"Actor: Nadine Nortier"

• Mouchette (1967) (Criterion Collection) UK Only | Blu Ray | (14/12/2020) from £17.99   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £N/A

  ROBERT BRESSON (Au hasard Balthazar) plumbs great reservoirs of feeling with Mouchette, one of the most searing portraits of human desperation ever put on film. With a dying mother, an absent, alcoholic father, and a baby brother in need of care, the teenage Mouchette seeks solace and respite from her circumstances in the nature of the French countryside and daily routine. Bresson deploys his trademark minimalist style to heartbreaking effect in this essential work of French filmmaking, a hugely empathetic drama that elevates its trapped protagonist into one of the cinema's most memorable tragic figures. Special Features: New 4K digital restoration, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack Audio commentary from 2006 by film scholar, critic, and festival programmer Tony Rayns Au hasard Bresson, a 1967 documentary by Theodor Kotulla, featuring director Robert Bresson on the set of Mouchette Segment of a 1967 episode of the French television series Cinéma, featuring on-set interviews with Bresson and actors Nadine Nortier and Jean-Claude Guilbert Original theatrical trailer, cut by Jean-Luc Godard PLUS: An essay by critic and poet Robert Polito

• Mouchette | Blu Ray | (10/03/2014) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £19.99

  Perhaps the most accessible of Robert Bresson's films, this story of a 14-year-old schoolgirl at the mercy of the world around her is like a melodrama stripped of flourish. Mouchette is an angry adolescent in the French provinces, the daughter of a drunken bootlegger and a dying, bedridden mother, a pariah in school and a figure of village gossip. She rebels in typically adolescent ways, lobbing mud at teasing classmates and defying wagging tongues with a wilful stare, but her deep pain and loneliness pour from her hollow, sad eyes. There's no sentimentality in Bresson's portrait of village life but for a few brief moments the film explodes with energy and emotion. Mouchette rides the bumper cars at a local fair, flirting with a young boy in loving bumps and deliberate rams, and her dour expression flowers in a smile as the fairground speakers blare a rock & roll tune... until her father's heavy hand slaps her back to reality. It's a moment unlike any other in a Bresson film, a joyous reprieve from the monotony of her life, but if the rest of her existence is glum and hopeless, the film is unexpectedly beautiful. The style is often fragmented--the film opens on a stunning play of hands, feet and spying eyes as poacher and police both wait for their prey--but the beauty of the forests and meadows creates an idyllic naturalism that leavens Bresson's harsh portrait of the human condition. --Sean Axmaker

• Mouchette | DVD | (26/08/2013) from £10.78   |  Saving you £5.21 (32.60%)   |  RRP £15.99

  Mouchette is one of Robert Bresson’s greatest cinematic achievements, plumbing immense emotional depths in a searing, heartbreaking portrait of human frailty. Hemmed in by a dying mother, an alcoholic father and a baby brother in need of care, the adolescent Mouchette searches for sanctuary in nature and domestic chores. As the delicate intricacies of her life are played out a touching, tender and tragic portrait is painted, making her of one of cinema’s most memorable tragic heroines. An essential piece of classic French filmmaking.

• Artificial Eye 40th Anniversary Collection: Volume 4 | DVD | (05/12/2016) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £N/A

  Revisit iconic world cinema titles with a special collection of films celebrating Artificial Eye's 40th anniversary. Read more at http://www.curzonartificialeye.com/artificial-eye-40th-anniversary-collection-volume-4-classics/#QIlcd7gBHroQBOc8.99

• Mouchette | DVD | (22/11/2004) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £19.99

  Perhaps the most accessible of Robert Bresson's films, this story of a 14-year-old schoolgirl at the mercy of the world around her is like a melodrama stripped of flourish. Mouchette is an angry adolescent in the French provinces, the daughter of a drunken bootlegger and a dying, bedridden mother, a pariah in school and a figure of village gossip. She rebels in typically adolescent ways, lobbing mud at teasing classmates and defying wagging tongues with a wilful stare, but her deep pain and loneliness pour from her hollow, sad eyes. There's no sentimentality in Bresson's portrait of village life but for a few brief moments the film explodes with energy and emotion. Mouchette rides the bumper cars at a local fair, flirting with a young boy in loving bumps and deliberate rams, and her dour expression flowers in a smile as the fairground speakers blare a rock & roll tune... until her father's heavy hand slaps her back to reality. It's a moment unlike any other in a Bresson film, a joyous reprieve from the monotony of her life, but if the rest of her existence is glum and hopeless, the film is unexpectedly beautiful. The style is often fragmented--the film opens on a stunning play of hands, feet and spying eyes as poacher and police both wait for their prey--but the beauty of the forests and meadows creates an idyllic naturalism that leavens Bresson's harsh portrait of the human condition. --Sean Axmaker

• Artificial Eye 40th Anniversary Collection: Volume 4 | Blu Ray | (05/12/2016) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £N/A

  THREE COLOURS BLUE - The first instalment of the late Polish director Krzysztof Kieslowski's trilogy on Liberty, Equality and Fraternity, the three colours of the French flag. Blue is the most sombre of the three, a movie dominated by feelings of grief. As the film begins, a car accident claims the life of a well-known composer. His wife, played by Juliette Binoche, does not so much put the pieces of her life back together as start an entirely new existence. BABETTES FEAST - Babette's Feast is a film which depicts so little, yet says so much. Set in a rural Danish community, it centres around the twin sisters of the village pastor and the French women who serves them after fleeing the 1871 revolution. On winning the lottery she plans a feast to mark the centenary of the sisters' father, bringing a dimension of fine living into the lives of the God-fearing Lutherans and healing festering personal animosities in the process. THE 400 BLOWS - Francois Truffaut's semi-autobiographical first feature stars Jean-Pierre Léaud as Antoine Doinel, an unruly young Parisian whose unhappiness leads him into trouble. Frequently running away from school and home, Antoine spends much of his time playing with his friends on the steets of the city; but events take a more serious turn when an accusation of plagiarism leads him to quit school and the theft of a typewriter lands him in trouble with the police. SAWDUST AND TINSEL - While traveling in caravan through the country of Sweden, one member of the decadent Alberti Circus tells the owner and ringmaster Albert Johansson a sad story about the clown Frost: seven years ago, his wife Alma was surprised by him bathing naked in a lake with a regiment.