claire denis Tagged Articles at Cinematical

Director Claire Denis -- who was born in France but raised in colonial Africa -- enjoyed a measure of art-house buzz when she leapt onto the scene in 1989 with her film Chocolat (not to be confused with the awful 2000 Johnny Depp/Juliette Binoche movie of the same name). Siskel & Ebert praised it and Denis on their show at the time. In 2000, her film Beau Travail topped the Film Comment critics' poll of the best films of the year. But in-between, she couldn't catch a break. She has a tendency to make "mood pieces" rather than plot-driven films; these tend to cause people to think, thus making them very uncomfortable. Some of her movies couldn't get distribution and remain difficult to see. Others received only the tiniest distribution and even most critics didn't notice them. Such is the case with her wonderful new 35 Shots of Rum (2 screens), which is one of the year's best films.

Indie Roundup invites you to relive the last seven days and look forward to the near future in the ever-diverse indie film world.

Deals. A big buzz title at Toronto was the most notable deal of the week. Aaron Schneider's Get Low, starring Bill Murray, Robert Duvall, Sissy Spacek, and Lucas Black, sold to Sony Pictures Classics for distribution in North America, according to our friends at indieWIRE. Scott Weinberg called it "an excellent little dramatic piece that's awash in humanity, warmth, insight, and wit." Details on several other deals that were made, all related to the Toronto fest, can be found at indieWIRE.

Online / On-Demand Viewing. Even less-publicized fest films are getting out into circulation. Hailing from Chile, Scrambled Beer (Malta Con Huevo) premiered at SXSW in 2008, and is now available for free streaming exclusively at Babelgum. It's described as "a delirious black comedy and bizarre story about two friends named Vladimir and George who move in together and begin to see reality differently. Vladimir lives a supernatural tale of time travel, while Jorge grows obsessed and embarks on a twisted adventure." In other words, possibly the perfect movie for the beginning of fall.

Fests. My favorite festival ever, Fantastic Fest, starts tomorrow night. Unfortunately, I'll only be able to pop in over the weekend to savor a small taste of the cinematic banquet that will be served over the next seven days. Look for much more coverage right here at Cinematical.

Actors in period costume, multiple shots of rum, and foreign cities -- all after the jump!

When you go to see a Claire Denis film, you don't go expecting to be spoon-fed a lot of information, and The Intruder is no exception. This hauntingly visual, dream-like film blends together a narrative storyline with dream sequences, abstractions, and maybe-prophetic moments. Denis, who said in an interview with Senses of Cinema that she "doesn't make highly intellectual films"  and that The Intruder is like "a boat lost in the ocean drifting,"  makes you work to piece together a narrative out of seemingly obscure and unrelated bits and pieces. While you're never quite sure if you've got it all figured out, you leave feeling it was a swell ride anyhow. Seldom have I seen a film that inspired so much intense discussion in the bathroom and lobby after the screening; people were clustered in groups, going over snippets of film like clues to a murder mystery dinner party, long after the film ended.

If Claire Denis wants to make films that push character and linear plot to the side and focus on something else, then she's welcome to it, but she can't have her cake and eat it too. The Intruder is a film that has a plot - one that is selfishly hidden from the viewer. I think the story is about a man who commits a murder, leaves the country, and spends his time on the run trying to track down a long lost son, all while recovering from a heart transplant. But I couldn't tell you who the murder victim was or whether or not we ever meet the son. By the end of the film key characters have come and gone without ever being clearly introduced, confusing dream sequences have been pigtailed together with the real story as well as shots from other French films, and the main character has spoken less than five or six pages of dialogue. All of these demerits could be praise, of course, if the imagery of the film told a story of its own or spoke to us in a unique language. But if that's what it's doing, then I just don't speak the language.