Top Ten Lockdown Films

[Dan Warburton]

This in fact is Henrik's idea, not mine - he phoned me from Sweden (where people can still go out and restaurants are still, it seems, open, even if folks have to sit at some respectable distance from each other) to find out how we were doing here in la France profonde (not too badly in fact! so glad we're not stuck in Paris). Assuming there's still somebody out there reading this (half a dozen of you? unless there are a billion lurkers), and that you too are confined to barracks for the foreseeable future, what televisual fun have you got lined up? I'm afraid the answer to that question will probably be a series, or several series, in which case you're in the wrong thread. But, while I think about my own top ten, anyone got any instant bright ideas? I think I'll pass on The Satan Bug, thanks - and Satantango too, come to think of it.

[Lao Tsu Ben]

Hi Dan, I hope the family's well.
It might be time to check out Mariano Llinás' La Flor. Merely 14 hours (that I went to see at the cinema last year). A warning : the first small movie, a riff on mummy movie, is one of the least successful - a musical comedy of some sort wraps up the first part in an altogether differently satisfactory manner. The whole endeavour is glorious in the way it manages to do much with scarce means - sometimes it implies putting up with perhaps a little too much voiceover (Llinás' command of it was already on display in his previous movie). I'll try to come up with more suggestions later!

Does Chartes qualify as La France profonde?

[Dan Warburton]

Hi Dan, I hope the family's well.
It might be time to check out Mariano Llinás' La Flor. Merely 14 hours (that I went to see at the cinema last year). A warning : the first small movie, a riff on mummy movie, is one of the least successful - a musical comedy of some sort wraps up the first part in an altogether differently satisfactory manner. The whole endeavour is glorious in the way it manages to do much with scarce means - sometimes it implies putting up with perhaps a little too much voiceover (Llinás' command of it was already on display in his previous movie). I'll try to come up with more suggestions later!

Good call - had been meaning to attack this, thanks for reminding

Does Chartres qualify as La France profonde?

Guess not - that'd be Creuse or Corrèze, I suppose - more like grande banlieue, then But it's certainly quieter, cheaper and calmer than Paris at the moment, from what I hear. You still in Paname, Ben?

[Lao Tsu Ben]

I spent some time in Marseille, which is not necessarily quieter (that damn mistral along with the sun in the summer) before coming back to Paris. The lockdown is delaying some plans to leave for the reasons you're mentioning.
Grande banlieue is somewhat insulting for a very nice little city like Chartres who is very much his own girl!

[Dan Warburton]

Here's a cut'n'paste from a while back -



Clive Rees, The Blockhouse, 1973

Bleak tale of seven blokes trapped underground in a German army blockhaus during an air-raid on Guernsey on D-Day. The film helpfully informs us at the outset that only two of them survive. Sellers dusts off his French accent (happily, not as pronounced as his Clouseau) and lets his beard grow. So does Charles Aznavour. There's plenty of booze down there, but when the candles run out.. yikes.

[Dan Warburton]

Meanwhile, David Geffen has apparently chosen to self-isolate on his $590,000,000 superyacht https://www.businessinsider.fr/us/risin ... ama-2019-8 (thanks for the messages of sympathy, Dave - all I can say is FUCK YOU) - with a bit of luck he might up on a lifeboat with Walter Slezak



Alfred Hitchcock, Lifeboat, 1944

[Dan Warburton]

This was a good one about confined spaces

Alfredo Montero, La cueva, 2014

The subtitles on the version I snatched are atrocious, but after about half an hour's gone by, you don't really mind. It's a found footage affair, the holiday video blog from hell, as a trip to an idyllic island ends with our famous five (no dog here, sorry) trapped inside a cave. I won't spoil the ending, but let's just say that food becomes an issue after a while. And other little animals live in caves too. Yikes. Makes 127 Hours feel like On Golden Pond

[Dan Warburton]

Or here was a real lockdown tale, the guy who refused to leave his room!

Well thanks, that's one I don't have to worry about downloading



Juan Estelrich, El Anacoreta, 1976

An anchorite (I had to look it up online too) is, to quote Wiki "frequently considered to be a type of religious hermit, [but] unlike hermits they were required to take a vow of stability of place, opting instead for permanent enclosure in cells often attached to churches." Our hero here - played to perfection by the wonderful Fernando Fernán Gómez - has chosen to stay in his (rather spacious) bathroom, which is also equipped with a bed and plenty of storage space, most of which Fernando fills up with scrapbooks full of press cuttings, proof that the world is really going down the toilet. Also going down the loo are meticulously written messages stuffed into tubes, copies of which he files away for reference. One of these finds its way, amazingly, through the local sewerage system and gets washed into and all around the Mediterranean, where it's picked up by a bored rich chick (Martine Audo, and damn why on earth didn't this woman make more films? she's superb) who tracks down the elusive hero and.. well, no, won't spoil it for you. Billed as a comedy, but it's the brainchild of Rafael Azcona, who wrote many of Ferreri's comedies.. so you laugh (you'll love it when the flamenco singer bursts a blood vessel) but underneath there's a serious side, which Gómez captures to perfection. Looks like a BluRay is out and about, or soon to be, so crossing fingers for a better update KGFT.

[Dan Warburton]

Or how about sitting on top of a column in the desert for social distancing?

Luis Buñuel, Simon of the Desert, 1965

After orbiting Scott Walker's flagpole-sitting brown dwarf a few times, thought I'd check the film he refers to (obliquely, as ever). What a shame Dom Luis ran out of cash and had to leave his protagonist in a New York nightclub.. wonder how it would have ended if he'd had the cash to finish it properly (Michael Wood's essay doesn't provide any answers but it's a good read http://www.criterion.com/current/posts/ ... -if-you-do). Still, great little movie. Love it when Sylvia Pinal kicks the lamb out of the picture.

[yonhosago]

Elio Petri Todo modo