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Photographs abound in Agnès Varda’s One Sings, the Other Doesn’t. They pop up with the opening credits and predate the encounter between 17-year-old Pauline (Valérie Mairesse) and photographer Jérôme (Robert Dadiès); they go on to document the friendship between the teenage girl and Jérôme’s girlfriend, 22-year-old Suzanne (Thérèse Liotard); and they resurface at the end, when the two girls meet again for a summer holiday of Bergman-esque peace after years spent apart. They are, for the most part, portraits of women, sometimes naked but always unmistakably black and white—colors which Charles Van Damme’s cinematography blends into a fitting, melancholic blue. “These women are sad,” remarks Pauline as she steps foot into Jérôme’s studio. It is a point she brings up again when he later asks her to strip and pose for him, only to give up and complain she’s “refusing to be real.

The Sacrifice Kino Classics from Kino Lorber – new 4K restoration Reviewed by: Harvey Karten Director: Andre Tartovsky Screenwriter: Andre Tartovsky Cinematography: Sven Nykvist Production Design: Anna Asp Costumes: Inger Pehrsson Editing: Andrei Tarkovsky, Michal Leszczylowski Cast: Erland Josephson, Susan Fleetwood, Allan Edwall, Guorún Gísladóttir, Sven Wollter, Valérie Mairesse, Filippa Franzén, Tommy Kjellqvist Screened at: […]

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It’s a given that their Main Slate — the fresh, the recently buzzed-about, the mysterious, the anticipated — will be the New York Film Festival’s primary point of attraction for both media coverage and ticket sales. But while a rather fine lineup is, to these eyes, deserving of such treatment, the festival’s latest Revivals section — i.e. “important works from renowned filmmakers that have been digitally remastered, restored, and preserved with the assistance of generous partners,” per their press release — is in a whole other class, one titanic name after another granted a representation that these particular works have so long lacked.

The list speaks for itself, even (or especially) if you’re more likely to recognize a director than title. Included therein are films by Andrei Tarkovsky (The Sacrifice), Hou Hsiao-hsien (Daughter of the Nile, a personal favorite), Pedro Costa (Casa de Lava; trailer here), Jean-Luc Godard (the rarely seen,...

By Fred Blosser

Stories about domineering fathers and neglected offspring are at least as old as the Bible and Shakespeare. Gilles Legrand’s “You Will Be My Son” (2012) is a worthy addition to the genre.

Paul de Marseul (Niels Arestrup) is distressed to learn that his friend Francois Amelot (Patrick Chesnais) has been diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. Paul is the wealthy owner of a French vineyard, and Francois has served for more than 30 years as his estate manager: “a fancy name for winemaker,” Francois comments. When Francois announces that he’s too weak from his illness to begin the new production season, Paul’s son Martin (Lorant Deutsch) steps up, eager to take on the responsibility. He handles sales for the company, and he knows Francois’ routine through years of observation. But Paul has no faith in Martin’s abilities as a vintner, and the two men moreover have a strained personal relationship.

Barely five minutes long, Agnès Varda’s 1976 short Plaisir d’Amour en Iran finds a breadth of emotion in its surroundings. Shot in Esfehan at the Shah Masjed, Varda conveys the blossoming relationship between a French tourist (Valérie Mairesse) and an Iranian (Ali Raffi) across narration, dialogue and, most effectively, architecture. It’s a transported exercise indigenous to its original time and place (France, Rive Gauche/Nouvelle Vague) that proves visuals and words can do their finest work as distinct properties. Read more at UbuWeb.

Barely five minutes long, Agnès Varda’s 1976 short Plaisir d’Amour en Iran finds a breadth of emotion in its surroundings. Shot in Esfehan at the Shah Masjed, Varda conveys the blossoming relationship between a French tourist (Valérie Mairesse) and an Iranian (Ali Raffi) across narration, dialogue and, most effectively, architecture. It’s a transported exercise indigenous to its original time and place (France, Rive Gauche/Nouvelle Vague) that proves visuals and words can do their finest work as distinct properties. Read more at UbuWeb.

The Sacrifice (1986) Direction & Screenplay: Andrei Tarkovsky Cast: Erland Josephson, Susan Fleetwood, Tommy Kjellqvist, Allan Edwall, Gudún S. Gísladóttir, Sven Wollter, Valérie Mairesse By Dan Schneider of Cosmoetica: Watching Russian filmmaker Andrei Tarkovsky’s final work, Offret / The Sacrifice (1986), is an exercise in cinema appreciation. That’s not because The Sacrifice is a great film, but because it has great moments interspersed with moments of sheer boredom. In fact, The Sacrifice is one of those rare films that goes to the antipodes of what is good and bad in that art form. Overall, it’s worth seeing; but it is in no way, shape, or [...]...