French Revelations, a three-film series of recent features from France, screens from 22 March at Auckland Film Society.

First up is director Serge Bozon's remarkable La France. “Bresson meets the Beatles in this WWI drama that unexpectedly breaks into spirited song at four key moments during its otherwise spare, austere portrayal of combat and camaraderie on the Western front. Audacious in concept but superbly controlled in execution, what might easily have seemed a genre-bending stunt instead registers as a highly sensitive, inspired approach to the subject of men -- and one woman -- confronting the dehumanizing effects of war.” – Variety

Following on is André Téchiné’s fast-moving, engrossing and entertaining drama, The Witnesses, which revolves around the AIDS crisis of the mid 1980s, but its real theme is love and acceptance. “A rich screenplay and bright comedy colours celebrate the spirit of the 80s as a time of great social and sexual freedom, embodied by young Johan Libéreau as the blithe, carefree Manu, whose irrepressible joie de vivre refuses to accept the limitations of monogamy.” – NZ International Film Festivals

Rounding out the series is Heartbeat Detector. “If you're a fan of Hitchcock, of Kubrick, of the kind of thriller that has the implacable mystery of great sculpture or great architecture, of movies that create their own visual, aural and symbolic universe and suck you bodily into them -- well, you've simply got to see this. Mathieu Amalric (The Diving Bell and the Butterfly) stars here as a man battling a very different kind of paralysis… From its very first frames -- images of dark-suited corporate executives as they move into, through and back out of the men's room -- Heartbeat Detector works on so many levels at once that its power is difficult to capture.” – Andrew O’Hehir, salon.com

French Revelations screens at Auckland Film Society starting on 22 March. All films in this series are in French, with English subtitles. Screenings are at the Academy Cinemas, 44 Lorne St, Auckland City, Mondays at 6.30pm (Heartbeat Detector screens on Tuesday 6 April, following the Easter break, at the earlier time of 6.00pm, due to its long running time).

Memberships on sale at the AFS table in the lobby before all Film Society screenings. 3-film card membership costs just $30 and can be used to purchase full membership by instalments. Full membership costs just $140 with a bCard, which works out at less than $5 per film.

Full details at www.aucklandfilmsociety.org.nz

Links

Variety review of La France

NZ International Film Festivals notes for The Witnesses (Les témoins)

New York Times review of The Witnesses

Salon.com review of Heartbeat Detector (La question humaine)

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