1970s – Scene by Green

Jeanne Dielman, 23 quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles (1975)

Chantal Akerman | 3hr 18min

When Jeanne Dielman stops by her son Sylvain’s room to wish him good night at the end of each monotonous day, she has what may be the deepest conversations of her life – not that her standard is terribly high. Her mind is a clockwork contraption that sees no value in abstract discussion or personal growth, but which rather dedicates itself to a single, methodical task at a time, maintaining a stable household for the benefit of her offspring. She is a Sisyphus for the modern age, each day pushing that boulder up the mountain as she polishes shoes, folds clothes, and cooks dinner, only to find herself starting all over again the following morning.

Despite remaining largely ignorant to his mother’s endless toil, Sylvain is the sole stimulus for introspection in Jeanne’s life, gently piercing her insular, middle-class bubble. “You’re always reading, just like your father,” the widow remarks the first night we join them, prompting him to ask about the early days of their relationship. “I didn’t know if I wanted to marry, but that’s what people did,” she ponders, dispassionately reflecting that “sleeping with him was just a detail” like any other in her meticulous daily routine. This comes as no surprise to us, of course. Every afternoon a different male client visits her apartment to pay for sex, and although Chantal Akerman usually cuts away from the act, it evidently unfolds with about as much excitement as making the bed or washing dishes.

*Jeanne’s life is in service of her son, who barely recognises her sacrifices. Through him, ideas from the world outside penetrate their bubble, considering notions of sex she would rather ignore.*

On the second night, Sylvain’s topic of choice turns to his friend Yan, whose experiences with dating have sparked a deliberation on the nature of sex.

“He says a man’s penis is like a sword. The deeper you thrust it in, the better. But I thought, ‘A sword hurts.’ He said, ‘True, but it’s like fire.’ But then where’s the pleasure?”

Jeanne is not nearly as eloquent as her son, but her dismissive response nevertheless articulates the sexual insecurity she has been stifling for years. Sylvain’s confession that he hated his father upon learning about these bodily functions as a ten-year-old verbalises that Freudian relationship between them too, giving her even greater reason to shy away from the topic despite conforming to its associated gender roles. Sex is a messy, complicated thing, and its distillation down to a simple business transaction allows her to rationalise its functionality beyond childbearing – so anything which endangers the pleasureless system she has built her life upon may very well reach the magnitude of an existential threat.

*Sex as a transaction is the easiest way for Jeanne to rationalise its functionality outside of childbearing, stripping it of pleasure and denying herself release.*

Perhaps the only thing longer than the title Jeanne Dielman, 23 quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles is the film itself, stretching out over three hours which force us to feel every passing minute. Its selection as the greatest film of all time according to the 2022 Sight and Sound list is no doubt an odd choice, but for those who deny its lack of artistic value, its lofty ranking has ironically proven to be the most common argument against it. Overrated it may be, but Akerman’s slow, laborious study of domestic anxiety is far from a failure, constructing this plotless narrative around rigorous formal patterns before incrementally eroding them with Jeanne’s psychological state.

Beginning on the afternoon of the first day and ending on the afternoon of the third, we watch every detail of her routine play out twice, with one major exception. The rendezvous she conducts with three men visiting her apartment mark the opening, midpoint, and conclusion of Jeanne Dielman, each one escalating in psychological impact and rippling out to the rest of her life. The delicate balance which Akerman cultivates in this character study attunes us to her habits, finding peace through meditative, dutiful repetition of familiar actions such as turning off the lights whenever she leaves a room.

*Extraordinary form in the repetition of shots, familiarising us with Jeanne’s dutiful routine throughout the day.*

Although Jeanne treats her home like a palace, Akerman’s drab mise-en-scène of beige tiled walls and chequered floors tells another story of soul-sucking mundanity. The film may not possess the compositional precision of Yasujirō Ozu’s domestic dramas, but Akerman is his equal in long, static shots, distantly sitting as a neutral observer while Jeanne’s movements fill the frame and often leave it altogether. The camera primarily sits at square angles relative to whichever room it occupies, rejecting the disorder of diagonal lines and maintaining Jeanne’s systematic harmony in whichever perspective we take. Outside as well, Akerman layers each shot using her full depth of field, tunnelling the sidewalk outside Jeanne’s home between buildings and parked cars, while the green park bench across the road from her apartment building sets a firm boundary between the foreground and background. Of course, there is barely a shot in Jeanne Dielman which Akerman resists calling back to either, ingraining this perfectionist’s strict regimen within the very language of the film.

*Lovely depth of field in Akerman’s tableaux, shot on location in Brussels and centring Jeanne as she walks the same sidewalks each day.*

*Defined layers of the foreground, midground, and background – each segregated in the mise-en-scène, maintaining orderly perfection.*

As a result, the first time Jeanne misses a crucial step in her routine and forgets to flick off the light switch after leaving a room, we are totally thrown. Akerman’s extratextual clarification that it was an orgasm with the second client which instigates this chaos seems a little lazy given that we never see any specific suggestion of it in the text, yet we can at least reach the conclusion that this encounter is somewhat responsible given how soon afterwards the breakdown begins. She has deeply internalised the idea that pleasure is a luxury that women are not allowed to experience, and the slightest breach of that doctrine may very well destabilise the life of tedious self-sacrifice that has been built upon it, setting off a catastrophic domino effect.

Because Jeanne must return to the bathroom and switch the light off, she accidentally lets the potatoes boil for too long, and is left wandering the house unsure where to place the pot. Eventually sitting down at the kitchen table to peel them, Delphine Seyrig’s performance shifts from mechanical indifference to silent frustration, slicing into the vegetables with harsh, aggressive motions. When Sylvain arrives home, dinner is served late, and his desire to go to bed early rather than head out for their evening walk is promptly rejected.

*Seyrig’s performance is one of subtle variations, shifting from mechanical indifference to harsh, aggressive motions as control slips from her grasp.*

*Jeanne arrives early at the store, and we must wait with her for the shutters to roll up, throwing off her perfectly timed routine.*

Unfortunately, the start of a new day doesn’t exactly bring relief for Jeanne either. When she polishes Sylvain’s shoes in the morning, her strokes are just a little too forceful, causing her to drop the brush. When she wakes him up, she accidentally turns the light on, before quickly switching it back off in a panic. At the kitchen sink, she rewashes the same dishes several times in a row, unsatisfied with her work. Even when she leaves home to buy groceries, she arrives early at one of her regular shops, and must awkwardly wait for the shutter to be rolled up. This day is even more of a disaster than the one before, leaving Jeanne scrambling to adapt to what may be considered minor inconveniences in anyone else’s life, but which to her are cataclysmic acts of violence escaping her impeccable control.

It is here where Akerman’s recurring shots begin to pay off as well, instilling remarkable form in the disintegration of Jeanne’s strict procedures. In the diner that she visits for lunch each day, she has previously been positioned in the middle of the frame – though now she enters to find a stranger sitting in her usual seat. As a result, she may no longer occupy the centre of this once-balanced composition, but rather the humiliating, undignified seat on its edge.

Theme and variation in repeated shots – we expect to see Jeanne take her preferred place centre frame in this diner, so the discovery that another customer has taken her seat literally pushes her to the edge.

When the culmination of Jeanne’s frustration intersects with the arrival of her third client, Akerman no longer even cuts away from the intercourse as she writhes and struggles beneath him, holding on one of the few standalone shots that isn’t doubled anywhere else. Is this an assault, we wonder, or another orgasm, provoking intense discomfort as she tries to rid herself of this forbidden pleasure? Either way, her reaction is the most visceral we have seen from her at any point – not that it holds this distinction for long. The following shot catches the reverse angle in the dresser mirror, dissociating Jeanne from herself as she rises from the bed, retrieves a pair of scissors, and stabs the man in his throat.

*The only time we watch a scene play out in a mirror is the climactic murder, as if to dissociate Jeanne from her own actions.*

The dam was bound to break eventually, but never do we expect it to happen so violently, shattering the illusions of mundanity which conceal Jeanne’s mounting aggravation. Is this her escape from a limbo of domestic servitude? Is she trying to conquer an inconsistent world which has undermined her need for absolute control, or does the object of her forceful suppression lie within, secretly longing for pleasure? As Akerman’s final shot hangs on her at the dinner table, blood staining her blouse and hands, an ambiguous, peaceful smile makes its way across her face. Perhaps not even she has the words to express the gratification she has discovered, but with the boulder wilfully released from the top of the mountain, it is clear that this lonely, fastidious homemaker will never have to trek that torturous Sisyphean journey again.

*Jeanne relinquishes control and accepts whatever comes next, escaping her eternal, Sisyphean punishment.*

Jeanne Dielman, 23 quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles is currently streaming on The Criterion Channel.

Carrie (1976)

Brian de Palma | 1hr 38min

Adolescence is a painfully awkward time for the best of us, magnifying every embarrassing blunder under the scrutiny of unforgiving teenagers looking to distract from their own insecurities. We can barely understand the physiological changes taking place in our bodies, let alone our minds, rapidly transforming us into stronger, more complex versions of ourselves. As such, it is a lethal combination of hormones, repression, and psychological torment which bubbles up inside high school student Carrie White, who can barely catch a break between her bullies and fanatically religious mother. Coming of age is quite literally a horror show, so when those caught in the thick of it are belittled and terrorised, not everyone is going to make it out alive.

Our protagonist’s burgeoning supernatural powers are but a mere footnote in Carrie’s opening scene, though Brian de Palma does not treat the traumatic fallout around her first period with any less terror for it. Pino Donaggio’s piano, strings, and flute wring out a mournful melody as the camera floats in slow-motion through the fogged-up locker room where she showers, and close-ups linger on her bare skin as blood begins to cascade down her legs. “Plug it up!” the other girls viciously taunt as they throw tampons and towels at her, amused by her panic. Suddenly, a light bursts overhead, and Donaggio’s score recalls the stabbing strings from Psycho for the first of many times. De Palma may famously be characterised as the Hitchcock imitator, but clearly this influence extends to his pick of creative collaborators as well.

*De Palma’s camera floats in slow-motion through the fogged-up locker room where Carrie’s first period strikes – coming of age is a literal horror show for this teenage girl.*

*Religious oppressions hangs over Carrie in this shot, shoving down her rage and shame.*

Carrie evidently finds no solace at home either. It was sin that brought on Carrie’s period, her mother chastises, refusing to educate her any further. To atone, she must be locked in the “prayer closet”, a claustrophobic space lit by a single candle and adorned with a grotesque, white-eyed icon of Saint Sebastian. Of course though, abuse does little to quell the dissent growing inside. Rather the opposite in fact, as her repressed anger continues to feed uncontrollable, telekinetic outbursts, vibrating an ash tray in the principal’s office and throwing a kid off his bike for calling her names.

*Forced to pray to a grotesque icon of Saint Sebastian in the claustrophobic prayer room – magnificent imagery literally bottling up Carrie’s emotions.*

Even in these heated moments though, Sissy Spacek maintains a wounded vulnerability in her performance, revealing the shame and distress from which this teenager’s dark impulses emerge. She is isolated in de Palma’s blocking, yet through the deep focus of his split diopter lenses, intricate relationships are developed with the few characters who have some sympathy for her. Perhaps most prominent among these is fellow classmate Tommy, whose poem in English class draws mockery from everyone but her. “It’s beautiful,” she mutters under her breath, her face turned down in the background while his is pressed close to the lens in humiliation. With some encouragement from his girlfriend Sue as well, Tommy resolves to ask Carrie to the prom – and for a fleeting moment in her tragic life, her future starts to look bright.

*Isolation and connection in de Palma’s trademark split diopter shots, making for some tremendously blocked compositions.*

Not that her mother would ever understand the emotional and social needs of a lonely teenage girl. A thunderstorm rages outside as the two sit down to eat dinner on prom night, gloomily mirroring The Last Supper mural which looms behind them and foreshadows their own impending fates. Finally recognising her own power, she disregards her mother’s orders for the first time, pinning her to the bed and departing for what she is certain will be the happiest night of her life.

*The Last Supper mural makes for an ominous backdrop to another last supper between mother and daughter, foreshadowing the imminent tragedy.*

Right from the moment we enter the gymnasium of red and blue lights, de Palma wields spectacular control over every cinematic element at his disposal, mounting suspense in long, delicately choreographed takes. Drifting above the crowd in a crane shot, the camera finds its way to a naïvely optimistic Carrie, and dreamily circles her and Tommy from a low angle as they begin to dance. While she is contained in her own blissful bubble though, believing they have both been nominated for Prom King and Queen, we also trace her bullies putting their plan to humiliate her into action. A tracking shot follows Norma swapping out real ballots for fake ones, before catching a glimpse of Chris and Billy hiding beneath the stage. With the dramatic irony laid on thick, we finally follow streamers to an overhead shot from the rafters, where a bucket of pig’s blood fatefully awaits its victim.

*Red and blue lighting in the school gymnasium, setting up the all-American innocence soon to be corrupted.*

*De Palma is a Hitchcock acolyte through and through, tracking the camera along the streamers leading to the pig’s blood atop the stage – horrifying suspense leading into disaster.*

Hearing her name read out as Prom Queen seems almost too good to be true for Carrie, though who is she to question this unbelievable stroke of fortune? Heavenly strings and a dazzling white light accompany her as she approaches the stage, beaming a wide smile that feels almost foreign on her face, yet de Palma’s editing only ramps up the tension with its incredible slow-motion. The tone of Donaggio’s score continues to shift as we alternate between her ecstatic ignorance and the dread-stricken people around her realising that something is very wrong – not that any are quick enough to prevent the inevitable toppling of the bucket and her short-lived euphoria.

*Angelic naivety, fleeting yet ecstatic as these final seconds of innocence are drawn out in slow-motion.*

Just as blood ushered in the beginning of Carrie’s metamorphosis, it now completely douses her as she reaches her final, terrifying form. Whether menstrual or pig’s, it is a symbol of both evolution and suffering, inextricably bound together here as something inside her snaps. While many in the school gymnasium can only stare in silent pity, through her point-of-view we see them laughing as distorted hallucinations, and Spacek’s eyes widen in cold, merciless fury. The timid young girl is gone, and in her place stands a monster, refusing to distinguish between ally and foe. Everyone has their inner darkness, but while Carrie’s abusers have freely shown theirs to the world, an unimaginably crueller abomination within her has been raised, repressed, and finally released.

*An outstanding performance from Sissy Spacek as something inside snaps, her eyes widening in cold, merciless fury.*

*Split diopter shots give way to split screens as chaos reigns in Carrie’s massacre.*

Split screens sharply divide the frame in two as she telekinetically slams the doors shut, piercing the audience’s defences with her unforgiving gaze on one side, and the other revealing her frightened victims. With a flick of her head, the stage lights bathe her in a hellish red wash, and the massacre begins. No longer do her powers lash out on impulse – now she wields them with perfect command, purposefully seeking to inflict as much harm as possible by turning the firehose on students, electrocuting the school principal, and crushing the only teacher who ever tried to help her beneath the basketball backboard. Silhouetted against a blazing fire, she strikes the image of a demonic queen in her blood-stained gown, and begins to walk in slow, stiff motions off the stage.

*The gymnasium drenched in bloody red lighting, trapping staff and students alike in Carrie’s personal torture chamber.*

*A demonic monster is born, silhouetted against the blazing fire which consumes every living soul in its path.*

Although Carrie returns home, the nightmare is not yet over. As if preparing a ritual exorcism, her mother has lit the house with candles, though her entire demeanour seems drastically different. No longer the priggish disciplinarian, she confesses to the abuse she suffered at the hands of her late husband, the guilt she felt for her perverse pleasure, and the drunken rape which led to Carrie’s conception. Her daughter is the product of sin, she reasons, and though her logic is harsh, it is somewhat adjacent to the truth. More accurately, Carrie is the product of abuse, raised in a loveless home and carelessly twisted into violent killer.

*Carrie’s mother poetically perishes in the same pose as the icon of Saint Sebastian, pierced with knives.*

That Carrie’s mother should perish in a pose that mimics the unsettling Saint Sebastian figurine is a perfectly ironic end for this supposed martyr. Pierced with knives, she hangs in an open doorway, suffering the consequences of her neglectful parenting. Still burdened by a self-loathing conscience, Carrie is close to follow her into the darkness as well, collapsing the entire house and ending her rampage with herself as the final victim. The jump scare that de Palma sneaks into the final scene not only haunts the prom night’s sole survivor, but also points to the skewed legacy left in her wake. Carrie is not to be remembered in this town as a victim of immense tragedy, or a teenager struggling to comprehend strange physiological changes. She is a ghost who lives on in nightmares, whispered between neighbours as a local legend, and exacting the trauma she once suffered back on the world a thousandfold and more.

*Carrie’s legacy in this town is that of a monster, haunting nightmares as an undead creature never truly put to rest.*

Carrie is currently streaming on Stan and Amazon Prime Video, and is available to rent or buy on Apple TV, YouTube, and Amazon Video.

Last Tango in Paris (1972)

Bernardo Bertolucci | 2hr 9min

This review discusses themes of sexual violence, emotional abuse, and the ethical controversies surrounding the production of Last Tango in Paris. It includes references to the mistreatment of actress Maria Schneider and the lasting psychological impact of the filming process. Reader discretion is advised.

After encountering each other in an empty Parisian apartment through pure happenstance, it doesn’t take long for grieving widower Paul and young actress Jeanne to begin their impromptu, passionate affair. The residence is currently for lease, and although both are interested in renting it for themselves, there is no bitter competition in their initial exchange – merely small talk about the fireplace, potential furnishings, and the old-fashioned architecture. Before either knows what is happening though, he is picking her up in his arms, and they are making animalistic love against the window. As their relationship progresses throughout Last Tango in Paris, their sex takes on more sensual dimensions, though this is far from the last time we will see it devolve into an act of crude, carnal instinct.

This entire affair hinges on a single rule, Paul declares: to maintain an ongoing emotional detachment, neither are to divulge a single personal detail about themselves to the other, including their own names. When they are together, their identities are stripped away, as are the expectations and norms of society. For Jeanne, this means a break from her frustrating engagement to Thomas, an aspiring filmmaker who often treats her more as an object of his art than a romantic partner. For Paul on the other hand, it runs much deeper. This is a man whose is deeply aggrieved by the suicide of his wife Rosa, and now seeks an outlet for emotions that he cannot fully understand or control. Within this apartment, there is no need to mull over the despair that has clouded his mind with self-loathing. Here he is in total control of his connection to another human, and free to indulge his most disturbing impulses.

*A random encounter between strangers explodes with sudden sexual passion, establishing this apartment as their own bubble within a complicated world.*

Of course, it is plain to see how this anonymous affair is far more an escapist fantasy than it is a path to healing, and Bernardo Bertolucci’s character study is unafraid to plunge the thorny depths of such a paradoxical arrangement. What Paul and Jeanne effectively establish here is a form of intimate disassociation, embracing each other’s bodies while neglecting everything else. As he grows more possessive, his dirty talk veers perversely into bestiality and necrophilia, though this debauchery seems to stem more from unresolved anger than lustful desire. The moment he truly crosses the line also happens to be the point that Bertolucci did the same during production, and there is no brushing past the abject inhumanity of what both he and Marlon Brando submitted actress Marie Schneider to here.

Art may be the purest distillation of its creator’s soul, yet as is the case in Last Tango in Paris, it can also be so horrifyingly effective that we are compelled to look away from the malevolence revealed. As a portrait of emotional and sexual abuse, Bertolucci’s film is incredibly powerful, but it is no coincidence either that it comes from someone who is responsible for the same trauma he is depicting. Reasoning that an authentic performance was worth letting his actress suffer, he did not inform Schneider that Brando would be lubricating her with butter before filming a rape scene. Consequently, he only succeeded in revealing his disregard for Schneider’s ability as an actress, and implicating himself as the hypocritical target of his own criticism.

That Schneider would continue to live with the psychological consequences of this assault for the rest of her life while Bertolucci and Brando showed little remorse only complicates the legacy of this scene further. As such, a damning parallel emerges between Bertolucci and the character of Paul, seeing both use artificial constructs of identity as self-expression while holding no regard for the emotional toll being imposed on others. For better or worse, art lays bare humanity’s extremes, and Last Tango in Paris is no exception in leaving us to grapple with its flaws and contradictions.

*Animal instinct is unleashed, free from the confines of civility and decorum.*

There is certainly no denying the excruciating vividness of such an introspective study either, prodding at open wounds in Paul’s psyche that refuse to heal and provoke guttural manifestations of inner torment. While Brando sordidly adopts an almost bestial physicality in these moments of primal release, he also displays an eloquent vulnerability through his monologues, delivering one of his finest scenes at the viewing of Rosa’s body. It is impossible for him to separate the love, grief, and vitriolic anger that he harbours, and so here they all chaotically burst out at once, pouring slurs, tears, and apologies over her open casket.

“Our marriage was nothing more than a foxhole for you. And all it took for you to get out was a 35-cent razor and a tub full of water. You cheap goddamn fucking godforsaken whore, I hope you rot in hell. You’re worse than the dirtiest street pig anybody could ever find anywhere.”

*A powerhouse performance from Brando as he unleashes his pain, love, and anger at his wife’s dead body, unable to distinguish between his conflicting emotions.*

As such, it makes sense that Jeanne represents a blank beacon of innocence who he can map Rosa’s identity onto, as well as a target of his overbearing love and abuse who doesn’t ask for explanations. Reduced to this state of vulnerability, she claims to feel like a child again in his arms, and the two exhibit a light playfulness when they make up gibberish names for themselves. Even the apartment that hosts their affair and which Paul never quite finishes moving into embodies this nondescript purity, forcing them to lounge around on the floor in the absence of furniture.

*The full-length mirror that lazily leans against the wall makes for some superb compositions, splitting them between isolated frames.*

Nevertheless, Bertolucci works stylistic wonders with such a sparsely decorated setting, drawing on cinematographer Vittorio Storaro’s talents to insulate these lovers within their own private world. When they aren’t wrapped up in a tangle of limbs, doorways and windows often become visual dividers, physically separating them within the shared space. The full-length mirror that lazily leans against the wall also makes for some superb compositions, splitting them between isolated frames, while the frosted glass of the reception area underscores their mutual anonymity by blurring their faces into impressionistic watercolours.

*Vittorio Storaro’s photography uses the barriers and lighting of the environment to illustrate Paul and Jeanne’s relationship as they simultaneously grow closer and further apart.*

*Frosted glass blurs the faces of our two leads, rendering their identities anonymous.*

There is no doubt a romantic warmth to Storaro’s lighting of the apartment as well, filtering in through the white, translucent drapes hanging from the windows, yet it never quite escapes the melancholy of its soft brown hues and shadows. As much as Paul seeks to separate the outlet for his emotions from the source, the two are deeply intertwined, and eventually drive Jeanne away altogether as she begins to grasp the true depravity of their arrangement.

*United in a tangle of limbs, just slightly silhouetted against the translucent white drapes in the background.*

*In his excellent use of low-key lighting, Storaro borrows a little from Gordon Willis, the Prince of Darkness.*

Not that this deters Paul from trying to win her back, and even give up the mask of anonymity which he once so passionately preserved. Quite fittingly, he does not seek to lure her back to his apartment where privacy is guaranteed, but instead sets a public tango bar as the location for their attempted reconciliation. There, Bertolucci’s camera floats across the dance floor where a competition is underway, illuminated by spherical lights hanging from the ceiling and forming a starry backdrop to Paul’s confession of love – not that Jeanne is necessarily ready to start a relationship with this man who she is only really getting to know now.

The tango bar is a gorgeous set piece for the attempted reconciliation between Paul and Jeanne, illuminated by these round lights suspended over the dance floor, and navigated with floating camerawork.

The push and pull of conflicting emotions in this exchange is symbolically mirrored in the tango it is intercut with, seeing feet sweep in long arches and stamp on short, staccato beats. Perhaps an even more authentic reflection of Paul and Jeanne’s relationship though arrives when they decide to spontaneously join in, horrifying their fellow patrons with an obscene, rhythmless dance of twisting, flopping, and strutting around. In essence, this act is simply another unfiltered eruption of emotions not unlike their lovemaking, though one which they can finally perform in the open without shame.

*Mirrors and backlighting as Paul chases Jeanne back to her apartment – an excellent use of rigid lines and angles in the architecture.*

Still, just because two people have bared their souls to each other does not mean that they are compatible. Where the much-younger Jeanne is ready to leave this part of her life in the past and marry Thomas, Paul clings desperately to what he believes is a sustainable love, even chasing her down the street and back to her apartment. “I want to know your name,” he begs as he strokes her hair, though Jeanne’s response is double-edged, coinciding her verbal answer with a gunshot to his chest.

Maybe Paul genuinely thought he had a chance of starting a new life with Jeanne, though going by the resigned expression on his face as he stumbles out onto the balcony, it seems more likely that he always expected an early grave next to his wife. We do not witness the exact moment that life leaves him, but instead Bertolucci slowly tracks backwards from the city view to reveal his crumpled body, and further into the apartment where a dazed Jeanne begins rehearsing her lines for the police.

“I don’t know who he is. He followed me in the street. He tried to rape me. He’s a lunatic. I don’t know what he’s called. I don’t know his name.”

No one alive knows Paul like Jeanne does, and yet at the same time she isn’t entirely lying. Paul was unknowable, not only to her, but even to himself. To cast damning judgements on others is easy, but as Bertolucci so eloquently illustrates in the warped power dynamic of Last Tango in Paris, examining one’s own psychological torment is a far more dangerously frightening undertaking.

*Bertolucci’s camera floats backwards from the skyline, past Paul’s crumpled body, and into a close-up of Jeanne as she rehearses her statement to the police – a stunning final shot.*

Last Tango in Paris is currently available to rent or buy on YouTube.

The Passenger (1975)

Michelangelo Antonioni | 2hr 6min

Television journalist David Locke doesn’t know much about fellow hotel guest Robertson, but based on their limited conversations, it appears that he is joyfully liberated from the burdensome responsibilities that so many carry in modern society. “No family, no friends. Just a few commitments,” the mysterious Englishman shares in their first meeting. “I take life as it comes.” Now as Locke finds his new friend’s body lying cold in his room, he does what any man seeking to escape an unfaithful wife and unsatisfying job would do. This is his opportunity to make a clean break from his dull, disappointing life, reporting the death as his own and adopting Robertson’s identity.

In this moment, Michelangelo Antonioni plays a familiar trick of discontinuity that he had previously experimented with in L’Eclisse and Blow-Up, though in The Passenger it is his camera movement rather than editing which shifts our perception of reality. As Locke forges a new passport, an audiotape recording of his and Robertson’s first meeting plays over the top, and we slowly pan towards the balcony where the voiceovers imperceptibly transition into a live flashback. When their discussion begins to wrap up, Antonioni similarly drifts the camera across the room back into the present day, effectively eroding the boundaries of time and identity which have long been missing in Locke’s life. Perhaps becoming an entirely different person is the key to finding that purpose he has never known, our protagonist resolves, and thus he sets out on a globetrotting journey meeting all of Robertson’s scheduled engagements.

*Locke stares down at the dead man whose identity he wishes to claim, resolving to start a new life.*

*Camera movement plays an unusually important role for Antonioni, erasing boundaries between past and present as it floats into this flashback…*

The Passenger’s scope is immense, spanning multiple countries across Europe and Africa which each hold some sort of clue to Robertson’s actual identity. This narrative might conceivably sound like a mix between Alfred Hitchcock and The Talented Mr. Ripley, though Antonioni is not so concerned with the meticulous plotting of its mystery, instead framing Locke as a man aimlessly wandering both a literal and figurative desert. This is where we meet him after all, not long before he is abandoned by his guides and gets his Land Rover stuck in a dune. He can scream at the sky all he likes, but that simply drives him to the point of exhaustion, collapsing him against the car as Antonioni’s camera despairingly pans across the Sahara’s vast, flat expanse.

*Locke wanders a literal and figurative desert, searching for purpose in a world that simply drives him to exhaustion.*

There are no manmade structures bearing down on Locke in this environment, and no busy crowds to stifle his expressions of anguish. Even when Antonioni does introduce magnificent architectural marvels into his mise-en-scène though, these aren’t the giant, oppressive monuments of his previous films, subjugating characters to a harsh, modern civilisation. Locke is not dominated by his surroundings, but lost in them, drifting through scenes set against vast backdrops of apartment buildings, cultural landmarks, and abstract public artworks. Somewhat ironically, this is also the sort of freedom that he relishes, every so often taking the time to appreciate this newfound independence. Leaning out of a cable car spanning a channel of water, he stretches his arms wide open, and he almost seems to fly as an overhead shot revels in his liberation.

*One cinema’s great overhead shots as Nicholson leans out of a cable car, and for a brief moment seems to fly across the water.*

*Architectural marvels impose bold shapes and patterns on Locke’s environment.*

Negative space is key to Antonioni’s compositions here, underscoring the emptiness which encompasses both urban and rural locations, though he often fills them in with textures that project Locke’s mental state onto the world. His outfit almost blends in with the white-washed plaster walls and green shrubs of a rustic Spanish settlement, and when he begins to realise that his wife Rachel has sent a television producer to track him down, his fragmented psyche manifests in a mosaic sculpture decorated with jagged ceramic shards.

*Matching colours between Locke’s costume and surroundings, both bleeding into each other.*

*Negative space filled with gorgeous textures, underscoring the emptiness which encompasses our protagonist at every turn.*

*Locke’s fragmented psyche manifests in this mosaic sculpture decorated with jagged ceramic shards.*

Without any clear boundaries defining these eclectic settings, the tension between Locke’s desire for both freedom and purpose sits at the heart of his inner conflict. To unite the two, he must effectively design his own labyrinth of winding paths and dead ends – and now that he has officially taken Robertson’s identity, what better artefact is there to arbitrarily craft it from than the dead man’s diary? Not even he knows what this itinerary might lead to, though it is surely more enticing a prospect than returning to the wife, house, and job that he has grown so disillusioned with.

*Antonioni traps Nicholson in a modern labyrinth of winding paths and dead ends.*

*Modern structures rise up from concrete, forming the basis of Antonioni’s long shots and world building.*

Jack Nicholson is sublime in his navigation of this quest, turning in his bombastic screen persona for a subdued uncertainty that pairs nicely with Maria Schneider’s gentle encouragement, spurring him on as a loyal companion. With no name given to her other than the Girl, her identity is kept vague enough to become whatever Locke needs in any given moment. It is fitting that he should introduce her as an architecture student as well, displaying an intellectual appreciation and understanding of their environments, even if she can’t always directly assist him. He alone must be the one to pave his path forward, discovering what it means to a live a life on his own terms.

The danger that comes with this unfettered independence is simply a part of the deal, Locke reasons, but there are certainly caveats here he would rather dismiss. When he learns of Robertson’s profession as a black-market arms dealer, he does not retreat to the comfortable confinements of his old life, but instead maintains the belief that he can keep outrunning trouble before it catches up to him. With both Rachel and a militant guerrilla movement on his tail though, each believing they are looking for Robertson, it is evident that the consequences of his decisions are inevitable – and perhaps there is a subtle recognition of this in his final monologue to the Girl as they lay down together in a rural Spanish hotel.

*It is fitting that Locke’s love interest should be an architecture student, their first meeting taking place in this grand cathedral loaded with history and culture.*

In the story Locke tells, the joy that a blind man found in regaining his sight was quickly dashed upon realising that “the world was much poorer than he imagined.” It doesn’t take a great imagination to recognise him framing himself in this allegory of existential suffering. The darkness that once consumed them both at least concealed the truth of life’s ugliness, and in the blind man’s case, suicide was tragically the only escape.

This is not the end that Locke is destined for in the final minutes of The Passenger, though his listless resignation to an early grave certainly aligns their respective deaths. The 7-minute long take which skirts around the edges of this incident formally caps off the wandering camerawork that has pervaded the film, and perhaps even stakes its claim as the strongest single shot of Antonioni’s career, divorcing us from Locke’s perspective as he lays down in his hotel room. With only his legs in frame, we peer across the bed at the window grills, opening onto the bright, dusty courtyard where each plot thread converges at once.

*A 7-minute long take, and perhaps the finest shot of Antonioni’s career, beginning with a slow creep forward past Locke in his hotel.*

*The camera approaches the window grills and slyly slips through, seemingly defying the laws of physics.*

*The camera floats around the dusty courtyard as narrative threads collide.*

As the Girl lingers in hesitation over whether to leave, the African assassin who has been right behind Locke for some time arrives, and Rachel arrives in a police car a couple of minutes later. Drifting forward ever so slightly, Antonioni’s camera frames everything perfectly between the iron bars, before it squeezes through the narrow opening and emerges outside. Antonioni’s nifty manipulation of the set in this moment lifts us beyond Locke’s subjective perspective, effectively defying physics as we take on the role of an invisible, neutral observer wandering the scene, and patiently wait for Locke’s inevitable collision with his pursuers.

Like our protagonist, we are but passengers on this journey, fluidly taking the point-of-view of whatever character we are positioned to identify with. There is an entire world beyond Locke’s solipsistic journey, but only now as the camera circles back on the building to look through the window from the other side do we view him within alternative contexts that he was blind to. Little did he realise when stealing Robertson’s identity that he was also adopting his fated demise, and the aftermath as well reveals a complicated legacy in his wake. “Do you recognise him?” the police officer asks Rachel, whose response in finding her lifeless husband rather than Robertson is layered with profound disbelief.

“I never knew him.”

*The camera turns back around to look in at the hotel room from the outside, revealing Locke’s body as his wife arrives a few minutes too late.*

Given the identical position of Locke’s body from when we last saw it, we can infer that there was little struggle when the assassin entered the room. That The Passenger should conclude not with this though, but rather a far simpler shot of the Girl departing the hotel at dusk only underscores his total irrelevance in a world that keeps moving on, fading his strange, fruitless bolt for freedom into the milieu. Antonioni does not seek to overwhelm us with grief here – that would be far too straightforward in its clear distinction between life and death. Like Locke, we must confront the desolate, senseless banality of the emptiness, and continue living with it long past his consciousness is granted a merciful release.

The Passenger is not currently streaming in Australia.

Two English Girls (1971)

François Truffaut | 2hr 10min

The first time François Truffaut adapted the young adult literature of Henri-Pierre Roché on film, he shook up the entire artform with Jules and Jim, telling the story of two male friends who fall for the same woman. When he directed Two English Girls nine years later, the love triangle which forms between aspiring French writer Claude and English sisters Muriel and Ann bore extraordinarily close resemblance to its gender-swapped counterpart, though it is evident that this is no accident. Much like Roché himself, Claude distils the romantic experiences of his youth into a semi-autobiographic novel pointedly titled ‘Jerome and Julien’, trying to heal his broken heart through artistic self-expression.

*An incredible accomplishment of mise-en-scène for Truffaut, working wonders with the colours and textures of 1900s Europe.*

Once again, Truffaut makes Roché’s work his own in Two English Girls, casting himself as our omniscient narrator. Through this voiceover he lifts passages directly from the source material, imbuing Two English Girls with a literary quality that probes the interior thoughts of his characters, and condensing lengthy conversations into prosaic summaries. Particularly in the early days of Claude and the Brown sisters’ burgeoning friendship, the rhetoric devices that Truffaut attaches to their leisurely adventures tenderly defines each individual in relation to the others, while uniting them as a whole under self-reflective similes.

“They stopped to gaze at a waterfall. They agreed that the upper smooth falls were like Ann, the turbulent splashes were like Claude, and the calm pool beneath like Muriel.”

Truffaut’s voiceover is not alone though, as letters and diary entries written by our three leads are often expressed in this pensive form too, while on a couple of occasions he even cuts to them directly addressing the camera. “Your ironic raised eyebrow, your face when you laugh, are etched inside me,” Claude romantically writes with Muriel on his mind.

“Each day is a new step. I imagine you as my wife, raising a child in our home. This vision enthrals me.”

*The ocean and house become scenic backdrops from high angles, basking in the green, rugged coast of Wales.*

These days spent in the Browns’ seaside cottage atop the craggy, green cliffs of Wales may be the most joyful of their lives, held up as a vision of youthful bliss by Néstor Almendros’ ravishing cinematography. Truffaut often frames their interactions outside the house from a high angle, turning the ocean into a serene backdrop, and the lush gardens into a fertile paradise. There, Ann finds immense inspiration for her oil paintings, while Muriel is given the time and space to soothe her damaged eyes. The 1900s period décor that adorns the interiors here are equally handsome, especially in Truffaut’s use of bright blue, mottled wallpaper that sets an oceanic contrast against the harsh red walls of Claude’s home back in France.

*Oceanic blue wallpaper in Wales, offering a soothing respite from Paris.*

*Blazing red backdrops at Claude’s home in France – locations defined by colour palettes.*

With both Muriel and Claude’s mothers objecting to their proposed matrimony, Paris is where he inevitably returns, abiding by their deal that the two lovers may marry if they are able to spend a year apart from each other. While Muriel yearns for her fiancé back home though, it unfortunately doesn’t take long for Claude to fall into bohemian circles and promiscuous affairs, eventually driving him to eschew all romantic commitments so that he may focus on his career as a writer.

This might almost end their connection altogether were it not for Ann’s visit to Paris some time later as a successful painter, thus beginning a new relationship – at least until she heads off to Persia with another man. Over the following years, the two sisters’ irregular visits to the French city keep Claude in a constant state of turbulence, cycling between the outgoing, adventurous Ann and the quiet, sensitive Muriel.

*Quaint iris transitions close out chapters in these characters lives, calling back to silent cinema.*

*Gentle long dissolves between scenes, bringing a lyrical quality to Truffaut’s storytelling.*

Though Two English Girls spans almost a decade of these characters’ lives, Truffaut does not rush his narrative, but much rather prefers to savour each individual encounter before skipping ahead in time. In the absence of literary chapters, his elliptical editing frequently bridges scenes in gentle fades to black, while closing out episodes in their lives with iris transitions calling back to cinema’s silent era. The playful energy that these bring is distinctly set apart from the melodramas of Truffaut’s classical Hollywood precursors, especially given his light-hearted indulgence in his characters’ sexual exploits, though he has certainly at least taken on their influence in his picturesque recreation of 1900s Europe.

*Ann’s art studio is a bohemian mess of paintings, sculptures, and art supplies laying around the room.*

*Claude and Ann consummate their relationship during a brief escape to a lakeside cabin – a picturesque, nostalgic paradise.*

Ann’s art studio which she sets up in Paris is a highlight of bohemian production design, its rough sketches, relief sculptures, and messy array of supplies curiously studied by Truffaut’s floating camera, while the cabin that she and Claude stay in by a lake makes a gorgeous setting for the consummation of their relationship. Elsewhere, Muriel’s most beautiful scenes keep her at a lonely distance, seeing her write broken-hearted diary entries from behind a rain-glazed window and super-imposing her face over passing country views outside a train. The love that Claude holds for both women cannot be compared, though Truffaut elevates them equally in his protagonist’s eyes, even as their desires and insecurities frequently escape his efforts to keep one or the other by his side.

*Muriel is kept at a lonely distance behind rain-glazed windows as she writes broken-hearted diary entries.*

*Muriel reads her letter to Claude, her face superimposed against the passing countryside view from a train as Truffaut visually infuses her monologue with passion and vigour.*

That Claude is still single fifteen years later in the epilogue of Two English Girls reveals just how deeply both women scarred his heart, with an ailing Ann eventually passing away and Muriel deciding that he could never be a father to her children. “We only recognise happiness in hindsight,” she once wrote, and now as he observes a group of young English girls playing in Paris, it is apparent that these words have stuck in his mind. Perhaps if there is one who bears resemblance to Muriel, then it could be her daughter, returning a trace of her mother and aunt’s essence to the streets of their youth. As far as Truffaut is concerned though, these are simply the musings of a middle-aged man who only chased after real love when it was too late, now left to mourn the memories of two beautiful women who disappeared with his heart into the ether.

*Truffaut leaves us on an ambiguous note, denying the resolution that Claude seeks as he wonders if a remnant of his treasured memories still lingers somewhere in the world.*

Two English Girls is currently streaming on The Criterion Channel, and is available to purchase from Amazon.

My Little Loves (1974)

Jean Eustache | 2hr 3min

Life is not measured by months or seasons during the year that Daniel spends with his estranged mother in Narbonne, but rather by memories drifting by in their own timeless dimension. “How long were we there? Two hours? More?” his voiceover ponders while lying next to Françoise in the long, dry grass after their first kiss, grasping at however many minutes they have left together. It is only now as he approaches the date marking his return to his hometown of Pessac that time becomes a tangible limitation in My Little Loves, threatening to halt his emergence into adolescence. How could his old childhood friends possibly understand all that he has experienced in Narbonne, and the dauntingly seductive glimpse of adulthood that has been endowed upon him?

Through the nostalgic, mundane minutia that Jean Eustache composes in My Little Loves, Daniel’s self-discovery gradually unfolds. He is a quiet observer of the world who learns through imitation, reflects its lessons back into society, and hopes to gain some admiration from his peers along the way. Before moving away from his hometown, this takes the innocent form of a magic trick he picked up from a travelling daredevil act, yet when he surrounds himself with the older boys in Narbonne his influences become far more adult orientated. At the local cinema where teenagers go to make out, Daniel uses the moves being performed by his peers and the actors onscreen to crack onto a girl sitting in front of him, before quickly leaving once he has successfully procured a kiss.

Delicate detail in the character building as Daniel recreates the daredevil act he watched at the circus. He is a quiet observer of the world who learns through imitation, reflects its lessons back into society, and hopes to gain some admiration from his peers along the way.

*Similarities to Eric Rohmer in the light narrative pacing and window shots of My Little Loves, framing Daniel through his bedroom window against long, dry grass as he leaves for school.*

Although this film takes a far brighter, more languid tone than the highly verbose character study of The Mother and the Whore, Eustache’s admiration of François Truffaut’s avant-garde storytelling remains just as present. Much like The 400 Blows, My Little Loves dedicates its realism to the study of a boy on the verge of adolescence, grappling with the expectations of a restrictive society while seeking to understand his own nascent masculinity.

Quite dominant in this struggle is Daniel’s thirst for an academic education that his mother cannot afford, with his only lessons now coming from the moped repair shop where he is forced to work. The brown wall of tools become a recurring backdrop to his wasted days here, leaving the regular passersby glimpsed outside the window as his only entertainment – a woman who consistently visits the same corner to kiss different men, for instance, and a young mother who frequently strolls by with her pram. Daniel falls asleep thinking about her, his voiceover divulges, as Eustache frames her in a dreamy vignette effect that seems right out of Truffaut’s playbook.

*The brown wall of tools become a recurring backdrop to Daniel’s wasted days at the moped repair shop, far from the liveliness of the schoolyard that he longs for.*

*Traces of Truffaut in the avant-garde iris shots, dreamily narrowing in on the woman who passes by the shop each day and catches his eye.*

Very gradually, this repetition of familiar elements develops a mundane, formal rhythm in My Little Loves, aided by the elliptical fades to black between scenes. Daniel’s matter-of-fact voiceover does not dwell too long on sentiment or poetry, but rather offers a reflective, Bressonian distance from his emotions, which even he frequently struggles to comprehend. There is no reason to rush into adulthood at his age, and so there is equally no need for Eustache to artificially raise the stakes with disingenuous plot contrivances. Character tension emerges organically as Daniel tentatively wades through uncertain waters, choosing to remain silent when a pair of customers complain about today’s youth, while elsewhere letting his actions speak loudly by stealing back his crush Françoise from his more audacious friends.

*Parallel blocking along these rural roads, mirroring romance across children and teenagers.*

*Strong depth of field as Daniel and his new friends eye off the girls approaching them down the street, framed perfectly in the dead centre of the shot.*

This film evidently forms a crucial link between The 400 Blows and Richard Linklater’s plotless coming-of-age films some decades later, though within that cinematic lineage as well is Eustache’s contemporary, Eric Rohmer. There is an affinity between the colour photography of his post-New Wave work and the visual warmth of My Little Loves, giving each shot the impression of an old, faded photograph taken in the heat of a French summer. Their penchant for composing stylistic frames through windows and doorways further links both auteurs too, even if Eustache is clearly far more comfortable directing less talkative protagonists than Rohmer, often letting dialogue drop away to dwell on the picturesque scenery of Pessac and Narbonne. Tree-lined walkways bisect lush parks and rural roads run next to dry, yellow fields, hosting Daniel’s wandering journeys as he bikes and ambles through landscapes handsomely shot by Rohmer’s regular cinematographer, Néstor Almendros.

*Painterly long shots revealing the town of Narbonne where Eustache sets and shoots his film, dwelling in the park, streets, and shops.*

*Eustache infuses his exteriors with a summery warmth, lazily drifting days by as Daniel rides bikes with his older friends.*

Eustache’s camera is also notably freer than Rohmer’s, mostly tracing the movements of his actors through scenes, while only moving on its accord in two prominent instances. After briefly capturing Daniel lying in bed at his grandmother’s Pessac home in the film’s very first shot, a graphic match cut fades into the next morning, the bed now empty and unmade. Very gradually, it drifts past the patterned wallpaper to an open window, before cutting again to his dresser where it tracks across a small collection of framed black-and-white photos, a carved figurine, and a small painted chest. The motion is not directly attached to any character, but rather reveals the nature of Daniel’s living situation before we properly meet him – this is a child living in the home of an old woman, drastically contrasting against the dark, cramped apartment he will soon occupy in Narbonne.

*Eustache’s opening shot fades to black, before fading back into the empty bed in the morning.*

*A series of simple, elegant camera moves setting the scene – this is not a family’s house, but carries the musty, old-fashioned warmth of a grandmother’s cottage.*

If Eustache’s meandering narrative can be said to have a climax, then the second unmotivated camera movement worth noting in My Little Loves delicately builds it around the kiss shared between Daniel and Françoise, letting us slowly orbit them as they freeze in their romantic embrace. For Daniel, this is the moment where he stops being a child and begins taking charge of his own life, even though he openly admits that he has no idea what he is doing. Upon moving back to Pessac, his attempt to act upon his newfound confidence results only in nonplussed rejection when he gropes one of his friends. Maybe he will one day learn the nuances of sexual consent, or perhaps he will grow up to be as cluelessly entitled as Alexandre from The Mother and the Whore, though that future escapes the scope of Eustache’s wistful ruminations in My Little Loves. This year spent isolated from familiar childhood comforts is a point of transition for Daniel, dense with formative experiences, and tenderly revealing the whiplash of a lonely, confusing, yet stimulating adolescence.

*Eustache’s camera slowly revolves around Daniel and Françoise’s heads as they kiss, marking this pivotal moment of maturation in his childhood.*

My Little Loves is currently streaming on The Criterion Channel.

The Mother and the Whore (1973)

Jean Eustache | 3hr 40min

In the Les Deux Magots café where intellectuals and artists of Paris gather, Alexandre tries a little too hard to blend in with the crowd. He speaks eloquently of the May 68 protests, classic filmmakers, and the state of modern relationships, yet he never quite drops the tone of cynical self-importance, barely masking the lack of substance in his political philosophising. When invited to dance at a club, he justifies his refusal with two excuses – “It bores me, and I have no money” – though it is plain to see the self-consciousness which underlies his haughty indifference. As long as he is in control of his environment, then he can maintain the hypocritical pretence that compartmentalises his misogyny, sexuality, and desperate desire to be taken seriously – an effort which is severely threatened by the meeting of his two girlfriends.

Sigmund Freud’s infamous Madonna-whore complex is baked right into the title of The Mother and the Whore, calling out the male psychological desire to pursue both love and sex, but never with the same woman. To Alexandre, Marie is the reliable caretaker who he shares a small, shabby apartment with, spitefully tolerating his affairs. Meanwhile, Veronika is the promiscuous paramour whose no-strings-attached attitude fools him into thinking she lacks any greater depth than what she presents on the surface. Where both women overlap is in Alexandre’s flattening of their identities, believing they only exist to serve his conflicting desires for stability and excitement while rendering their emotional needs inconsequential.

“You don’t love me. You love Marie. You live and sleep with her, you wash with her, you shit with her. You love a woman and fuck another.”

*Alexandre frequents Les Deus Magots café, trying to blend in with its intellectual clientele yet clearly lacking the substance to hold a thoughtful conversation that isn’t hinged on his ego.*

The extent to which the director based this character study on his own youth is clearly defined by Jean Eustache himself, who openly named the real-life people that these women were based off. Though he admitted more freely to his weaknesses than Alexandre, he nevertheless shared similar passions and anxieties, drifting around the edges of the French New Wave during its peak with featurettes and documentaries before falling victim to creative block. The concept for The Mother and the Whore struck him very suddenly in 1972, at which point there was no holding back his immense ambition for his first feature film, using its nearly four-hour runtime to apply an intensive focus to the lives of three young adults and their juvenile struggles in love.

*Like Truffaut before him, Eustache shoots on location through the streets of Paris, often with a handheld camera that underscores the film’s raw naturalism.*

*Grim, shabby minimalism in Alexandre’s apartment, which also happens to be the same apartment where Eustache lived – the autobiographical connection is strong.*

*City lights bounce off the Seine, forming a muted backdrop to this conversation between Alexandre and Veronika on a park bench at night.*

Production for Eustache’s epic drama lands firmly outside the span of time that the French New Wave covers, yet it still couldn’t be more aligned with the movement’s subversive ideals. Shot in the streets and cafés of Paris on grainy black-and-white film stock, Eustache achieves a gritty, urban naturalism in his compositions and handheld camerawork, and even lets the noise of passing cars occasionally drown out his characters’ conversations. City lights bouncing off the Seine become a muted backdrop to Alexandre and Veronika’s meeting on a bench, and their threadbare apartments are completely empty of shelves, bed frames, and decorations, leaving clutter to gather on the floors instead. Eustache’s long takes prove to be crucial in appreciating the minimalist beauty here, as well as the dedicated performances of his actors, whether it is Bernadette Lafont crying to the entirety of Edith Piaf’s song ‘Les Amants de Paris’ or Françoise Lebrun commanding a powerful close-up in Veronika’s climactic eight-minute monologue.

*The entirety of Edith Piaf’s song ‘Les Amants de Paris’ plays through this static shot as we sit with Marie in her misery, drawing a deep melancholy from the mundanity.*

*Françoise Lebrun commands an eight-minute close-up with a shattering monologue, shedding her carefree image to lament the emptiness of her sexual pursuits.*

Ultimately though, Jean-Pierre Léaud’s thorny portrayal of our two-faced hero marks the greatest acting accomplishment in The Mother and the Whore, with his casting nodding to Eustache’s colossal influences Jean-Luc Godard and François Truffaut. As insufferably verbose as he may be, it is telling that the only thing he listens to other than his own voice is his vinyl collection of French classics and British rock, offering those artists a respect that he never affords anyone else. When Veronika notices his fondness for music and sings a poignant love ballad in a rare moment of vulnerability, it is comical just how jarringly he changes the topic by turning on his favourite radio station, landing right in the middle of a segment railing against the laziness of modern society.

*Eustache uses close-ups masterfully to forge a connection with his actors, giving Jean-Pierre Léaud the platform to deliver one of his best performances.*

Smugness evidently goes hand-in-hand with insecurity for Alexandre, and it isn’t hard to see how his loquacious brand of intellectual pretence would later go on to shape the characters of Woody Allen and Richard Linklater films, especially considering the gaping chasm that lies between his narcissistic ego and feeble masculinity. It is much easier for him to blame women at large for his romantic struggles than to turn a critical eye inwards, as he shallowly longs for an era with old-fashioned values while remaining ignorant to the fact that he still would have been just as undesirable back then.

“I wish I had known the days when girls, in the streets of our cities, on our country roads, swooned over soldiers. The prestige of the uniform. These days they swoon over sports cars. These days, young businessmen, young executives, professionals, have replaced the military. I’m not sure we’re better off.”

*Eustache’s screenplay is introspective, using Alexandre as a surrogate to put all his anxieties and shortcomings on display – and then tear them apart.*

*Eustache’s camera especially loves this brief shift to a high-end establishment in Paris, relishing its fine décor and lighting.*

The cognitive dissonance needed for a radical leftist like Alexandre to make such a conservative statement is staggering, though clearly his politics are as fickle as his choice in women. Neither Marie nor Veronika have entirely figured out who they are yet either, but at least within The Mother and the Whore they develop a self-awareness that their common boyfriend never quite finds the courage to face. When the three of them enter a polyamorous relationship, Marie and Veronica are united in a mutual understanding that leaves Alexandre deeply discomforted, helplessly watching his psychological division between love and sex slowly erode. As it turns out, these women are far more complicated than the neat boxes he has designed for them. With Marie’s façade of stability fading, she not only finds the freedom to explore her sexuality, but also unleashes a pent-up rage she had previously contained. Similarly, Veronika’s claim that she is only after sex from men completely disappears when she reveals her jealousy towards Marie and tearfully laments the emptiness of her carnal pursuits.

“If people understood, once and for all, that fucking is shit. That the only thing that’s beautiful is to fuck because you’re so in love you want to a conceive a child who looks like you, or else it’s something sordid. We should fuck only if we’re in love.”

Alexandre gets exactly what he wants – both the mother and the whore – and yet it is at this point that he also unravels, helplessly watching his psychological division between love and sex slowly erode.

Alexandre is lucky to have two girls who love him and like each other, Veronika declares, but still happiness eludes him. After all, if he were to accept this state of affairs then he must also relinquish control of a dynamic that preserves his simplistic world view and protects his ego. Perhaps this is why Veronika’s unplanned pregnancy spurs such a rapid, uncharacteristic change of heart, sending him impulsively running back to her apartment to propose, and hopefully reduce this complicated love triangle to a traditional two-way relationship.

Predictably, his regret is almost instantaneous. For as long as his arrogance keeps him from addressing his own inhibitions, he will never find fulfilment in romantic intimacy, especially when it is contained within an institution as rigidly traditional as marriage. As Alexandre sinks to the floor in the final seconds of The Mother and the Whore, he has no lengthy monologue or deflection to steal back control. Eustache simply concludes this film of endless verbal debate with bleak, dampened silence, cynically anticipating the birth of a dysfunctional family, and its fathering by an infantile egoist who cannot understand the fundamental virtue of selflessness.

A foolish snap decision that would be framed in any other film as a romantic gesture, and an ambiguous resignation to the bathroom floor as he realises what he has done. Eustache’s ending is both dryly funny and totally hopeless.

The Mother and the Whore is currently streaming on The Criterion Channel.

The Devils (1971)

Ken Russell | 1hr 51min

The French Wars of Religion had long since passed by the time the fortified town of Loudon became the epicentre of lingering tension between Catholics and Protestants in the 17^th century, setting the scene in The Devils for a battle fought not with weapons, but political and religious manipulation. Urbain Grandier, the outspoken priest charged with defending the statehood of Loudon, is popular among the people for standing firmly with its high Protestant population, while making enemies of those Catholic authorities who deem him a threat. If Loudon is to be demolished and subjected to the rule of the Catholic Church though, then it would take more than an assassination to undermine Grandier’s influence. The priest must be so thoroughly discredited to the point of humiliation that no one can stand by his side without suffering the same ostracisation, thus bringing the rest of the town to its knees in feeble surrender.

It is incredibly good timing then that Sister Jeanne des Anges should come forward with baseless accusations of witchcraft aimed squarely at Grandier right as the Church begins conspiring against him. Though she is the abbess of the local Ursuline convent in Loudon, she is an outsider among her own nuns, tormented by sexual desire for Grandier and filled with self-loathing over her hunchback. “Take away my hump!” she prays in screaming agony, longing to be seen for once as beautiful. As such, when she discovers that Grandier has married another local woman, her furious, vindictive jealousy is unleashed.

A magnificently unsettling performance from Vanessa Redgrave as the villainous Sister Jeanne des Agnes, weaponising the blind faith and fear of the city, but also carrying her own insecurities as she struggles with sexual temptation.

Ken Russell’s narrative and characters here are rooted heavily in recorded history, yet the parallels shared between The Devils and Arthur Miller’s play The Crucible are extremely visible. Both storytellers are heavily concerned with humanity’s natural tendency towards irrational fear, and how it drove the discrimination against individuals in a pair of 17^th century settings. Where Miller sought to write an allegory for 1950s McCarthyism by studying the infectious hysteria of the Salem witch trials though, Russell feverishly opposes 1970s religious conservatism in The Devils, treading far more explicit ground with violence and nudity that triggered the censors to come down hard with an X rating.

*Sacrilege and blasphemy – Ken Russell pushes the boundaries of censorship in 70s Britain with the ‘Rape of Christ,’ violently subverting theological symbolism.*

From Russell’s perspective though, the outrage that surrounded The Devils would have been far more justified had it been directed at the harsh subject matter it is depicting. He particularly expressed frustration over the deletion of the scene he called the “Rape of Christ,” in which Sister Jeanne masturbates using the charred femur of the deceased Grandier following his execution. Even without this though, Christianity’s perversion of its own spiritual icons rings loudly throughout The Devils, framing Grandier as a persecuted saviour being punished for the sins of the world. Vanessa Redgrave may steal every one of her scenes with Sister Jeanne’s hunched posture and seething contempt, but Oliver Reed’s commanding presence is a steady, unwavering force among Russell’s visual chaos, taking to the screen with the booming confidence of a seasoned theatre actor. As he is cruelly interrogated by the Church, he delivers monologues with resounding gravitas, shamefully confessing his flaws as a prideful, even lecherous man while meeting Sister Jeanne’s accusations of sneaking into her bed with righteous indignation.

“Call me vain and proud, the greatest sinner to ever walk in God’s Earth! But Satan’s boy I could never be! I haven’t the humility. I know what I have done, and I am prepared for what I shall reap. But do you, Reverend Mother, know what you must give to have your wish about me fulfilled? I will tell you. Your immortal soul to eternal damnation. May God have mercy on you.”

*A magnificent close-up of Reed’s profile facing the light of heaven, yet shrouded in darkness.*

*Russell’s eye for composition when it comes to blocking his ensemble is astounding, filling out the height of his frame on both sides and enclosing a vulnerable Grandier in the centre.*

*Reed delivers a career-best performance as Grandier, facing unjust persecution yet standing firm by his principles.*

Grandier is far from sinless, but what man living at this time of religious corruption and violence isn’t? In their monochrome garments, Russell’s characters often blend in seamlessly with the clean white masonry and darkened rooms of Loudon, becoming one with the dominant palette that tangibly manifests their harsh moral binaries. The town of perfectly rounded arches and geometric skyline makes for a remarkable feat of production design too, combining the stark minimalism of The Passion of Joan of Arc with the architectural ambition of Metropolis, and formally drawing this austerity through rigorously blocked scenes of black-and-white crowds.

*Russell’s brutalist, black-and-white architecture is a triumph of production design, his geometric shapes towering over ensembles who carry through that palette of harsh moral binaries.*

It is no coincidence that the one figure who doesn’t conform to Russell’s sparse visual design is the puppeteer of Loudon’s witch hunt, sitting high above the fray. Dressed in his blood-red robes and wheeled around by servants, Cardinal Richelieu appears to be the only true demon in this town’s vicinity, determined to destroy the man who stands between him and the demolition of Loudon’s walls. Where Sister Jeanne acts impulsively on a wounded ego and even attempts to hang herself late in the film, Richelieu carefully orchestrates Loudon’s descent into madness, chaotically underscored by a writhing, discordant cacophony of pipe organs, trumpets, and percussion. In this period setting, the anachronistic jazz of Peter Maxwell Davies does not seem so unholy as it does viciously anarchic, matching confronting scenes of nuns playing up their fake possession with an equally disturbing soundscape.

*The Cardinal aggressively breaks through the monochrome palette with his bright red robes, symbolically drenched in blood of innocents.*

*Russell stages chaos with hysterical fervour, as if adopting the anarchy of a late-career Fellini film and possessing it with something demonic.*

Only when Grandier has perished through fiery injustice at the stake does silence settle over the town again, albeit one that is despairingly lifeless. His refusal to confess to the false charges may be the only solace to be taken from this, as it is with his last breath that the walls of Loudon come crumbling down in chilling synchronicity, ushering in apocalyptic scenes of ruin and suffering. Right to the final frame, Russell’s theological symbolism continues to inform his magnificent visuals and narrative, as his camera sits on a long shot of Grandier’s wife Madeleine approach an opening in the town’s demolished fortifications.

No longer drawing a clean divide between its shades of black and white, The Devils’ bleak scenery sinks into a dirty greyscale, as the widow trudges over a mountain of debris and exits what was once a vice-ridden yet relatively sheltered Garden of Eden. No longer do the strings and woodwinds clash in fervent rhythms, yet still they whine and wander through dissonant harmonies as Madeleine shuffles forward into an uncertain future. The Devils may be set in 17^th century France, and yet with his final note Russell’s mourning of what religious tyranny has destroyed continues to escape a narrow relegation to the distant past, infusing his cautionary tale with a bitter, anachronistic timelessness.

A bitter, solemn ending, shifting away from the stark black-and-white palette and shifting into a medium greyscale as Grandier’s widow leaves a ruined city now totally dominated by religious tyranny.

The Devils is available to purchase from Amazon.

Fellini’s Casanova (1976)

Federico Fellini | 2hr 28min

Each time famed adventurer Giacomo Casanova tumbles into another sexual escapade during his worldly travels, his wind-up bird is right there by his side, bobbing and flapping its wings in suggestive, mechanical motions. As both a literal and figurative cock, its phallic shape is not easily missed, casting giant shadows on the wall much like its owner’s. In any other sex scene, in any other film, it would be jarringly out of place – this act is meant to be one loaded with spontaneous passion after all, vulnerably exposing humanity’s most primal instincts. Within the lecherous ventures of Fellini’s Casanova though, this bird is simply an extension of the Venetian playboy’s libido, consistently ticking along like a metronome to Nino Rota’s contrived score of rigid, unwavering synths.

Though based on the memoirs of the real Casanova and his expansive voyage through 18^th century Europe, Federico Fellini’s reimagining of his life manifests with demented surrealism, twisting the historical figure into a man trapped in cycles of meaningless carnal exploits. Sex in this decrepit world is not an expression of deep yearning, but rather an imitation of pleasure performed out of obligation, as if trying to convince oneself of an authentic, sensual connection that simply isn’t there.

Within Casanova’s lecherous ventures, the mechanical bird is simply an extension of the Venetian playboy’s libido, consistently ticking along like a metronome to Nino Rota’s contrived score of rigid, unwavering synths.

The giant head of Venus which sinks to the bottom of Venice’s Grand Canal in the opening scene becomes a symbolic reminder of this too, returning in the film’s final scene beneath the frozen surface to illustrate the abiding death of everything the goddess of love represents. In her absence, lovemaking is dispassionately chaotic. Coital partners seesaw in the most untitillating manner possible, while Fellini’s camera rocks and zooms in jerky motions as if synchronised to the ensemble’s outrageous acting.

*The sunken head of Venus bookends Fellini’s Casanova – a mythic symbol of love trapped in icy waters.*

Even outside of these scenes Casanova does not mark a significant achievement for Donald Sutherland, and yet his effeminate, foppish spin on the great Venetian adventurer nevertheless fits perfectly within Fellini’s garish scenery, thinly concealing a deeply insecure ego. After all, it is not his sexual vitality, but his intellectual pursuits as “a poet, philosopher, mathematician” which he would rather be known for – but if his prodigious reputation for bedding women is to be his legacy, then who is he to deny this extraordinary talent?

By the time Fellini adapted Casanova’s autobiography in the mid-1970s, he was no stranger to reshaping classical texts and historical eras with lurid experimentation, frequently sacrificing narrative convention in favour of episodic vignettes. As such, Fellini’s Casanova bears especially close resemblance to his cinematic interpretation of the Ancient Roman text Satyricon, which similarly journeyed through warped, theatrical landscapes that never seemed to feel the touch of natural sunlight. Casanova’s excursion to a Venetian island where a wealthy voyeur pays to watch him sexually perform lays the brazen theatricality bare in the opening scenes, sailing his boat across a black sea of billowing tarp, while his convergence with civilisation brings astoundingly anachronistic renderings of 18^th century high society. Fellini carries a Sternbergian sense of unruly excess here as he clutters his colourful mise-en-scène with candles, statues, and exorbitantly large plates of food, painting Baroque portraits of overindulgence fuelled by an insatiable emptiness, and curating cinematic galleries of incredible orgiastic anarchy.

*Aggressively theatrical mise-en-scène, floating Casanova’s boat atop an ocean of black, billowing tarp.*

Fellini carries a Sternbergian sense of unruly excess here as he clutters his colourful mise-en-scène with candles, statues, and exorbitantly large plates of food, painting Baroque portraits of overindulgence fuelled by an insatiable emptiness.

In Rome, Casanova is invited to the patrician palace of the British ambassador, where a deranged party of obscene games demeans the surrounding historical art that once signified class and decorum. There, his pretentious attempts to wax lyrical philosophy are met with bewilderment, and to curry favour he instead participates in a contest with a peasant to determine who can sexually perform the most times in the space of an hour. In London, he attends a hypnotically gloomy Frost Fair on the River Thames, where he moves on from the suicidal grief of losing his girlfriend to another man and instead pins his new obsession on a royal giantess. Later in Württemberg he attends what is meant to be “the most beautiful court in Europe,” and yet which rather appears as a haywire nightmare of insane aristocrats wreaking havoc, while musicians fill the air with a dissonant cacophony emerging from the pianos and organs hanging off the walls.

*Casanova moves from one party to the next, encountering bizarre characters and adventures, yet never quite finding the fulfilment he seeks.*

*A haywire nightmare in Württemberg, where musicians fill the air with a dissonant cacophony emerging from the pianos and organs hanging off the walls.*

*A dazzling composition of chandeliers hanging above Casanova at the opera – with his bigger budgets, Fellini does not half-commit to his production design.*

The disconnection between these wandering vignettes somewhat hurts the overall form of Casanova, and yet this detachment also serves to underscore the wistful isolation at the core of Sutherland’s performance, elevating the moment where he discovers what he deems true love. It is during his adventures in Germany that he meets Rosalba, a life-sized mechanical doll who dances stiffly with the voyager like a ballerina in a music box, and whose only objection to his sexual advances is a silent, pained grimace. She is a bastion of unchanging purity in this world of absurdist mayhem – a clockwork contraption not unlike Casanova’s metal bird who reflects his desire for fastidious control over his emotions, relationships, and libido.

*Rosalba the mechanical may be Casanova’s one true love, becoming bastion of unchanging purity in this world of absurdist mayhem.*

Clearly little has changed in the decades that pass between their awkwardly romantic tryst and Casanova’s retirement from travelling, choosing to take up the role of librarian in a cold, draughty Bohemian castle as he approaches the end of his life. Still he attempts to impress audiences with dull poetry recitations, and still he is ridiculed for his pomposity, leaving him to retreat in shame to his darkened chamber where dreams of waltzing with Rosalba upon an icy Venetian lagoon await. As Rota’s music box motif tinkles a soft, metallic melody for the last time, they rotate like tiny figurines, eternally frozen in plastic. There, at the end of this traveller’s long life, Fellini finally reveals the impossible fantasy which has eluded him through many cities, parties, and romances – the frigid, lifeless embrace of a woman as hopelessly inhuman as him.

Resigned to the end of an empty life, Casanova retreats into his imagination with Rosalba. As Nino Rota’s music box motif tinkles a soft, metallic melody for the last time, they rotate like tiny figurines, eternally frozen in plastic.

Fellini’s Casanova as currently available to purchase from Amazon.

Amarcord (1973)

Federico Fellini | 2hr 7min

Spring arrives in the Italian village of Borgo San Giuliano with white, fluffy poplar seeds floating on the breeze, bearing a striking resemblance to the snow that has just melted away. In summer, school student Titta relishes the warm weather on a family day trip to the countryside, with his Uncle Teo being granted short-term leave from the psychiatric hospital where he resides. Autumn later brings cooler temperatures, and sees the vast majority of the population sail out on boats to witness the passage of the ocean liner SS Rex, while winter’s frozen grip on the small town heralds sickness and tragedy in Titta’s family.

The year that passes over the course of Amarcord is not bound by plot convention, and yet each vignette has its formal place in the eccentric portrait of 1930s Italy that Federico Fellini sentimentally models after his own childhood. Unlike the wandering odyssey of Satyricon or the pseudo-documentary of Roma, Amarcord never falters in its lively, easy-going pacing, loosely building its episodic formal progression around the seasonal changes and communal traditions of these villagers’ mundane lives.

*Spring arrives with white, fluffy poplar seeds on the breeze – an annual occurrence that each year enraptures the small town of Borgo San Giuliano.*

*Summer brings warmer, brighter days, as Titta visits the countryside with his family and Uncle Teo for an amusing escapade.*

*The SS Rex passes by the town in Autumn, met by locals eager to witness this feat of maritime engineering.*

*Winter settles over the village, the snowflakes bearing notable resemblance to Spring’s white poplar seeds.*

Perhaps then we must look even further back to I Vitelloni for the closest comparison in Fellini’s filmography, similarly trapping young men within cyclical routines that connect them to a larger community and hamper their dreams of escape. Like his 1953 hangout film, the camerawork here is dynamic, gliding and panning in breezy tracking shots that gently soak in the remarkable scenery. Even then though, the difference between Fellini’s early neorealist-adjacent style and the vibrant surrealism of Amarcord is gaping, as if his own nostalgic reflections have grown more playfully distorted with age. Characters here slip into dreams with careless abandon, dwelling on fables that infuse Borgo San Giuliano with its own spectacular mythology, and distant fantasies that may only ever live in their minds.

*This town’s distinctive character comes together in scenes of communal celebration and tradition, the camera gliding breezily through the detailed mise-en-scène.*

*The town of Titta’s adolescence also possesses its own unique mythology, manifesting with surreal wonder in the dreams and memories of its people.*

Little do these people know, they themselves will one day become legends to be wistfully recalled by a grown Titta in years to come as well, colouring in the vibrant ensemble of his life with effervescent idiosyncrasies as they rotate in and out of Amarcord’s narrative. Much like Saraghina from 8 ½, the town’s beach-dwelling prostitute Volpina becomes a subject of fantasy for Titta during his adolescent sexual awakening. Local hairdresser Gradisca is conversely a far more untouchable beauty, frequently drawing stares in her shapely red dresses and hiding a loneliness that delicately parallels Titta’s own discontent. The Grand Hotel where she is rumoured to have slept with a prince also plays host to a tall tale propagated by food vendor Biscein that comically details his wild night with 28 foreign concubines, while the long-suffering town lawyer perseveres through the heckling of neighbours to relay this village’s culture and folklore directly to the audience.

*Minor characters cycle in and out of Fellini’s vignettes, fulfilling familiar archetypes wherever they are needed – the town prostitute, the untouchable beauty, the friendly lawyer.*

The absolute persistence of ‘Mr. Lawyer’ in offering a scholarly perspective on Borgo San Giuliano is amusingly at odds with its pragmatic, free-spirited people, and it is telling that he is the one of the few to regularly break the fourth wall. “Theirs is an exuberant, generous, loyal, and tenacious nature,” he kindly elucidates, describing their proud heritage that runs “Roman and Celtic blood in their veins.” His appearances are intermittent, yet his self-aware monologues work powerfully to divorce Amarcord from the naturalism it occasionally leans towards, sweeping us into the subjective realm of memory where Fellini is at his strongest as a filmmaker.

Nino Rota’s endless variations of the film’s main theme capture this whimsy with carnivalesque panache as well, and are absolutely crucial to the sensitive evolution of each scene. The motif swoons on strings as the camera romantically glides through a frozen tableau of soldiers, forms the jazzy underscore to Titta and his friends’ waltz with imaginary women in the foggy darkness, and even passes diegetically to a musician playing his flute in a barbershop. Its joviality is resilient, never quite losing its optimism even as it fades out with the village lights dimming at night, and ultimately becoming a pure expression of the town’s own flamboyant character.

*A dream frozen in time – the camera gently drifts through the Grand Hotel with mystical intrigue.*

*A dense fog settles over the town, while Titta and his friends waltz with imaginary women, deep in a trance.*

It is quite remarkable as well that every street, building, and monument of Borgo San Giuliano is entirely constructed on studio sets, allowing Fellini a level of control over his handsomely offbeat mise-en-scène that captures a specific era in an isolated region of Italy. At the same time, the scale of Amarcord’s production is enormous, transforming this village into an entire world – which of course it is to an adolescent Titta. The cultural and historical detail woven into the architecture is particularly rich, though Fellini also chooses opportune moments to subtly let authenticity slide for a more wistful evocation of his hometown of Rimini instead, cutting out sharp shadows and silhouettes in his low-key lighting. Even the Victory Monument which stands in its square is recreated with impressionistic elegance, baring the backside of a woman that draws the lustful gaze of visitors, while the small addition of angel wings elevates this voluptuous figure to a level of divinity that exists only in Fellini’s memory.

*One of Amarcord’s strongest compositions arrives at the Victory Monument, baring the backside of an angel who draws the lustful gaze of visitors venturing out into the rain.*

In those moments of surrealism where this narrative departs from reality altogether, Amarcord moreover reveals a pointed, satirical edge aimed towards the nationalistic tyranny bearing down on Italy’s younger generations. When Mussolini comes to town, the red-and-white papier-mâché model of his face that is raised in a formal procession is laughably cartoonish, and even begins speaking when Titta’s lovestruck classmate Ciccio imagines it marrying him to his crush, Aldina. Suddenly, this military ceremony transforms into a wedding before our eyes, and the fascist pageantry is defanged as red, green, and white confetti is joyously tossed over the underage newlyweds.

Fellini delivers one excellent set piece after another, mocking the obsessive, fascist pageantry of the era with a giant papier-mâché face of Mussolini who springs to life and weds a pair of young school students.

Fellini continues to send up the stern teachers at Titta’s school and the church’s ineffective Catholic priests with mischievous glee as well, and yet he is also delicately aware of the malice which lurks within these institutions. There is no comedy to be found in the local authority’s torture of Titta’s father for making vaguely anti-fascist remarks, nor in their chilling speeches of “glowing ideals from ancient times.”

With baggage like this attached to otherwise cheerful memories, maybe it is best for them to remain in the past, Fellini contemplates, though not without sparing a sad thought for those like Gradisca who were carried away by the cultural norms of the era. She may have been the subject of many fantasies in her eye-catching red, black, and white outfits, but she is still a woman with her own hopes and insecurities, revealed in fleeting glimpses behind her veil of cool, feminine confidence. Perhaps then the loneliness which brings her to tears one night in front of a crowd is also what spurs her to marry a fascist officer in the final scene of Amarcord, even as her own fate beyond the inevitable fall of Italy’s totalitarian regime is left sorrowfully ambiguous.

The camera pans across this low-lying landscape just outside town, where Gradisca marries a fascist officer and resigns herself to an uncertain future. Titta’s absence is only barely noted – this too is a turning point for him to carve out a new future away from the only home he has ever known.

She is evidently not the only one leaving Borgo San Giuliano with dreams of brighter futures either. As the camera slowly pans with the remaining wedding guests across the countryside, their distant shouts offhandedly mention Titta’s departure with little elaboration. Given the recent passing of his mother from an infectious illness though, it isn’t hard for us to surmise the reason. The winter months have wreaked devastation on his family, and their funereal grief has been absorbed into yet another communal ritual carried out with depressingly rote perseverance.

Still, time continues to traipse forward, seeing spring’s puffballs replace the glacial winter snow and old memories give birth to new beginnings. Escaping the routines that govern this community need not arrive as a grand epiphany, but may even be as subtle as a silent, unremarkable departure, leaving one’s name to be fondly recalled by those who have stayed behind.

*The loss of Titta’s mother also marks his loss of innocence – a rite of passage which, unlike all those other small ventures throughout the year, is carried out with depressing perseverance.*

After all, within Fellini’s portrait of evaporated childhood, memory moves in both directions. Distance across time and space may erode our physical connection with old friends, yet those relationships are revived in the mercurial oceans of nostalgia. Just as the past wistfully lingers in the present, the present sways the past, constantly remoulding it into new forms that reveal previously hidden truths. Only through Amarcord’s reality-warping hindsight can Fellini recognise the absurd norms of his youth with the nuance they deserve, from the oppressive evils and mournful insecurities of his neighbours, to the sweet, boundless joys that have faded with the encroachment of adulthood.

Amarcord is currently streaming on The Criterion Channel, is available to rent or buy on Apple TV, and Amazon Video, and can be purchased on Amazon.