Directed by Maurice Pialat • 1974 • France
Starring Nathalie Baye, Hubert Deschamps, Philippe Léotard
One of cinema’s greatest and most profound meditations on mortality, THE MOUTH AGAPE observes, with striking unsentimentality, the final days of a terminally ill woman (Monique Mélinand) as those around her—her philandering husband (Hubert Deschamps), aloof son (Philippe Léotard), and worried daughter-in-law (Nathalie Baye)—attempt to carry on with their lives as they await the inevitable. Through unflinching long takes, Pialat crafts a masterpiece of human observation that says as much about life as it does about death.
Up Next in Directed by Maurice Pialat
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Graduate First
Directed by Maurice Pialat • 1978 • France
Starring Sabine Haudepin, Philippe Marlaud, Annick AlaneMaurice Pialat’s oft-overlooked chronicle of jaded adolescence unfolds in a small town in northern France where a group of teenagers stave off boredom and the looming responsibilities of adulthood...
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Loulou
Directed by Maurice Pialat • 1980 • France
Starring Isabelle Huppert, Gérard Depardieu, Guy MarchandA young Isabelle Huppert and Gérard Depardieu make for one of the most breathtaking screen couples in French-cinema history in this raw, sexy, messy tale of amour fou. Huppert is Nelly, a well-to...
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Under the Sun of Satan
Directed by Maurice Pialat • 1987 • France
Starring Gérard Depardieu, Sandrine Bonnaire, Maurice PialatWinner of the Palme d’Or at the 1987 Cannes Film Festival—where its victory was greeted with more than a bit of controversy—Maurice Pialat’s searing adaptation of a novel by Georges Bernanos s...
