La Pointe Courte
7.4 /10 1 Votes
Director Agnes Varda Budget 14,000 USD Duration Country France | 7.2/10 IMDb Genre Drama Music director Pierre Barbaud Writer Agnes Varda Language French | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Release date 1955 Cast Philippe Noiret (Lui), Silvia Monfort (Elle), Sandrine Bonnaire Similar movies Vacation , Youth , The Way Way Back , Just Married , City Slickers , Westworld | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
La pointe courte agnes varda opening sequence
A young man (Philippe Noiret) who is a native of the seaside village of La Pointe Courte, France is having a hard time understanding why his bored, Paris-born wife (Sylvia Montfort) of four years is unhappy with their marriage. The couple visit La Pointe Courte as they try to resolve their problems. Meanwhile, the locals of the rural community grapple with the hardships and tragedies of their daily lives: A young child dies, a government official hassles fishermen and a marriage is arranged.
Contents
La Pointe Courte is a 1955 French drama film directed by Agnes Varda. The film was Vardas debut, and has been cited by many critics as a forerunner of the French New Wave.
The troubled relationship of a married couple on vacation brushes beside the ongoing conflict between fishing families and the authorities in La Pointe-Courte, Séte.
Plot
A young man (Philippe Noiret) arrives at a train station to see his wife. After four years of marriage the couple are having problems of a somewhat existential naturethe wife loves her husband, but is thinking of leaving him (he had an affair some time back, but her problem is not jealousy so much as questioning the very nature of love itself). The couple discuss their lives, and become resigned to the fact that they belong together, even if their love has changed. They return to Paris, the wife now better understanding her husbands nature because shes seen his hometown. As this drama unfolds, we see the lives of the poor but proud people living there; fishermen wanting to harvest shellfish from a small lagoon they have been forbidden to use because of an alleged problem with bacteria, a small child dies of an unknown illness, a young man wins the right to court the 16-year-old daughter of a neighbor, after proving himself in a local aquatic jousting tournament.
Production
Varda originally went to La Pointe Courte to take pictures for a friend who could no longer visit her home. After seeing the footage she took she rented a camera to shoot a film about a couple who lived in La Pointe Courte. Varda set up her own co-op and began production. The budget for the film was low budget costing $14,000; roughly one fourth the budget of other feature films of the era including The 400 Blows and Breathless. No members of the cast or crew were paid during the production.
Themes
In a 1962 interview, Varda spoke of two present themes in the film with "the first being a couple reconsidering their relationship and a village that is trying to resolve several collective problems of survival".
Release
The Paris premiere of the film was in 1956 at the Studio Parnasse. It played with Jean Vigos documentary film A propos de Nice (1930).
References
La Pointe Courte WikipediaLa Pointe Courte IMDb La Pointe Courte themoviedb.org