Bettina Rheims and Serge Bramly's Rose, c'est Paris is both a photographic monograph and a feature-length film. This extraordinary work of art, in two different but interlocking and complementary formats, defies easy categorization. For in this multi-layered opus of poetic symbolism, photographer Bettina Rheims and writer Serge Bramly evoke the City of Light in a completely novel way: this is a Paris of surrealist visions, confused identities, artistic phantoms, unseen manipulation, obsession, fetish, and seething desire.
In 1956, the rich French publisher of the works of the Marquis de Sade, Jean-Jacques Pauvert, was summoned to court for violating good morals and publishing pornography. Sade was born in 1755 and already in 1778 he was sentenced to a years-long prison, which was renewed by himself because of the writing of "scandalous" texts. This saved his life after the French revolution, but he soon came into conflict with Robespierre.
Al Pereira, a wise-cracking superspy, investigates a series of assassinations being performed by ruthless killers with bronze skin and horn-rimmed glasses. The trail of these mindless automata leads him to the lair of a seductive villainess who has formulated a computer-powered plot to overthrow the governments of Europe. 'Cartes sur table' is at once an homage to classical Hollywood thrillers and a playful riff on the newly-popular James Bond films.
