Directed by Jacques Rozier • 1986 • France
Starring Bernard Ménez, Yves Afonso, Luis Rego
By land, by sea, by air . . . In Jacques Rozier’s quirkiest comedy, a Brazilian dancer’s (Rosa-Maria Gomes) invalid train ticket for a journey from Paris to Saint-Nazaire sparks a shaggy-dog story that encompasses the adventures of a quick-tempered boatman (Yves Afonso), his highfalutin attorney (Lydia Feld), a scheming talent agent (Pedro Armendáriz Jr.), and several other memorable characters as they converge and disperse via various modes of transportation throughout a series of unpredictable coincidences. With the boundlessness of human adaptability as its lodestar, MAINE-OCÉAN EXPRESS covers a delirious swath of narrative ground, including the roundabout path that returns a hapless train conductor (Bernard Ménez) to his duties after he joins an impromptu samba session and nearly becomes “the next Maurice Chevalier.” Applying his long-take shooting style to a plot of episodic, anarchic zaniness, Rozier once more proves himself a master of making the patently absurd appear completely realistic, and vice versa.
Up Next in Directed by Jacques Rozier
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Fifi Martingale
Directed by Jacques Rozier • 2001 • France
Starring Jean Lefebvre, Lili Vonderfeld, Yves AfonsoJacques Rozier’s final film is a joyful compendium of his major themes and strategies as well as one of the funniest depictions of the theater ever committed to celluloid. When a director (Mike Marsha...
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Blue Jeans
Directed by Jacques Rozier • 1958 • France
Starring Rene Ferro, Francis De Peretti, Elisabeth KlarThis breezy portrait of two Vespa-riding seventeen-year-old boys cruising the Rivera in search of girls captures the spirit of callow youth and the scenic splendors of the Mediterranean summertime.
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Le parti des choses: Bardot et Godard
Directed by Jacques Rozier • 1964 • France
Jacques Rozier offers a behind-the-scenes look at Jean-Luc Godard, Brigitte Bardot, Michel Piccoli, and Fritz Lang during the filming of Godard’s French New Wave landmark CONTEMPT on the island of Capri.
