Drôles de bobines (1957)

A fascinating compilation of scenes showing diversity and disparity in 1940s China. The ancient Forbidden City and Great Wall are followed by Shanghai’s metropolitan skyline; primitive farming methods are juxtaposed with mechanised factories; children in rags are contrasted with models wearing the latest fashions; Nationalist commanders and Communist leaders vie for support.

Short doc by Maurice Pialat. The first film in the series set at Turkey, Bosphore, is also the only one that was shot in color.

Two men are disappointed by women and united by a whore

Maître Galip is the most poetic and powerful of Pialat's Turkish Chronicles, using the poems of Nazim Hikmet to accompany a series of evocative images of ordinary working class people in Istanbul. This was the film that Pialat himself claimed was the most complete realization of what he was aiming for with his Turkish documentaries. It's not difficult to see why this was his favorite: here he abandons the historical commentary and documentary observation of the other shorts in favor of an emotional emphasis on the lives of the poor and the unemployed.A short doc by Maurice Pialat.

Byzance uses a text by Stefan Zweig to describe the Ottoman conquest of the city in 1453. Before he turned to feature filmmaking in 1968 with Naked Childhood, Pialat worked on a series of short films, many of them financed by French television. Byzance is one of Pialat’s six Turkish shorts.

La Corne d'or is mostly concerned with religious ritual, examining the mosque (and former cathedral) discussed in Byzance. As a contrast against Istanbul's status as a center of historical religious conflict, Pialat — drawing here on texts by the French poet Gérard de Nerval — also describes the city as a place of strange ethnic and religious harmony, with representatives of various cultures and religions living in close contact. He emphasizes the city's hybrid culture, its blend of Southern European and Arab influences, reflected in both its people and its very construction.

Impressive sound design, non-linear editing, great ‘expressionistic’ locations and b&w cinematography, this is an experimental piece for Pialat, a psychological/gothic thriller of sorts...

Pehlivan focuses on a three-day wrestling competition, an ancient tradition that dates back over a thousand years to the time of the Ottoman Empire, originating in the games the soldiers would play to entertain themselves in between battles. Maybe that's why there's more than a hint of homoeroticism in the way the wrestlers oil themselves up with grease, making sure to cover every inch of their bodies so that their opponents will be unable to get a grip. Pialat's closeups emphasize the men's muscular bodies jammed together and sliding off one another, posed in intimate, twisted arrangements, struggling desperately for a grip on each other's bodies. Arms are jammed down pants, one of the only places there's some potential for a handhold, and the whole thing is very suggestive and sensual, a form of intimate male contact that's sanctioned as a show of strength and masculinity.

All of Pialat's Turkish films are uniquely interested in the country — especially Istanbul — as it was, not just as it is at the precise moment that Pialat is filming it. History informs these films in a big way, with the voiceover narration (which incorporates excerpts from various authors) introducing tension between the images of the modern-day city and the descriptions of incidents from its long and rich history. Istanbul is probably the most conventional documentary of Pialat's Turkish series, providing a general profile of the titular city, its different neighborhoods, and the different cultures and ways of living that coexist within its sprawling borders. As the other films in the series also suggest, Pialat sees Turkey, and Istanbul in particular, as a junction point between Europe and the East, between the old and the new, between history and modernity.

Shot by Methodist missionaries, this is an incredibly charming record of small-town life in an unidentified location in China. We see a bustling wharf town with canal-side dwellings, distinctive school buildings, and a hospital where newly graduated nurses pose for a group portrait. The relaxed smiles of Chinese and Europeans are captured in intimate close-ups, suggesting a tight-knit community.

알콜 문제로 영화계를 오랜 기간 떠났던 제작자 멜 펀. 그는 야심차게 영화계로의 복귀를 꿈꾸고, 그 첫 프로젝트로 무성영화를 만들 계획을 세운다. 제작자는 이 시대착오적인 꿈을 필사적으로 반대하지만 멜은 굴하지 않고 더 큰 계획을 실행에 옮긴다. 할리우드 최고의 배우를 캐스팅하려는 것이다. 이제 멜과 동료들은 LA에 살고 있는 스타들을 찾아다니며 못 말리는 소동을 벌인다. 어쩌면 멜 브룩스의 가장 야심찬 영화일지도 모를 는 말 그대로 무성 영화의 형식을 과감하게 밀어 붙인다. 인물들의 목소리가 아니라 자막으로 모든 대사를 전달하는 것이다. 무성 영화의 형식, 특히 자막과 화면의 불일치를 이용해 웃음을 만들어내는 솜씨는 그 자체로 재미있을 뿐 아니라 이미지와 사운드에 대한 날카로운 영화적 논평으로 읽히기도 한다. 버트 레이놀즈, 제임스 칸, 폴 뉴먼 등 스타들의 과감하게 망가지는 연기도 재미를 더한다. (제1회 충무로뮤지컬영화제)