La Grande Illusion

Jean Renoir's La Grande Illusion from 1937 make's many film critics' Greatest Films of All Time list, and it's easy to see why.

Pierre Fresnay

I watched it for the first time last week and was very impressed, not to mention surprised.
For a film set in the POW camps of WWI, I was not expecting the humour and cheekiness that crops up in the narrative amidst the pain, loneliness and stagnation of a soldier's life. I have seen this display of cheekiness in characters in the only other Renoir film I've watched, the great La regle du jeu (The Rules of the Game) made two years after - so I guess I shouldn't be surprised.

Jean Gabin and Marcel Dalio

La Grande Illusion displays, and calls for, the unity and comradeship of people across class, religious, political and racial divides - soldiers and non-soldiers alike.

Dita Parlo and Jean Gabin

Erich von Stroheim and Pierre Fresnay

It's a war film unlike any other - surprising, beautiful, and deeply humanist.
Highly recommended.

Secret park, Sydney

A rainy afternoon's drive through a secluded park on the outskirts of Sydney led to many a new discovery.

 

Beautiful roof tiling on a perfect little greenhouse

A favourite pastime is going down unknown streets and laneways (in a car or on foot) in search of inspiring architecture and nature. I'm equally inspired by the built environment as I am the natural one.
My next visit to Sydney will definitely include a longer tour of this secluded park, and hopefully one sans rain so I can take more pictures.

The walk

Lola vs Harper

La Belle Personne

 La Belle Personne (The Beautiful Person), Christophe Honore, 2008

I too would find it difficult to concentrate if this guy was my high school teacher

Another beautiful film from French director Christophe Honore.

I love the little moments in his films where something is [partly] shown on screen - a written note, an inaudible whisper - and remains unexplained and intangible to the audience. I guess some viewers would find these inclusions insubstantial and superfluous to the narrative, but it gives an extra sense of realism to the film. Not all truths are fully disclosed in real life as they usually are on film.

Lea Seydoux and Louis Garrel are perfectly cast, and the classroom scenes and the quiet shots of bored French teenagers at school are rather beautiful.


Best consumed on a rainy, winters day.

Whirring and clicking.

I've spent the past two months going through hundreds of photographic slides that belonged to my grandfather.

It reminds me of special slide nights back in the 90s where a couple dozen family members were crammed into a small lounge room on a balmy summer's night to watch the latest photographic offerings of our enthusiastic grandfather.

We would gather and eat curry for dinner, and then the lights would go off and we'd settle down for hours to witness the show, all whilst listening to the whirring, and the clicking, whirring, and clicking, of the slide projector doing its rounds.

Digital slideshows - you have no comparison.

Margot, Margot.

Source unknown

quote from The Royal Tenenbaums (2001) Wes Anderson

Great film. Great quote. Great wall.

Sometimes murder can smell like honeysuckle..

Double Indemnity, Billy Wilder, 1944

Surely the best film noir ever made, Double Indemnity is – if I daresay myself – a masterpiece of the genre.

 Fred MacMurray and Barbara Stanwyck 

You want a cold-hearted femme fatale, you’ve got it; an audaciously likeable man falling for the nasty temptress; dimly lit lounge rooms filled with cigarette smoke and the stretching shadows from the Californian sun outside the venetian blinds; a plot involving desire, murder and insurance fraud for the sake of a seductive (and very well dressed and made-up) woman – it’s all there for you in Double Indemnity.

And with a director like Billy Wilder who co-wrote the script with Raymond Chandler (from a story by James M. Cain), there was no way the film could ever fail.

Stanwyck, MacMurray and Edward G. Robertson in the best shot of the film

So many film noir conventions are utilised by Billy Wilder in the film – the character types, low-key lighting, voice-over narration and of course the plot themes – and Double Indemnity was a perfect introductory film into the genre when I first saw it at uni 4 years ago.

I bought the DVD last week and had so much pleasure watching this classic crime drama again.

The sets! The costumes! The music! The era when people didn't know that smoking was killing them!