sunday, july 23, 9 pm: ma loute (bruno dumont)

[pirate cinema berlin]

When we last screened Bruno Dumont (1), he wasn't the most likely candidate to 
ever make a costume film, a period drama, or a comedy with Juliette Binoche, 
and Pirate Cinema wouldn't have been the most likely place to show any of 
these. It probably still isn't, but this one is just too good to pass on it.

Like two of Dumont's most recent works, Hors Satan and P'tit Quinquin, the film 
is set in the sandy seasides of northern France, on the beach and in the bushes.
This is where he grew up, and if there's one thing he has figured out since, 
then that's how to film a dune landscape. The results can be quite stunning.

The story is set in the summer of 1910, and that must be what makes it feel so 
contemporary. The society we see is a class society, the summer light makes the 
contours of these divisions much sharper, and there's a distinct pre-war breeze 
in the air. The rich are all imbeciles, and the poor (mild spoiler) eat them.

The film opens with the noisy arrival of a bourgeois family at their seaside 
estate, and a fat detective rolling downhill in the sand. In fact, the cops 
look like Laurel and Hardy, and they turn everything they touch into very early 
cinema. When the film closes, they will have succeeded at defeating gravity.

The locals live a bit further inland, but they do appear by the water at times. 
They don't speak much, but the kids will make contact. What follows are dinner 
conversations, acts of violence, subtle misunderstandings, attempts to provoke
divine intervention and various class-specific states of confusion and insanity.

What's truly bizarre, however, is that Dumont has managed to couch a fully 
believable love story amidst all the slapstick and madness, involving a boy who 
dresses as a girl who is also a girl who dresses as a boy, and who, against all 
odds, turns out to be one of the most plausible characters he has ever invented.

(1) https://piratecinema.org/screenings/20070819

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                                                                          sunday
                                                                         july 23
                                                                            9 pm

                                                                        ma loute
                                                              bruno dumont, 2016
                                                           120 min, english subs

                                                            pirate cinema berlin
                                                                u kottbusser tor
                                                           e-mail for directions

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