Slack Bay (May 27th and 28th at the Cleveland Cinematheque)

[SLACK BAY screens Saturday May 27th at 7:10 pm and Sunday May 28th at 3:45 pm at the Cleveland Cinematheque.]

Review by Bob Ignizio

Class warfare and cannibalism collide in the deadpan black comedy SLACK BAY. The setup is that tourists are disappearing from the small French village of Ma Loutte. The local constabulary, the Laurel and Hardy-esque pair of Inspector Machin (Didier Després) and Malfoy (Cyril Rigaux) are at a loss.  

The audience, however, is very much aware of what is happening and who is responsible. Call this a SPOILER ALERT if you will, but the movie shows us early on that the Brufort family – headed by patriarch L'Eternel (Thierry Lavieville) – are murdering and eating hapless vacationers. Mom (Caroline Carbonnier) doesn't even bother cooking the meat, serving up bloody red plates of tasty foot for her ravenous progeny.

Repost: Li'l Quinquin (March 9th at the Cleveland Cinematheque)

[LI'L QUINQUIN screens Monday March 9th at 6:45 pm at the Cleveland Cinematheque.]

Review by Bob Ignizio

A bucolic seaside town in France is rocked by a series of bizarre murders, starting with a double homicide in which the victims' body parts are found inside the carcasses of dead cows, in L'IL QUINQUIN. Captain Van der Weyden (Bernard Pruvost), his face a constantly contorting ball of tics, heads up the investigation. His driver and foil is Lieutenant Carpentie (Philippe Jore), who treats every car trip as an excuse to try out his stunt driving skills. The captain is bothered almost as much by a group of bike riding adolescents led by Li'l Quinquin (Alane Delhaye), a racist juvenile delinquent whose only redeeming quality is his love for neighbor girl Eve (Lucy Caron), as he is by the gruesome nature of the murders. To him, both are equally signs that the world he's living in is the Devil's domain.

Li'l Quinquin (February 19th and 20th at the Cleveland Cinematheque)

[LI'L QUINQUIN screens Thursday February 19th at 6:45 pm and Friday February 20th at 7:30 pm at the Cleveland Cinematheque.]

Review by Bob Ignizio

A bucolic seaside town in France is rocked by a series of bizarre murders, starting with a double homicide in which the victims' body parts are found inside the carcasses of dead cows, in L'IL QUINQUIN. Captain Van der Weyden (Bernard Pruvost), his face a constantly contorting ball of tics, heads up the investigation. His driver and foil is Lieutenant Carpentie (Philippe Jore), who treats every car trip as an excuse to try out his stunt driving skills. The captain is bothered almost as much by a group of bike riding adolescents led by Li'l Quinquin (Alane Delhaye), a racist juvenile delinquent whose only redeeming quality is his love for neighbor girl Eve (Lucy Caron), as he is by the gruesome nature of the murders. To him, both are equally signs that the world he's living in is the Devil's domain.

Camille Claudel, 1915 (January 9th and 10th at the Cleveland Cinematheque)

[CAMILLE CLAUDEL 1915 screens Thursday, January 9th at 8:35 pm, Friday January 10th at 7:00 pm, and Saturday January 11th at 7:20 pm at the Cleveland Cinematheque.]

Review by Milan Paurich

Even if you’ve never seen--or wanted to see--a film by French auteur Bruno Dumont, CAMILLE CLAUDEL 1915 is worth seeking out for its fearless lead performance by Juliette Binoche alone. Dumont has been racking up festival prizes (including two Cannes Grand Jury wins for HUMANITE and FLANDERS) and international critical plaudits for nearly two decades without making a dent in the U.S. market. His one foray onto American shores--2003’s California-lensed TWENTYNINE PALMS--is best forgotten.

Maybe it’s because Dumont’s films seem too intimidating with their deliberate pacing and tendency to reduce the human species to the level of barnyard animals, especially while fucking. Or perhaps it’s just because most domestic arthouse habitues don’t like being challenged. (Hard to believe that equally “difficult” foreign-language directors like Alain Resnais and Ingmar Bergman were once furious topics of conversation--and debate--at tony American cocktail parties.) As a result, they’ve missed out on one of the most distinctive voices in contemporary world cinema. 

Hors Satan (June 14th and 15th at the Cleveland Cinematheque)

[HORS SATAN screens Friday June 14th at 5:00 pm and Satuday June 15th at 7:15 pm at the Cleveland Cinematheque.]

Review by Charles Cassady, Jr.

If Bruno Dumont's 2011 French film HORS SATAN had a perceptible sense of humor (it doesn't), mood music (it doesn't) or John Nance or Laura Dern (no, sorry), it could have been called `Lynchean.' Put another way, if the macabre movies of David Lynch were even slower and not half so diabolically entertaining, they'd resemble HORS SATAN.

That's not to say HORS SATAN isn't worthwhile, just that it does seem to take a...well...ungodly amount of time to get under one's skin.

Setting is a sleepy provincial village near Bolougne. Details are sketchy (not helped by the fact that all characters are nameless and seldom speak), but a gaunt vagabond appears on the scene and promptly uses a rifle to sniper-shoot down a farmer. The victim was, so we eventually, hopefully, comprehend, the abusive stepfather of a sullen, Goth-looking local girl.