WEEKEND SERIES
On the Edge: Classics from La Semaine de la critique
March 18 - March 25
Conceived by the French Union of Film Critics in 1962, La Semaine de la critique (Critics' Week) runs parallel to the Cannes Film Festival every May, and presents an eclectic showcase of first and second feature works. Highlights of the festival's most recent slate include Rubber, the directorial debut of electronic musician Quentin Dupieux (aka Mr. Oizo) about a car tire with destructive, ESP-like powers, the harrowing Afghan War documentary Armadillo and the Oscar-winning animated short Logorama, in which apocalypse rains down on a landscape entirely populated by brand-name mascots and corporate insignia.
In honor of its 50th anniversary, LACMA highlights six films which made their debut at the Semaine. Hailing from four continents—Europe, North America, South America and Asia—they represent distinct characteristics of Semaine's selection over the years. Early works from filmmakers who have risen to international prominence: Jacques Audiard's streetwise thriller
Regarde les hommes tomber starring Jean-Louis Tringtignant and Barbet Schroeder's hypnotic
More, a portrait of hippie nihilism set amid the sun and sea of Ibiza and scored by Pink Floyd, and Gaspar Noé's hard-bitten
I Stand Alone. And radical formal experiments: Straub/Huillet's sublimely austere anti-biopic
Chronicle of Anna Magdalena Bach which is largely comprised of live, full-length performances of Bach's music, Hiroshi Teshigahara's psychedelic noir
Pitfall which crosses the existentialist-tinged surrealism of Alain Resnais with a potently modernist Toru Takemitsu score, and Paul Morrissey's Beckett-like underground classic
Trash starring Joe Dellassandro as a strung-out junkie.
This series is presented with invaluable assistance from the French Film and TV Office, Los Angeles, and the Cultural Services of the French Embassy. Our thanks to Anaïs Couette and Hélène Auclaire from the Semaine de la Critique; Jonathan Howell, New Yorker Films; Mike Thomas, Jour de Fete Films; Sarah Finklea and Brian Belevorac, Janus Films; Thomas Petit, Les Films du Losange; and Didier Haudepin, Bloody Mary Productions.
