French Film Club: Amour and The Diving Bell and the Butterfly

Two films that deal with love, loss and the aftermath of a stroke.

The Diving Bell and the Butterfly (2007, Director: Julian Schnabel)

This is the incredible true story of journalist and former editor-in-chief of French Elle magazine, Jean-Dominique Bauby, who after a suffering a massive stroke is left with a condition called locked-in syndrome. The film is based on his French memoir Le scaphandre et le papillon and describes his life both before and after the stroke. Bauby is mentally sound but completely paralysed, bar his left eye, which he learns to communicate with by blinking. The entire book was written by Bauby blinking his left eyelid as a patient transcriber recited a frequency-ordered alphabet. The transcriber would write down the correct letter once Bauby had blinked once, and so, after an incredibly long journey, a book was formed ten months later. It took about 200,000 blinks to write and an average word took approximately two minutes. An incredible feat. The film, starring Mathieu Amalric as Bauby, charts his life in hospital at Berck-sur-Mer, chronicling everyday events for a person with locked-in syndrome- you see his infected eye sewn up from his point of view as the screen gradually goes pitch black, you see him stuck in a heavy vintage diving suit flaying in the water, and you see happier times, his family playing on the nearby beach and the visitors he receives.

Amour (2012, Director: Michael Haneke)

This is a much more recent film, voted by the Guardian as top 10 best films of 2012. The film was screened at the 2012 Cannes Film Festival, where it won the coveted Palme d'Or, a second win for director Michael Haneke. The film focuses on an octogenerian couple, Anne and Georges, who are retired music teachers and live in a relatively peaceful existence. That is until Anne sufferes a stroke which paralyses her on one side of her body. The story is based on an identical situation that happened in Haneke's family and the entire film is played out in one apartment based on his parent's home in Vienna.

French Film Club: Les Bien-Aimes

This 2011 film by Christophe Honoré starts in the mid-1960s with Madeleine, a young assistant in a shoe shop who ventures into amateur prostitution and meets a charming Czech man. The film follows the pair's story and the story of their daughter, up until 2007, through their respective up-and-down romances from Paris to Reims, Montral Prague and London. Like Honoré's 2007 film Les Chansons d'Amour, this is a musical, with catchy, romantic and humorous tunes.

Starring Catherine Deneuve, Milos Forman, Ludivine Sagnier, Louis Garrel, Paul Schneider, Michel Delpech and Chiara Mastroianni.

Secret Cinema: The State of Oak Hampton

On Sunday night, I headed down to Bethnal Green Library dressed as a 1940's money lender. Not your usual quite night in, nor your usual cinema trip. This was for Secret Cinema, where a mystery film is screened at a mystery location, and where the audience takes as much a part in the performance as the actors. I can't tell you much more than that, I'm sworn to secrecy, its not called Secret Cinema for nothing... But I can give you a little clue, the 19th Secret Cinema, or the 'State of Oak Hampton', warn of a storm coming, and say they will "clamp down on vicious crimes through investigation and punish the thought as well as the offense. The State will also fund a meteorological station headquartered somewhere in London to trace the skies and bring daily reports to our contenders and offenders”. Secret Cinema is a total immersive experience, and one that has proved extremely popular- the last screening of Prometheus attracted over 25,000 eager film fans. It's expensive but you'll never forget your evening of laughter, humiliation, fear and delight.

Seeking A Friend For The End Of The World

Seeking a Friend for the End of the World is an apocalyptic story of the meeting of two people, soft-spoken Dodge (Steve Carrell) and his kooky neighbour Penny (Keira Knightley), three weeks before an astroid is set to hit Earth. The unlikely pairing of two opposites, on their road trip to the end of the world, makes for a sweet and witty film. 

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Watch the trailer below

Beautiful Sigur Rós video by Ryan McGinley

This tender and dreamy video of New York City was made by Ryan McGinley as a homage to his hometown for Icelandic band Sigur Rós's track Varúð. Perfectly timed with the music, a girl in a golden wig skips through the hazy concrete streets of the city, bringing a childhood innocence to urban jungle. Absolutely beautiful, both in sound and in film.

via It's Nice That

Aberrant Architecture at Clerkenwell Design Week

A small red theatre popped up at Clerkenwell Design Week, here the designers at Aberrant Architecture explain it's presence.

 

Images my own. 

Review of new Eames film on Blueprint magazine website

Check out an article on Blueprint magazine's website which I wrote after seeing a new film, Eames: the Architect and the Painter at Clerkenwell Design Week. 

http://www.blueprintmagazine.co.uk/index.php/design/review-eames-the-architect-and-the-painter/

Images: Eames office

A.P.C. have created this film directed by Parisian filmmaker Thomas Tyman to celebrate the 25th anniversary of the brand

Stop, Look, Listen: Three things to do this week.

STOP.
English National Ballet at Tate Britain.

Tate Britain's Duveen Galleries plays host to the English National Ballet company for a week as part of the current 'Picasso and Modern British Art' exhibition. From 10.30-11.45am visitors can watch company classes and rehearsals, and on Friday night (6.30pm, 7.15pm, 8pm, 8.45pm) a premiere of three ballets inspired by Picasso's costume and set design for the Ballets Russes. See Tate website.

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LOOK.

Last chance to see 'Studio Life: Lucian Freud by David Dawson' at the Hazlitt Holland-Hibbert Gallery on Bury Street. This exhibition shows photographs of Lucian Freud in his studio and at home, taken by his assistant, David Dawson, during the final years of his life.

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LISTEN.

Film at The Yard. 

From the 29th February to the 25th March, a new theatre created from reclaimed site materials in Hackney Wick will be showing various film screenings, including 'Reservoir Dogs', 'Breakfast at Tiffanys' and 'Requiem for a Dream'.  Tickets cost £9. Visit the-yard.co.uk to find out more.

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Restless by Gus Van Sant

The other night I watched the super cute but poignant film, Restless, directed by Gus Van Sant and starring Henry Hopper and Mia Wasikowska. It follows the story of Annabel, a terminally ill teenage girl who falls for Enoch, a kooky kid who likes to attend funerals and enjoys the company of a Japanese World War II kamikaze ghost. 

Below are the mood boards for the costumes for Annabel and Enoch, designed by Danny Glicker. Inspiration came from American author and illustrator Edward Gorey, as well as the Edwardians and the 1920s. My favourite's are Enoch's 40s Machinist sunglasses above, and Annabel's leopard print coat. You can read an exclusive interview with him here. 

Stop, Look, Listen: Three things to do this week.

This week's 'Stop, Look, Listen' might be just a little Freud centred..

STOP.
Lucian Freud Portraits at the National Portrait Gallery. 9th February- 27 May 2012

Grandson of Sigmund Freud and one of the country's most influential artists of his generation, Lucian Freud was renowned for his portraits, such as 'Benefits Supervisor Sleeping' and 'Naked Man with Back View'. He was also famous for his portrait of the Queen, which he refused to paint in any other style but his own, and the supermodel Kate Moss, who posed for him in 2002. This retrospective exhibition marks an opportunity for a review of his work after his death last year. 

LOOK. 

A Dangerous Method by David Cronenberg.

Starring Keira Knightley, Viggo Mortensen and Michael Fassbender. Set at the beginning of the 20th Century, this film follows Sigmund Freud and Carl Jung's road to dispute in their respective Psychoanalytic theories.

LISTEN.

BBC Radio Four's Saturday Play.

Listen to Saturday's play again on iPlayer, or look forward to 'The Wolf Man' on the 18th February. 

Writer and playwright Deborah Levy has dramatised two of Freud's iconic case studies, 'Dora' and 'The Wolf Man'. 'Dora', set in 1899, finds a father imploring Sigmund Freud to treat his daughter after discovering her intention to end her life. 'The Wolf Man' focuses on 24 year old Sergei Pankejeff, a depressed son of a wealthy Russian landowner. 

Bill Cunningham New York

Out in the UK on March 16th, this film documentary is a cinematic profile of the New York street fashion photographer Bill Cunningham. See the website for the film here.

Style Crush... Lea Seydoux

The enigmatic French model and actress Lea Seydoux, recognisable as 'that girl' from Midnight In Paris, is slowly coming into our radar. You may also be familiar with her from the Prada Candy perfume campaign. Or perhaps on the back pages of Vogue UK in this month's style file. In any case, it's worth keeping an eye out for her in 2012, even if she does favour Scandinavian Acne jeans over her native A.P.C.