Claire Denis: An American Cinematheque Retrospective

ABOUT THE SERIES:

The American Cinematheque is thrilled to welcome legendary French filmmaker Claire Denis in person for a retrospective as a centerpiece of our fourth annual ‘Bleak Week: Cinema of Despair.’ Featuring six of Denis’ acclaimed films, this series celebrates one of cinema’s most transcendent oeuvres, defined by intensely visceral filmmaking and a fearless engagement with the complexities of contemporary life. Often referred to as a visual poem, Denis’ most acclaimed film, BEAU TRAVAIL has recently been awarded #7 on Sight & Sound’s list of the greatest films of all time.

More than twenty years after the release of her debut feature, CHOCOLAT, Denis returned to Africa to again place the French narrative in the context of its inherent, colonialist past with WHITE MATERIAL, celebrated internationally for its delicate treatment of consequential themes, led by a powerhouse performance by actress Isabelle Huppert, and broadly recognized by the BBC and New York Times alike, as one of the best films of the 21st century; having additionally appeared on many critic lists crowning the Top 10 films of its year. Similarly, 35 SHOTS OF RUM – released just one year prior to WHITE MATERIAL – has been canonized as another of Denis’ inductions to the “greatest films of a given decade,” as Sight & Sound called it one of the best films of the 2000s, due to its delicate presentation of the complicated relationship between a father and daughter. Paying homage to  film noir, Denis’ atmospheric cinematic language is heightened in BASTARDS, starring actors Vincent Lindon and Chiara Mastroianni, whose layered performances help Denis evoke a sense of tragedy throughout.

Although Denis has often grounded her work firmly in reality, allowing the uncompromising weight of history to drag along quietly beneath the surface of her narratives, she has occasionally drifted into the realm of genre film, searching for and unveiling truth in new and volatile ways. Playing her hand at joining the French Extremity Movement which gained increased popularity and legitimacy at the turn of the century, Denis’ TROUBLE EVERY DAY is an erotic horror film with familiar themes from throughout her body of work – lust, desire, jealousy, love, violence – though reworked to serve a story about bloodthirsty vampires. Her first English language film and framed amid an artificial vision of space and time, HIGH LIFE is marked by its collaborations; with actor Robert Pattinson who humanized the film amid its artificiality, physicist Aurélien Barrau who grounded her ideas despite stylistic abstraction and Icelandic artist Olafur Eliasson who designed the spacecraft that would nurture the quietly devastating story.