Directed by Claire Denis • 1999 • France
Starring Denis Lavant, Michel Subor, Grégoire Colin
With her ravishingly sensual take on Herman Melville’s “Billy Budd, Sailor,” Claire Denis firmly established herself as one of the great visual tone poets of our time. Amid the azure waters and sunbaked desert landscapes of Djibouti, a French Foreign Legion sergeant (Denis Lavant) sows the seeds of his own ruin as his obsession with a striking young recruit (Grégoire Colin) plays out to the thunderous, operatic strains of Benjamin Britten. Denis and cinematographer Agnès Godard fold military and masculine codes of honor, colonialism’s legacy, destructive jealousy, and repressed desire into shimmering, hypnotic images that ultimately explode in one of the most startling and unforgettable endings in all of modern cinema.
Up Next in Female Gaze: Women Directors + Women Cinematographers
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Conversations with Intellectuals Abou...
Directed by Lourdes Portillo • 1999 • United States
Interrogating the Selena phenomenon, Lourdes Portillo brings together a group of Chicana cultural critics to talk about the Tejana music icon. Delving into their reactions to Selena’s groundbreaking rise, widespread influence, and tragic death,...
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La captive
Directed by Chantal Akerman • 2000 • Belgium, France
Starring Sylvie Testud, Stanislas Merhar, Olivia BonamyAdapting the fifth volume of Marcel Proust’s “In Search of Lost Time,” Chantal Akerman transforms the material into a mesmerizing study of voyeurism, control, and sexual obsession centere...
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Home
Directed by Ursula Meier • 2008 • France
Starring Isabelle Huppert, Olivier Gourmet, Adélaïde LerouxThis mesmerizing fable of modern family life stars Isabelle Huppert as Marthe, a happy-go-lucky mother whose family enjoys an idyllic existence in their isolated, ramshackle home, which edges ont...
