3 Best Releases Starring Blanche Gardin

“Superficiality is for another generation,” Jeanne Mayer (Blanche Gardin) screams to herself. Instead, her anxieties say it to her, visualized through sinuous, sketchy animation; they demand a lot. She can’t focus on her own body. Oh, no; that’d be too vain. It’s okay to appreciate the glances of men on the street, if just occasionally, though. It feels good, after all. But wait: she can’t give into hedonism. And she may be stressed, but having a bit to drink before noon? That’s just alcoholic behavior. How about labeling her a “wino” instead? Yeah, that’s better.  Continue Reading →

When I come out of a movie, I have a fairly good idea of whether I liked it, and if I would recommend it to anyone. In the case of Smoking Causes Coughing, the latest work from Quentin Dupieux, the French provocateur behind such cult oddities as Rubber (2010), Deerskin (2019) and Mandibles (2020), I'm not entirely sure I could describe it as a proper film in the first place. Continue Reading →

In medieval morality plays, the dramatis personae always includes the likes of Charity, Death, and Temperance, named for the vices or virtues they embody. These characters are vessels, existing somewhere between allegory and literalism and imbued with the social values and anxieties of their time. French surrealist Bruno Dumont (Lil Quinquin, Slack Bay) drags this tradition into the twenty-first century with his latest film, France. Continue Reading →