.
No release date has yet been set.
Sharmill Films has acquired Bruno Dumont.s Slack Bay (Ma Loute), starring Juliette Binoche, out of Cannes.
Slack Bay premiered in official competition, and is about the disappearances of tourists from a picturesque coastal community in the north of France in 1910, and the increasingly bizarre behaviour of the local townsfolk.
Binoche co-stars with Fabrice Luchini and Valeria Bruni Tedeschi.
Dumont's credits include L'il Quinquin, Camille Claudel 1915 and Hors Satan.
The film received mixed reviews at Cannes, with THR's Todd McCarthy calling it "arresting".and The Telegraph's Tim Robey labelling the film "hard to swallow".
Slack Bay's rural period setting and its apparently idiosyncratic, darkly comic tone would suggest that Sharmill are shooting for The Dressmaker crowd, with Binoche subbing in for Kate Winslet.
No release date has yet been set.
- 5/25/2016
- by Staff Writer
- IF.com.au
Film-making must be local, says French director, after his new Juliette Binoche-starring cannibal comedy premieres at Cannes film festival
There is, according to one its most heralded practitioners, no such thing as a good “European film”.
Speaking at the Cannes film festival, Bruno Dumont, the French director of L’Humanité, Flandres and Hors Satan, refuted the idea that one could or should set out to make films that could be termed “European”.
Continue reading...
There is, according to one its most heralded practitioners, no such thing as a good “European film”.
Speaking at the Cannes film festival, Bruno Dumont, the French director of L’Humanité, Flandres and Hors Satan, refuted the idea that one could or should set out to make films that could be termed “European”.
Continue reading...
- 5/13/2016
- by Henry Barnes
- The Guardian - Film News
Competition titles include Nicolas Windng Refn’s The Neon Demon [pictured], Jeff Nichols’ Loving and Xavier Dolan It’s Only The End Of The World.
The Cannes Film Festival unveiled the Official Selection for its 69th edition today at a packed press conference in Paris.
European heavyweights Pedro Almodovar, the Dardenne brothers and Ken Loach are among 20 filmmakers set to compete for the Palme d’Or.
There were few surprises in Competition – aside from the inclusion of Maren Ade’s Toni Erdmann, the first German film in Competition since Wim Wenders’s Palermo Shooting in 2008 – and the news that this year’s Palme d’Or winner will be the closing film.
The more exploratory Un Certain Regard section, however, welcomed a number of newcomers including Romanian director Bogdan Mirica’s Dogs, Us filmmaker Michael O’Shea’s The Transfiguration, and Personal Affairs (Omor Shakhsiya) by Maha Haj, a Palestinian citizen of Israel.
Cannes Film Festival general...
The Cannes Film Festival unveiled the Official Selection for its 69th edition today at a packed press conference in Paris.
European heavyweights Pedro Almodovar, the Dardenne brothers and Ken Loach are among 20 filmmakers set to compete for the Palme d’Or.
There were few surprises in Competition – aside from the inclusion of Maren Ade’s Toni Erdmann, the first German film in Competition since Wim Wenders’s Palermo Shooting in 2008 – and the news that this year’s Palme d’Or winner will be the closing film.
The more exploratory Un Certain Regard section, however, welcomed a number of newcomers including Romanian director Bogdan Mirica’s Dogs, Us filmmaker Michael O’Shea’s The Transfiguration, and Personal Affairs (Omor Shakhsiya) by Maha Haj, a Palestinian citizen of Israel.
Cannes Film Festival general...
- 4/14/2016
- ScreenDaily
★★★☆☆If French director Bruno Dumont's last work, the enigmatic Hors Satan (2012), was a horror film devoid of genre convention then his latest, Camille Claudel 1915 (2013), is an enticing deconstruction of the period drama. The film, released on DVD in the UK this week after premièring at last year's Berlinale, is at its best when it attempts to reconcile the director's confrontational aesthetic with the early 20th century setting. On the whole, it's not so much the taming of a provocateur as it is the recontextualisation of a distinctive body of work. It's an unflinching portrait of an artist's imprisonment, featuring an ever-watchable Juliette Binoche stripped of both her humanity and the very means to create.
- 10/13/2014
- by CineVue UK
- CineVue
"It’s not HBO, it’s (French) TV," begins Adam Nayman in Cinema Scope, "and it’s also paradoxically the best movie that Bruno Dumont has made since L’humanite (1999)—a good point of comparison because Li’l Quinquin is basically a remake, give or take." "Is it Dumont’s best?" Michael Pattison asks in a conversation in the Notebook, to which Neil Young replies that "my gut reaction is to say yes, with the obvious caveat that Quinquin benefited massively from being such a volte-face…. There are moments of humor dotted through even Dumont’s ostensibly dourest efforts (I’m thinking of the hands poking out of the doors in Hors Satan proffering David Dewaele his grub) with the possible exception of Camille Claudel 1915. Not many guffaws in that one." We've got more reviews and the trailer. » - David Hudson...
- 10/1/2014
- Keyframe
"It’s not HBO, it’s (French) TV," begins Adam Nayman in Cinema Scope, "and it’s also paradoxically the best movie that Bruno Dumont has made since L’humanite (1999)—a good point of comparison because Li’l Quinquin is basically a remake, give or take." "Is it Dumont’s best?" Michael Pattison asks in a conversation in the Notebook, to which Neil Young replies that "my gut reaction is to say yes, with the obvious caveat that Quinquin benefited massively from being such a volte-face…. There are moments of humor dotted through even Dumont’s ostensibly dourest efforts (I’m thinking of the hands poking out of the doors in Hors Satan proffering David Dewaele his grub) with the possible exception of Camille Claudel 1915. Not many guffaws in that one." We've got more reviews and the trailer. » - David Hudson...
- 10/1/2014
- Fandor: Keyframe
Soon to be screening at the 2014 Cannes Film Festival is French filmmaker Bruno Dumont's ("La Vie de Jesus," "Hors Satan") latest film entitled "Li'l Quinquin." Dumont, whose past films have earned him a few awards at Cannes in past years, now returns with a quirky story of a series of murders taking place in a small French town while a mischievous little boy and his girlfriend seem to be causing some trouble of their own. Check out the film's poster below:...
- 5/8/2014
- by Ziyad Saadi
- Indiewire
Hovering around the twenty-one to twenty-four feature film mark with at least a quarter of those films belonging to first time filmmakers, the Quinzaine des Realisateurs (a.k.a Directors’ Fortnight) has in the past couple of years, counted on a healthy supply of French, Spanish and Belgium produced film items, and has been geared towards the offbeat genre items as with last year’s edition curated by Edouard Waintrop and co. To be unveiled on the 22nd, as we attempted with our Critics’ Week predix, Blake Williams, Nicholas Bell and I (Eric Lavallee) are thinking out loud and hedging our bets on what the section might look like or what the programmers might be looking at for 2014. Here is our predictions overview:
Alleluia
Six years after presenting Vinyan at the Venice Film Festival, Fabrice Du Welz finally returns with potentially not one, but a pair of works for the ’14 campaign.
Alleluia
Six years after presenting Vinyan at the Venice Film Festival, Fabrice Du Welz finally returns with potentially not one, but a pair of works for the ’14 campaign.
- 4/16/2014
- by IONCINEMA.com Contributing Writers
- IONCINEMA.com
Decadence, violence, love and space – Guardian film critic Peter Bradshaw shares his fantasy award nomination list for 2013
• The 2012 Braddies
Awards season is now upon us and here, as every year, is my personal fantasy award nomination list for 2013, whimsically called the Braddies, which covers the period running from the beginning of the calendar year to the present. There are 10 nominations in eight categories: film, director, actor, actress, supporting actor, supporting actress, screenplay and documentary.
The reader is invited to nominate the winner in the comments section below, and perhaps to note omissions and evidence that the list betrays suggestions of sociocultural bias.
I like to think that these awards will one day evolve into an actual ceremony with chrome-and-glass statuettes, sponsorship from Sky Atlantic and a televised evening presided over by Dara Ó Briain or Mariella Frostrup. But until then, it exists in a world of fantasy only. And so,...
• The 2012 Braddies
Awards season is now upon us and here, as every year, is my personal fantasy award nomination list for 2013, whimsically called the Braddies, which covers the period running from the beginning of the calendar year to the present. There are 10 nominations in eight categories: film, director, actor, actress, supporting actor, supporting actress, screenplay and documentary.
The reader is invited to nominate the winner in the comments section below, and perhaps to note omissions and evidence that the list betrays suggestions of sociocultural bias.
I like to think that these awards will one day evolve into an actual ceremony with chrome-and-glass statuettes, sponsorship from Sky Atlantic and a televised evening presided over by Dara Ó Briain or Mariella Frostrup. But until then, it exists in a world of fantasy only. And so,...
- 12/6/2013
- by Peter Bradshaw
- The Guardian - Film News
Six weeks after his latest film, "Camille Claudel 1915," received a theatrical release in the U.S., and just a few days after John Waters listed that and another of his films ("Hors Satan") on his 2013 Top 10 list for Artforum, Bruno Dumont was given the royal treatment at the 13th annual Marrakech Film Festival, an opulent feast of cinema presided over by none other than His Royal Highness Prince Moulay Rachid. On Saturday night, Dumont walked the red carpet before introducing and honoring his collaborator on "Camille Claudel," Juliette Binoche, as part of the festival's nightly "Tributes" series (the previous night's recipient was Sharon Stone); then on Sunday afternoon he sat down for a master class at the Palais des Congress. Though Waters dubbed Dumont "the ultimate master of cinematic misery," in his 90-minute conversation with Cahiers du Cinema critic Jean-Philippe Tessé, the blue-eyed brooder was animated and forthcoming, and...
- 12/4/2013
- by Eric Hynes
- Indiewire
There are top ten lists, and then there are top ten lists by John Waters. Each year, everyone's favorite cult filmmaker delivers his list to Artforum, and it's usually a surprising blend of arthouse oriented pictures and left field surprises. And 2013 is no different with Waters naming fellow provocateur Harmony Korine's "Spring Breakers" as the best of the past twelve months. As for the rest of the list, it's driven by auteurs with Bruno Dumont (x2), Catherine Breillat, Cristian Mungiu, Woody Allen and Pedro Almodovar dominating. But sneaking in there are hot button docs "Blackfish," about the questionable practices of SeaWorld, and "After Tiller" focusing on doctors that perform late stage abortions. Take a look at the full list below and let us know what you think of John Waters' choices. [Indiewire] John Waters' Top 10 Films Of 2013 1. Spring Breakers 2. Camille Claudel 1915 3. Abuse Of Weakness 4. Hors Satan 5. After Tiller 6. Hannah Arendt 7. Beyond.
- 12/2/2013
- by Kevin Jagernauth
- The Playlist
It's December, so various top ten films of the year lists are currently being drawn up by critics, filmmakers and film lovers. Two regular early starters are the UK's Sight & Sound Magazine and cult filmmaker John Waters.
Today, both have released their Top 10 lists for the year, and not a single film from either has crossed over with each other. Joshua Oppenheimer's documentary "The Act of Killing" and Harmony Korine's "Spring Breakers" topped the respective lists.
Both however feature some films not in the awards race but have scored acclaim elsewhere such as the gay cruising serial killer drama "Stranger by the Lake," the Chinese crime film "A Touch of Sin," the late term abortion doco "After Tiller," and Pedro Almodovar's raucous air steward comedy "I'm So Excited".
Sight & Sound Top 10 of 2013:
The Act of Killing
Gravity
Blue is the Warmest Color
The Great Beauty
Frances Ha...
Today, both have released their Top 10 lists for the year, and not a single film from either has crossed over with each other. Joshua Oppenheimer's documentary "The Act of Killing" and Harmony Korine's "Spring Breakers" topped the respective lists.
Both however feature some films not in the awards race but have scored acclaim elsewhere such as the gay cruising serial killer drama "Stranger by the Lake," the Chinese crime film "A Touch of Sin," the late term abortion doco "After Tiller," and Pedro Almodovar's raucous air steward comedy "I'm So Excited".
Sight & Sound Top 10 of 2013:
The Act of Killing
Gravity
Blue is the Warmest Color
The Great Beauty
Frances Ha...
- 12/1/2013
- by Garth Franklin
- Dark Horizons
"Spring Breakers" may not have much of a shot at an Academy Award (despite A24's campaign for James Franco), but the divisive Harmony Korine film has already made at least two Top Ten lists for best films of 2013: last week, the prestigious Cahiers du Cinema ranked "Spring Breakers' #2 on its list and now filmmaker John Waters, a contributor to Artforum, named the indie hit his #1 film of 2013, according to Ray Pride at Movie City News. Waters ranked Bruno Dumont's "Camille Claudel 1915," starring Juliette Binoche, #2 on the list. See Waters' full list below: John Waters' Top 10 Films of 2013: 1. Spring Breakers 2. Camile Claudel 1915 3. Abuse Of Weakness 4. Hors Satan 5. After Tiller 6. Hannah Arendt 7. Beyond The Hills 8. Blue Jasmine 9. Blackfish 10. I'm So Excited...
- 12/1/2013
- by Paula Bernstein
- Indiewire
Above: Birdsong.
At the outset of Albert Serra's Birdsong (2008), the Three Wise Men, caught in a sudden rainstorm and retreating into a cave to wait it out peruse the boulders around them. One of the Magi declares, “If you look close enough, you can see a lot of things. Sometimes what we see is so beautiful it petrifies us,” perfectly, if unwittingly, encapsulating the director’s method of operation. As the trio literally dissolves into a backdrop of majestic landscapes, the Biblical plot also withdraws from the foreground: a maneuver not unfamiliar to those who have seen Serra’s previous feature, Quixotic/Honor de Cavelleria (2006), a less than faithful adaptation of de Cervantes's Don Quixote. Calling it an adaptation, however, should be taken with a grain of salt insofar as Serra deliberately emptied the canonical chivalric novel of all its contents save the two lonely souls at its core,...
At the outset of Albert Serra's Birdsong (2008), the Three Wise Men, caught in a sudden rainstorm and retreating into a cave to wait it out peruse the boulders around them. One of the Magi declares, “If you look close enough, you can see a lot of things. Sometimes what we see is so beautiful it petrifies us,” perfectly, if unwittingly, encapsulating the director’s method of operation. As the trio literally dissolves into a backdrop of majestic landscapes, the Biblical plot also withdraws from the foreground: a maneuver not unfamiliar to those who have seen Serra’s previous feature, Quixotic/Honor de Cavelleria (2006), a less than faithful adaptation of de Cervantes's Don Quixote. Calling it an adaptation, however, should be taken with a grain of salt insofar as Serra deliberately emptied the canonical chivalric novel of all its contents save the two lonely souls at its core,...
- 10/24/2013
- by Vladimir Lukin
- MUBI
★★★★☆ One of numerous films to make its way to London from the Cannes, Alex van Warmerdam's Borgman (2013) is the darkest of dark horses: an obsidian black comedy with a surreal and genuinely vicious 'eat the rich' ethic that might just pinch a prize. The film opens with a beautifully ludicrous scene as three characters - including a Roman Catholic priest - get tooled up and attempt to capture and possibly kill what seems like a group of homeless people who are living in a Stig of the Dump-style underground hideaway. Their bearded leader, Borgman (Jan Bijovet), makes good his escape and searches for sanctuary.
Borgman's direct approach with a particularly wealthy family living in a large, gated compound leads only to a beating, handed out by Richard (Jeroen Perceval). His artist-wife Marina (Hadewych Minis), shocked by his violence, takes pity on the tramp, allowing him his bath and seeing to his injuries,...
Borgman's direct approach with a particularly wealthy family living in a large, gated compound leads only to a beating, handed out by Richard (Jeroen Perceval). His artist-wife Marina (Hadewych Minis), shocked by his violence, takes pity on the tramp, allowing him his bath and seeing to his injuries,...
- 10/10/2013
- by CineVue UK
- CineVue
★★★★☆ It's been a remarkable decade for Romanian cinema. While Cristi Puiu and Corneliu Porumboiu both delivered impressive works with The Death of Mr. Lazarescu (2005) and Police, Adjective (2009) respectively, it was arguably Cristian Mungiu's 2007 Palme d'Or winner 4 Months, 3 Weeks, 2 Days that crystallised the movement and defined the Romanian New Wave. The shadow of Nicolae Ceausescu and brutal communist regime is still a key thematic concern for Mungiu but, with Beyond the Hills (2012), he pushes it to the background, focusing his steely gaze on the lost souls struggling to find purpose in new Romania.
Based on two non-fiction books by Tatiana Niculescu, Beyond the Hills follows Alina (Cristina Flutur) as she returns to her hometown to take her childhood friend Voichita (Cosmina Stratan) back to Germany with her. Both women grew up at the same orphanage, where they forged a strong, ambiguous connection. But, while Alina has been away, Voichita has...
Based on two non-fiction books by Tatiana Niculescu, Beyond the Hills follows Alina (Cristina Flutur) as she returns to her hometown to take her childhood friend Voichita (Cosmina Stratan) back to Germany with her. Both women grew up at the same orphanage, where they forged a strong, ambiguous connection. But, while Alina has been away, Voichita has...
- 6/12/2013
- by CineVue UK
- CineVue
Bruno Dumont is joining the ranks of acclaimed filmmakers trading in the big screen for the home screen. Set to develop a police drama for French network Arte, this will be his first foray into television. Dumont’s work, which includes L’humanité (1999) and Hors Satan (2011), has long been controversial and his filmmaking practises have challenged audiences through their intimate approach to violence and sex, and an unconventional sense of spiritualism.
Though popular on the arthouse circuit, Bruno Dumont has yet to find popularity in the mainstream. So is it just wishful thinking to believe that Dumont’s efforts could work to help open up foreign language television to new audiences? It seems as though the next big step for television is to be globalized, as most of us (at least in North America) are still dominated almost completely by the American market. Other English language programs squeak in, but...
Though popular on the arthouse circuit, Bruno Dumont has yet to find popularity in the mainstream. So is it just wishful thinking to believe that Dumont’s efforts could work to help open up foreign language television to new audiences? It seems as though the next big step for television is to be globalized, as most of us (at least in North America) are still dominated almost completely by the American market. Other English language programs squeak in, but...
- 5/14/2013
- by Justine
- SoundOnSight
Les Misérables; Side by Side; Hors Satan
Although it may not be the first screen musical to feature live-on-set singing, Les Misérables (2012, Universal, 12) is certainly the most ambitious, a huge, sweeping epic that produced a tidal wave of tears when it opened in UK cinemas. According to news reports, audiences of all ages – both male and female – were weeping openly during the multitudinous dramatic climaxes, a response attributed to the immediacy and intimacy that live voice recording conjured. Certainly, the technique pays dividends, most notably in Oscar-winner Anne Hathaway's breathtakingly fragile rendition of I Dreamed a Dream, delivered in one continuous take, pitched somewhere between a whisper and a scream, between speech and song, with eye-watering results.
Yet for all its intimacy, the film does not skimp on spectacle. Nodding its head toward the lessons of Alan Parker's brilliant Evita, Tom Hooper's profoundly cinematic adaptation of a...
Although it may not be the first screen musical to feature live-on-set singing, Les Misérables (2012, Universal, 12) is certainly the most ambitious, a huge, sweeping epic that produced a tidal wave of tears when it opened in UK cinemas. According to news reports, audiences of all ages – both male and female – were weeping openly during the multitudinous dramatic climaxes, a response attributed to the immediacy and intimacy that live voice recording conjured. Certainly, the technique pays dividends, most notably in Oscar-winner Anne Hathaway's breathtakingly fragile rendition of I Dreamed a Dream, delivered in one continuous take, pitched somewhere between a whisper and a scream, between speech and song, with eye-watering results.
Yet for all its intimacy, the film does not skimp on spectacle. Nodding its head toward the lessons of Alan Parker's brilliant Evita, Tom Hooper's profoundly cinematic adaptation of a...
- 5/13/2013
- by Mark Kermode
- The Guardian - Film News
★★★★☆ Divisive filmmaker Bruno Dumont is no stranger to spirituality, and can hardly be accused of fence-sitting with Hors Satan (Outside Satan, 2011), which arrives on DVD this week courtesy of New Wave Films. Whilst the auteur's defiant opacity may put some cinephiles off, he's once again crafted an unmissable, morally-complex experience. Using little-known actors to portray his characters, Dumont creates a challenging but nevertheless compelling narrative which seeks to examine the murky synergy of good and evil - all present within Hors Satan's enigmatic protagonist, simply referred to as 'the guy' (the late David Dewaele).
Sleeping rough on the outskirts of a small coastal hamlet in Pas-de-Calais, 'the guy' ('le gars') wanders the stark landscapes akin to some messianic embodiment of nature's amorality. Here, a young woman (Alexandra Lemâtre) confides in him about her abusive stepfather. When it's claimed that she simply cannot take any more it prompts a swift...
Sleeping rough on the outskirts of a small coastal hamlet in Pas-de-Calais, 'the guy' ('le gars') wanders the stark landscapes akin to some messianic embodiment of nature's amorality. Here, a young woman (Alexandra Lemâtre) confides in him about her abusive stepfather. When it's claimed that she simply cannot take any more it prompts a swift...
- 5/13/2013
- by CineVue UK
- CineVue
UK arthouse distributor New Wave Films are pleased to announce the release of controversial director Bruno Dumont's Hors Satan (2011) this coming Monday (13 May). Along the Cote d'Opale, near to a hamlet with a river and a marshland, lives an unusual guy (the late David Dewaele) who struggles along, poaches, prays and builds fires. To celebrate the home entertainment release of Dumont's latest critically-acclaimed work, we have Three DVD copies of Hors Satan to offer out to our world cinema-loving readership, courtesy of New Wave. This is an exclusive competition for our Facebook and Twitter fans, so if you haven't already, 'Like' us at facebook.com/CineVueUK or follow us @CineVue before answering the question below.
Dumont's Hors Satan is beautifully shot in a protected area on the coast of Northern France, where the director has been living most of his life. The film engages in a unique way with...
Dumont's Hors Satan is beautifully shot in a protected area on the coast of Northern France, where the director has been living most of his life. The film engages in a unique way with...
- 5/10/2013
- by CineVue UK
- CineVue
It's all about Jessica Chastain this weekend, with Andrew Muschetti's horror title "Mama" joining Oscar-nominated holdover "Zero Dark Thirty" at the box office. The modestly reviewed "Mama" is probably the best bet of the new releases. Chastain's bulked-up opponents include Arnold Schwarzenneger in "The Last Stand" (directed by Korean auteur Kim Ji-woon) and Mark Wahlberg in "Broken City"--macho films with tepid to wimpy Tomatometer scores. On the limited release circuit, both Sheldon Candis' "Luv" and Bruno Dumont's "Hors Satan" are sitting decently with critics. "Mama" Dir. Andres Muschetti, Spain | Universal | Cast: Jessica Chastain, Isabelle Nelisse, Megan Charpentier, Nikolaj Coster Waldau | 62% Fresh | Roger Ebert: "Movies like 'Mama' are thrill rides. We go to be scared and then laugh, scared and then laugh, scared and then shocked. Of course, there's...
- 1/18/2013
- by Beth Hanna
- Thompson on Hollywood
by Vadim Rizov
Bruno Dumont's sixth feature Outside Satan (Hors Satan) premiered at Cannes in 2011 but only now arrives for a weeklong New York engagement. That's typical lag time for Dumont, whose divisive, unmarketable movies generally enter theaters slowly but surely a year or so after their premieres. "The deeper meaning and social commentary of [Life of Jesus] has been deflected by focussing on a handful of graphic sex scenes, sadly," an admirer defensively writes on the Wikipedia page for Dumont's 1997 debut, a claim broadly true of all his work. Life of Jesus established the standard components of A Film By Bruno Dumont: non-professional actors standing or walking blankly, committing acts of debased violence (often in muddy rural terrain) with little or no provocation, sometimes indulging in unpleasant consensual intercourse when not raping people, with ambiguously intended, heavily religious overtones.
The use of non-pros who evince little normal human emotion as...
Bruno Dumont's sixth feature Outside Satan (Hors Satan) premiered at Cannes in 2011 but only now arrives for a weeklong New York engagement. That's typical lag time for Dumont, whose divisive, unmarketable movies generally enter theaters slowly but surely a year or so after their premieres. "The deeper meaning and social commentary of [Life of Jesus] has been deflected by focussing on a handful of graphic sex scenes, sadly," an admirer defensively writes on the Wikipedia page for Dumont's 1997 debut, a claim broadly true of all his work. Life of Jesus established the standard components of A Film By Bruno Dumont: non-professional actors standing or walking blankly, committing acts of debased violence (often in muddy rural terrain) with little or no provocation, sometimes indulging in unpleasant consensual intercourse when not raping people, with ambiguously intended, heavily religious overtones.
The use of non-pros who evince little normal human emotion as...
- 1/16/2013
- GreenCine Daily
Entering its second year, the Museum of the Moving Image’s First Look series provides a strong, welcome antidote to the generally anemic cinematic landscape that is January. Its eclectic selection of undistributed features and shorts, programmed by Dennis Lim, Rachael Rakes, and David Schwartz, occasions an invigorating mixture of moods and approaches from established as well as emerging directors. It’s indicative of the series’ dedication to distinctive, often divisive cinematic voices that Bruno Dumont’s decidedly non-crowd-pleasing Hors Satan was chosen as the opening night film nearly two years following its Cannes premiere.
Whereas earlier films like Twentynine Palms or Hadewijch pushed the French director’s worldview in new directions, Hors Satan sits solidly in Dumont’s comfort zone, down to the cryptically religious title that links it to his debut, The Life of Jesus. His protagonist is a drifter with a scruffy, narrow face like Pasolini’s proletarian Christ,...
Whereas earlier films like Twentynine Palms or Hadewijch pushed the French director’s worldview in new directions, Hors Satan sits solidly in Dumont’s comfort zone, down to the cryptically religious title that links it to his debut, The Life of Jesus. His protagonist is a drifter with a scruffy, narrow face like Pasolini’s proletarian Christ,...
- 1/11/2013
- by Fernando F. Croce
- MUBI
No dry January for the UK box office as The Hobbit clings to its perch and The Impossible and Life of Pi perform admirably
The battle for the top spot
After an incredibly strong fourth quarter of 2012, UK cinemas have got off to a flying start in 2013, powered this week by some exceptional results. The Impossible battled The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey for first place, with the Tolkien adaptation edging out the disaster weepie with £4.08m to £4.03m.
In truth, The Hobbit is the clear winner, as The Impossible's number is inflated by three days of previews totaling £1.56m. Still, local distributor eOne will be delighted with its result on The Impossible, the true story of one Spanish family's survival of the 2004 Asian tsunami – played in the film version by an English-speaking cast led by Naomi Watts and Ewan McGregor. Juan Antonio Bayona's film has already proved a...
The battle for the top spot
After an incredibly strong fourth quarter of 2012, UK cinemas have got off to a flying start in 2013, powered this week by some exceptional results. The Impossible battled The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey for first place, with the Tolkien adaptation edging out the disaster weepie with £4.08m to £4.03m.
In truth, The Hobbit is the clear winner, as The Impossible's number is inflated by three days of previews totaling £1.56m. Still, local distributor eOne will be delighted with its result on The Impossible, the true story of one Spanish family's survival of the 2004 Asian tsunami – played in the film version by an English-speaking cast led by Naomi Watts and Ewan McGregor. Juan Antonio Bayona's film has already proved a...
- 1/8/2013
- by Charles Gant
- The Guardian - Film News
A follower of Robert Bresson and admirer of the Catholic novelist Georges Bernanos, the maverick French film-maker Bruno Dumont is famous for religious fables that make no concessions to popular audiences and are performed by deliberately inexpressive non-professional actors. His last film, Hadewijch, centred on a novice so zealous that she was thrown out of her convent and fell in with an Islamic terrorist. Hors Satan, his sixth film and perhaps his most compelling, is set in a bleak, thinly populated, hauntingly beautiful corner of Pas de Calais near Boulogne, an area he's worked in several times before. A raggedly dressed ascetic figure, called simply "the guy" (le gars) in the cast list and resembling El Greco's Christ or the Spanish student Pasolini chose to play Christ in his St Matthew's Gospel film, drifts around the locality, saying little and living rough in the sand dunes. He's fed by local...
- 1/6/2013
- by Philip French
- The Guardian - Film News
The Impossible | Quartet | Hors Satan | McCullin | Playing For Keeps | Repulsion | Texas Chainsaw 3D
The Impossible (12A) (Juan Antonio Bayona, 2012, Spa) Ewan McGregor, Naomi Watts, Tom Holland, Oaklee Pendergast, Samuel Joslin. 114 mins
It was less than ten years ago, but already the Indian Ocean Tsunami has passed from a documentary subject to disaster-movie material. To injurious timing, though, this epic adds the insult of assuming we're only interested in how it affected white people. It's firmly focused on the plight of a British family, separated by the disaster. It's based on a true story, and impressively mounted, but that's no excuse for the myopic tastelessness.
Quartet (12A) (Dustin Hoffman, 2012, UK) Maggie Smith, Tom Courtenay, ichael Gambon. 98 mins
Theatricality is built into Hoffman's directing debut, a gentle senior-centric comedy set in a country home for retired musicians. Opera diva Smith's arrival ruffles feathers and stirs up ancient memories.
Hors Satan (15) (Bruno Dumont,...
The Impossible (12A) (Juan Antonio Bayona, 2012, Spa) Ewan McGregor, Naomi Watts, Tom Holland, Oaklee Pendergast, Samuel Joslin. 114 mins
It was less than ten years ago, but already the Indian Ocean Tsunami has passed from a documentary subject to disaster-movie material. To injurious timing, though, this epic adds the insult of assuming we're only interested in how it affected white people. It's firmly focused on the plight of a British family, separated by the disaster. It's based on a true story, and impressively mounted, but that's no excuse for the myopic tastelessness.
Quartet (12A) (Dustin Hoffman, 2012, UK) Maggie Smith, Tom Courtenay, ichael Gambon. 98 mins
Theatricality is built into Hoffman's directing debut, a gentle senior-centric comedy set in a country home for retired musicians. Opera diva Smith's arrival ruffles feathers and stirs up ancient memories.
Hors Satan (15) (Bruno Dumont,...
- 1/5/2013
- by Steve Rose
- The Guardian - Film News
The wild, coastal landscapes where Bruno Dumont's antihero roams free from retribution create a lucid dream of violence and beauty
It could be the antihero who is supposed to be "outside Satan" in Bruno Dumont's latest film, or it could be the remote, islanded world he inhabits. He and they are quite close to Satan, at all events; it is perhaps truer to say he is outside both God and Satan. Devotees of Dumont's earlier films – particularly his 1999 film Humanity – will instantly recognise the style, the locale, the narrative, the bizarre quasi-realism, in which events take place in a world infinitesimally different from the one we inhabit. As ever, the visionary, radioactive glow is compelling.
We are back in the broad, wild coastal landscapes of northern France, of which Britain's nearest equivalent is the East Anglian fen, a world of largely unsmiling, often unspeaking characters represented by non-professional actors.
It could be the antihero who is supposed to be "outside Satan" in Bruno Dumont's latest film, or it could be the remote, islanded world he inhabits. He and they are quite close to Satan, at all events; it is perhaps truer to say he is outside both God and Satan. Devotees of Dumont's earlier films – particularly his 1999 film Humanity – will instantly recognise the style, the locale, the narrative, the bizarre quasi-realism, in which events take place in a world infinitesimally different from the one we inhabit. As ever, the visionary, radioactive glow is compelling.
We are back in the broad, wild coastal landscapes of northern France, of which Britain's nearest equivalent is the East Anglian fen, a world of largely unsmiling, often unspeaking characters represented by non-professional actors.
- 1/4/2013
- by Peter Bradshaw
- The Guardian - Film News
★★★★☆ Due in no small part to the delayed UK theatrical release of Hadewijch (2009), Hors Satan (Outside Satan, 2011) is the second Bruno Dumont film to hit these shores within the last twelve months - no bad thing, of course. Whilst nowhere near as famous as his numerous awards would suggest, Dumont remains one of Europe's most divisive and challenging directors, with Hors Satan a prime example of his provocative, yet taxing minimal style. Hors Satan focuses on an unnamed, intimidatingly silent reprobate (David Dewaele) who Dumont's elegantly lilting camera quietly stalks through the isolated countryside of a Northern French province.
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- 1/2/2013
- by CineVue UK
- CineVue
Safety Not Guaranteed | Jack Reacher | Midnight's Children | Grabbers | Zaytoun | Parental Guidance
Safety Not Guaranteed (15) (Colin Trevorrow, 2012, Us) Aubrey Plaza, Mark Duplass, Jake Johnson, Karan Soni, Jenica Bergere. 86 mins
A man puts an ad in the local paper seeking a companion for his time-travel mission. Is this a prelude to a sci-fi adventure or an inventive lonelyhearts ad? We're strung along as to whether or not this guy's genuine for so long, there's room to smuggle in a relaxed indie romcom in the interim – Plaza is great company as she forges a connection with the paranoid inventor (Duplass). The sci-fi element isn't quite a red herring, but by the time it flowers, we've already learned plenty about living in the past.
Jack Reacher (12A) (Christopher McQuarrie, 2012, Us) Tom Cruise, Rosamund Pike, Richard Jenkins. 130 mins
After the atrocity of Rock Of Ages, Cruise is back in his comfort zone as Lee Child's lone-wolf military detective,...
Safety Not Guaranteed (15) (Colin Trevorrow, 2012, Us) Aubrey Plaza, Mark Duplass, Jake Johnson, Karan Soni, Jenica Bergere. 86 mins
A man puts an ad in the local paper seeking a companion for his time-travel mission. Is this a prelude to a sci-fi adventure or an inventive lonelyhearts ad? We're strung along as to whether or not this guy's genuine for so long, there's room to smuggle in a relaxed indie romcom in the interim – Plaza is great company as she forges a connection with the paranoid inventor (Duplass). The sci-fi element isn't quite a red herring, but by the time it flowers, we've already learned plenty about living in the past.
Jack Reacher (12A) (Christopher McQuarrie, 2012, Us) Tom Cruise, Rosamund Pike, Richard Jenkins. 130 mins
After the atrocity of Rock Of Ages, Cruise is back in his comfort zone as Lee Child's lone-wolf military detective,...
- 12/29/2012
- by Steve Rose
- The Guardian - Film News
To say that director Bruno Dumont is divisive would be an understatement, but the two-time Cannes Jury Prize winner ("Flanders," "L'humanité") certainly has his fans, but even they might be tested with his latest effort "Hors Satan" ("Outside Satan"). Premiering at Cannes last year, it's a ridiculously minimal and frustratingly enigmatic film that we didn't care for that much as we found it mysterious nature dull rather than compelling. This trailer over at Cineuropa is a few months old, but it's the first time it's coming ot our attention, and it's certainly worth a peek. That said, if you want to go in fresh, this trailer does seem to go out of its way to spoil the few "events" in the movie that are there, so proceed with caution. So what is it all about? Well it follows an unwashed drifter (David Dewaele) who orms a friendship with an unnamed...
- 2/23/2012
- by Kevin Jagernauth
- Indiewire
To say that director Bruno Dumont is divisive would be an understatement, but the two-time Cannes Jury Prize winner ("Flanders," "L'humanité") certainly has his fans, but even they might be tested with his latest effort "Hors Satan" ("Outside Satan"). Premiering at Cannes last year, it's a ridiculously minimal and frustratingly enigmatic film that we didn't care for that much as we found it mysterious nature dull rather than compelling. This trailer over at Cineuropa is a few months old, but it's the first time it's coming ot our attention, and it's certainly worth a peek. That said, if you want to go in fresh, this trailer does seem to go out of its way to spoil the few "events" in the movie that are there, so proceed with caution. So what is it all about? Well it follows an unwashed drifter (David Dewaele) who orms a friendship with an unnamed...
- 2/23/2012
- by Kevin Jagernauth
- The Playlist
Fans of France’s greatest living filmmaker, Bruno Dumont, will be happy to know his previously unreleased film Hadewijch is being released by New Wave Films in February. That’s not all! Dumont’s new picture Hors Satan is also being put out by New Wave in March/April time, too. In preparation for this great event we’ve tracked [...]...
- 1/3/2012
- by Martyn Conterio
Michel Piccoli, We Have a Pope
Nanni Moretti's Habemus Papam / We Have a Pope was the top movie of 2011 according to the Cahiers du Cinéma editors and film critics. The Cahiers du Cinéma list is available in the December print edition of the French magazine.
A Vatican-set satire about a newly elected, psychologically fragile pope (European Film Award Lifetime Achievement winner Michel Piccoli) and his therapist (Moretti himself), earlier this year We Have a Pope won six awards from the Italian National Syndicate of Film Journalists, including Best Director and Best Producer (there's no Best Film category). Margherita Buy co-stars as another psychotherapist.
Tied in second place were Manoel de Oliveira's Portuguese drama O Estranho Caso de Angélica / The Strange Case of Angelica, about a photographer (Ricardo Trêpa) who becomes obsessed with the dead daughter (Pilar López de Ayala) of a wealthy hotel owner, and Terrence Malick's The Tree of Life,...
Nanni Moretti's Habemus Papam / We Have a Pope was the top movie of 2011 according to the Cahiers du Cinéma editors and film critics. The Cahiers du Cinéma list is available in the December print edition of the French magazine.
A Vatican-set satire about a newly elected, psychologically fragile pope (European Film Award Lifetime Achievement winner Michel Piccoli) and his therapist (Moretti himself), earlier this year We Have a Pope won six awards from the Italian National Syndicate of Film Journalists, including Best Director and Best Producer (there's no Best Film category). Margherita Buy co-stars as another psychotherapist.
Tied in second place were Manoel de Oliveira's Portuguese drama O Estranho Caso de Angélica / The Strange Case of Angelica, about a photographer (Ricardo Trêpa) who becomes obsessed with the dead daughter (Pilar López de Ayala) of a wealthy hotel owner, and Terrence Malick's The Tree of Life,...
- 12/11/2011
- by Andre Soares
- Alt Film Guide
More peeks at Cannes Film Festival entries as the glorious cinephile wet dream-come-true nears its latest iteration. First up is a scene dug up by Quiet Earth from the next film by Bruno Dumont, "Hors Satan" (formerly titled "L'empire"), which follows a homeless religious man and the local farm girl who feeds him. Sounds precious, right? Not so fast--apparently this man murders and partakes in miracles! Typical Dumont territory. We covered it in our "18 Foreign Films of 2011" piece, mentioning our bated breath in regards to the finished product. While "The Life of Jesus" was great, everything since has…...
- 5/11/2011
- The Playlist
We were the first on the interwebs to mention Mitulescu, Dresen, Labaki, Pierre Schoeller, Joachim Trier and Bruno Dumont's L'Empire (now going by the title of Hors Satan) as strong contenders for the Un Certain Regard 2011 edition, but as usual there are a handful of titles/filmmakers particularly from Asia, that were completely off our radars. Added to the odd inclusion of Gus Van Sant's film announce yesterday, we're happy to see Kim Ki-duk again -- we hope that Arirang is a return to form for the filmmaker and the prolific Hong Sang-soo must be in some creative surge period in his life -- he will present The Day He Arrives in the same section he won last year with Hahaha. Both of these Cannes-selected films sandwich Oki's Movie - a film which he presented at Venice. This year we find only a pair of Camera d'Or contenders...
- 4/14/2011
- IONCINEMA.com
We're about 36 hours away from Cannes Film Festival's big unveiling of the 2011 line-up and while the Main Comp should bare very little surprises (see the math below), the one title whose status is still a mystery and could break into the 20 or so titles is Carlos Reygadas' Post Tenebras Lux. Literally translated as "Light After Darkness", Reygadas' semi-autobiographical feature was filmed in cities where the helmer has spent portions of his life: Mexico, England, Spain and Belgium. What this amount to be is the type of film that no pre-festival synopsis will do it justice. If included, I can't wait for that 8:00 in the morning press screening. Earlier this week, Variety threw in Naomi Kawase's name into the mix. Titled Hanezu no Tsuki, her film is set in the Asuka period which was known for its significant artistic, social, and political transformations - we're talking only 500 years A.
- 4/13/2011
- IONCINEMA.com
The Berlin Film Festival begins today and in typical Ioncinema.com fashion, I've decided to unveil my predictions for the 2011 edition of the Cannes Film Festival. I've taken the liberty at breaking down the predictions by what should logically fit into what sections: Main Comp, Ucr and the Director's Fortnight sidebar. In the Main Competition category, we should see an increase in the number of titles selected (perhaps hovering around the twenty mark. We can cross out films such as Haneke's latest, Kamen Kalev's The Island, Raymond Depardon's Journal de France, Andrei Zvyagintsev's (2007's Banishment) latest and I wouldn't be surprised if Walter Salles' On the Road isn't completed on time -- and in what should be a vintage year for the festival, these no-shows won't matter. A pair that remain in limbo are the alreasy completed David Cronenberg's A Dangerous Method and Pawel Pawlikowski...
- 2/10/2011
- IONCINEMA.com
#25. L'empire Director/Writer: Bruno DumontProducers: Rachid Bouchareb, Jean Bréhat, Alexander Emmert and Muriel MerlinDistributor: Rights Available. The Gist: This is about a strange character who leads a secluded life in the Pas de Calais dunes where the demon roams. Near a hamlet, river and marshes, dwells a strange fellow who lives from hand to mouth, poaches, prays, and lights fires. He is close to a farmer’s daughter who looks after him and feeds him. By murdering the girl’s father, who is violent towards her, helping a kid who is seized by strange pains and killing a guard, this fellow drives evil away from the hamlet and its inhabitants, in a fight against the Devil, until a miracle occurs.....(more) Cast: David Dewaele, Alexandra Lemâtre List Worthy Reasons...: We are getting into the final batch of films on this 100 list where I feel less compelled to list the...
- 1/15/2011
- IONCINEMA.com
At the beginning of every month, Ioncinema.com's "Tracking Shot" features about a half dozen projects that are moments away from lensing and that we feel are worth signaling out. This August, we've got a good grouping of titles that are positioning themselves for a Cannes release next May. On the indie front, any hopes of seeing Lee Daniels' Selma go into production appear to be dashed, financing woes might pull the plug on the production despite this being a perfect opportunity, especially in today's climate, to re-introduce a film which has racism in the forefront. We are awaiting confirmation on a filmmaker from our American New Wave 25 profiles to confirm a start date this month, but three established veteran indie filmmakers will be commencing production shortly: Rodrigo García is looking to direct Glenn Close's Albert Nobbs project, Mark Pellington's low budget I Melt With You will...
- 8/1/2010
- IONCINEMA.com
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