Match-Cut Movement for August: New French Extremity

[B-side]

http://www.wannadive.net/spot/Europe/France/map/map_france_wannadive_world_div e_atlas.gif

New French Extremity (or "New French Extremism") is a term coined by Artforum critic James Quandt for a collection of transgressive films by French directors at the turn of the 21st century. The filmmakers are also discussed by Jonathan Romney of The Independent. Quandt describes the style as follows:


Bava as much as Bataille, Salo no less than Sade seem the determinants of a cinema suddenly determined to break every taboo, to wade in rivers of viscera and spumes of sperm, to fill each frame with flesh, nubile or gnarled, and subject it to all manner of penetration, mutilation, and defilement.

Directors/Films associated with the movement:

Bruno Dumont
François Ozon
Gaspar Noé
Catherine Breillat
Claire Denis' Trouble Every Day
Patrice Chéreau's Intimacy
Bertrand Bornello's The Pornographer
Marina de Van's In My Skin
Leos Carax's Pola X
Philippe Grandrieux's Sombre and La vie nouvelle
Jean-Claude Brisseau's Secret Things
Jacques Nolot's Porn Theater
Virginie Despentes and Coralie Trinh Thi's Baise-moi

[Pop Trash]

This seems tailor made for Brightside. Would contemporary French horror (like Frontiers or Inside) link with this? Or is that a separate genre?

[Mysterious Dude]

Would it be rude for me to point out that it's August?

[B-side]

This seems tailor made for Brightside. Would contemporary French horror (like Frontiers or Inside) link with this? Or is that a separate genre?

My sources say yes, they're en extension of the movement.

[B-side]

Would it be rude for me to point out that it's August?

Heh. Not sure why I didn't catch onto that. I just kept thinking I was going for the next month after the last one. Can you help a brother out, mods?

[B-side]

Appreciated. :)

[Philosophe_rouge]

I've seen quite a few of these. I'm decidedly mixed. I love films like Sombre or Trouble Every Day but the horror off-shoots like Inside and Haute Tension I think are absolute shit.

[MacGuffin]

Bruno Dumont
Flandres **
Twentynine Palms ****
L'humanité ***1/2
La vie de Jésus ****

François Ozon
Water Drops on Burning Rocks ***
Swimming Pool ***

Gaspar Noé
Carne **
I Stand Alone *1/2
Irréversible ***

Catherine Breillat
Romance **
Fat Girl *1/2
Anatomy of Hell *1/2
The Last Mistress *1/2

Trouble Every Day ***
In My Skin *
Pola X (I'll try to watch it this month.)

Philippe Grandrieux
Sombre ***
La vie nouvelle (I'll try to watch it this month.)

Secret Things *1/2
Baise-moi *

The "extreme horror" movies:

Calvaire ***1/2
Frontier(s) *
High Tension ***1/2
Inside **1/2
Martyrs ***1/2
Sheitan **1/2

[MacGuffin]

SUGGESTED READING (http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0268/is_6_42/ai_113389507/)

[Pop Trash]

You seriously think High Tension is a better movie than Fat Girl? :crazy:

[MacGuffin]

You seriously think High Tension is a better movie than Fat Girl? :crazy:

Yes, I seriously do.

[Spinal]

I'm not buying this as a movement. French directors who use extreme content? What kind of movement is that? Quandt's description is an eye-roller.

[MacGuffin]

I'm not buying this as a movement. French directors who use extreme content? What kind of movement is that? Quandt's description is an eye-roller.

I think the title is misleading as it seems to me most of these movies share a rather nihilistic world-view, which fuels the violent content. So it should be New French Nihilism or something.

[Spinal]

I think the title is misleading as it seems to me most of these movies share a rather nihilistic world-view, which fuels the violent content. So it should be New French Nihilism or something.

What fuels the spumes of sperm?

[kuehnepips]

There is no sperm in In My Skin.

[MacGuffin]

Seriously though, if you like your movies with a little extra skin, In My Skin is the one to see.

[Ivan Drago]

Gaspar Noe:

I Stand Alone - 8
Irreversible - 10

Can't wait for Enter The Void.

[Spaceman Spiff]

What fuels the spumes of sperm?

Hot naked french babes, I'm guessing.

[Grouchy]

We are supposed to rate these?

Anyway, Martyrs has not been included and I think it should be.

[B-side]

We are supposed to rate these?

If you want. The main idea is to watch some of the films and review/discuss them here. Seems doubtful at this juncture, though.


Anyway, Martyrs has not been included and I think it should be.

Well, I didn't post all the films related to the movement, just most of them, and a majority of the directors involved.

[Grouchy]

Just to clarify I didn't mean in it a bad way or to bash your list, I just did a shout out to a movie that I find great and that, if more people watch it, it's sure to be controversial around here.

[B-side]

Just to clarify I didn't mean in it a bad way or to bash your list, I just did a shout out to a movie that I find great and that, if more people watch it, it's sure to be controversial around here.

Nah, I know. S'all good, sir.

[Dead & Messed Up]

Out of the many films in this often-unnerving movement, I've seen Martyrs, Frontieres, Trouble Every Day, and Baise-Moi. Transgressive cinema can be fascinating, but it can also be frustrating, because I don't believe that transgression in and of itself has any value. As always, it comes down to what the artist communicates through the breaking of taboos.

Unfortunately, in all four of these films, I never quite felt that the artistry or undercurrents truly justified the depths plumbed. Martyrs and Trouble Every Day, I can understand the praise, thanks in no small part to compelling arguments from Match-Cut posters Rowland and Philosophe. Certainly Martyrs, with its core question of how much people can learn from witnessing pain, works not just as a reflection on viewers but on violence in cinema as a whole. And Trouble Every Day, if nothing else, is an evocative look at how consuming the desire for love can be. All the same, I felt the films spent so much time focusing on the violence that the visceral experience of watching the pictures simply became unpleasant. I didn't want to watch anymore, and the value did not exceed the cost.

I didn't like much of anything about Frontieres, which thieved its entire plot from The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (itself an inimitable example of pushing boundaries without crouching in gory violence), and I thought Baise-Moi was a tawdry exercise in equality-through-debasement (the women rape the men! how empowering!). Then again, a lot of genre fans love these pictures in spite of (and sometimes because of) the elements I criticize, so I try to keep a sense of humor about all this blood and splooge.

It will be fascinating to see if and how my opinions of the films change over the years. The movement strikes me as a foreign echo of the Vietnam-era anger of filmmakers like Romero, Boorman, Peckinpah, and Hooper, who were also taboo-busters in their own right. No doubt they also dealt with people like me who said, "Gosh, there's something interesting here, but it's just so dang mean."

[endingcredits]

I really liked Noe's Irreversible. This could be relevant to my interests.