Directed by Bertrand Bonello • 2011 • France
Starring Noémie Lvovsky, Hafsia Herzi, Céline Sallette
Bertrand Bonello offers a highly atmospheric look at the final days of a brothel at the turn of the twentieth century. Within L’Apollonide’s walls, Bonello tracks the lives of the madam (Noemie Lvovsky) and close to a dozen girls, including Madeleine (Alice Barnole) who is horribly disfigured by a client and becomes known as “the woman who laughs”; Clotilde (Celine Sallette) the veteran who longs to be a “respectable woman”; and Pauline (Iliana Zabeth), the newcomer whose eyes are quickly opened to reality. Using split screen, time shifts, and a modern soundtrack, Bonello creates an enigmatic and beautiful film on the world’s oldest profession that offers a provocative commentary on history as remembered by art and literature.
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Nocturama
Directed by Bertrand Bonello • 2016 • France
Starring Finnegan Oldfield, Vincent Rottiers, Hamza MezianiThis audacious teenage terrorism thriller from acclaimed director Bertrand Bonello recalls Robert Bresson’s THE DEVIL, PROBABLY as much as it does George A. Romero’s DAWN OF THE DEAD. We firs...