Maurice Ravel Movies

A certified insomniac, the celebrated belletrist Franz Kafka whiled away the hours between dusk and dawn authoring tomes - tomes whose dreamlike, often nightmarish qualities (a human transformed into a giant cockroach, an unwitting fellow trapped in a labyrinthine bureaucratic web) were inextricable from the circumstances in which their progenitor created them. Naturally, these facts continue to spin a web of intrigue and mythos around the original author; per its title, the pseudo-documentary Who Was Kafka? travels beyond these enigmas to revisit Kafka himself. The program uses a Meeting of the Minds-style setup, where actors portray Franz Kafka's closest acquaintances, are posed incisive questions about the author and then answer in the real life figures' own documented words. Each character describes his or her relationship with the writer (and observations of Kafka) in colorful and revealing detail. ~ Nathan Southern, All Movie Guide

This concert program features Sergiu Celibidache conducting the Munchner Philharmoniker through famous pieces by Maurice Ravel and Claude Debussy. ~ Perry Seibert, All Movie Guide

Classical pianist Aldo Ciccolini performs the works of Camille Saint-Saëns and Maurice Ravel in this release which finds the famed performer assisted by the Orchestra sinfonica di Torino and the Orchestra sinfonica di Milano. Compositions performed in this release include Ciccolini's "Piano Concerto No. 4 in C Minor, OP. 44", and "Piano Concerto No. 5 in F Major, OP. 103 'Egyptian'" and Ravel's "Piano Concerto in G Major". ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide

Daniel Auteuil and Emmanuelle Béart from Manon of the Spring (1986) co-star once again in Un Coeur en Hiver, playing characters whose distance from each others' lives belies the enormous emotional impact they have on one another. Directed by Claude Sautet, whose 40-year career included the Oscar-winning César et Rosalie (1972), Un Coeur en Hiver is a remarkably restrained film with torrents of feeling just under the surface. Auteuil plays Stephane, partner in an exclusive violin brokerage. His older business partner Maxime (Andre Dussolier) has a lovely new violinist girlfriend, Camille (Béart), who stirs Stephane but is ultimately rejected by him, sending all three characters into a spin that destroys their delicate, symbiotic balance. Hovering over this story is an unusual musical motif that is key to the characters' inner motivations. Violins play, and play on camera, all through the film, but the nature of Stephane's craft, Camille's career, and Maxime's profits is that the music can always be refined, tinkered with, changed with a twist of this or a bit of that. That's precisely how they conduct their relationships and lives -- with a fragile sense of security and no idea when to stop manipulating life for effect. ~ Tom Keogh, All Movie Guide

In this genial documentary, the filmmaker's rendezvous with his main subject, former English foreign service officer and noted writer Lawrence Durrell (1912-1990) seems almost accidental. The interviewer is an American gallery owner who is traveling in Provence and runs across some paintings by the author, who had done them under the pseudonym "Oscar Epf." When the long-time fan of Durrel discovers their true origin, she looks him up, and though he is at first wary of her, he swiftly unbends and, as though with a great friend, he proceeds to show her Sommières, the town he has retired in, and to reminisce about great events and small. The author's highly descriptive and evocative works reflected his foreign service postings. He was best known for The Alexandra Quartet, four novels set in modern Egypt. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide

This is a well-executed psychological drama with exceptionally good acting. Fernanda Torres stars as a newly separated woman with one child who meets her estranged husband (Thales Pan Chacon) for a heart-to-heart. They plumb the depths of their feelings and look back on their relationship with a certain degree of distance and insight. They argue, discuss, and talk some more. As their deepest fears, insecurities, pleasures, and hopes are slowly revealed, the most crucial question of their relationship remains unsaid: are they still in love? If so, why all this chatter? ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide

In a semi-erotic film almost universally lamented, Bo Derek, last wife of the late John Derek (who wrote, directed, and photographed Bolero), plays Ayre, a virginal young woman who, on graduating from an exclusive British boarding school, is determined to find the right man for her first sexual encounter wherever he might be in the world. Rich enough not to venture forth alone, she brings along her friend Catalina (Ana Obregon) and the family chauffeur (George Kennedy). Ayre first travels to an Arab country where she meets an ideal lover, a sheik (Greg Bensen) who offers to deflower her but falls asleep almost immediately (he was, after all, reciting lines from this script). Giving up on the sheik, Ayre goes on to Spain, where she meets the toreador Angel (Andrea Occhipinti) who is even better than the sheik because he manages to stay awake. Unfortunately, after she has succeeded in her quest, the perils of Angel's profession are brought home when he is gored in a sensitive location -- the arena, of course. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide

Passion, a major film in Jean-Luc Godard's ongoing investigation of the relations between painting and cinema, uses innovative forms to explore political and economic questions. Jerzy Radziwilowicz plays a director shooting a film whose scenes are all reproductions of paintings by Goya, Valasquez, and other European masters. Production comes to a halt when his producers refuse to increase his budget until he explains the film's story to them. Meanwhile, the director is ending an affair with Hanna (Hanna Schygulla), the wife of Michel (Michel Piccoli), who is the manager of the hotel where the film's cast and crew are staying. In a sub-plot, Isabelle Huppert plays a factory worker who attempts to unionize her fellow employees. The story of Passion is elliptical and incomplete. It is a means of presenting a collection of scenes and images on related themes. This kind of story will become the hallmark of Godard's later career. The links among the episodes become even looser in such films as Germany: Year Nine Zero and For Ever Mozart. Passion marks the reunion of Godard with director of photography Raoul Coutard, who shot many of Godard's films of the 1960s. The cinematography is key to understanding this difficult film in which how an image is shot is as important as what it depicts. Godard and Coutard favor shots that begin as open, disorganized framings and become painterly compositions as the people and things in them move. ~ Louis Schwartz, All Movie Guide

Something of a Fantasia for adults, Allegro Non Troppo intercuts slapstick live-action sequences -- which relay the story of a beleaguered animator's (Maurizio Nichetti) ongoing battle with an Oliver Hardy-like orchestra conductor -- and animated sequences, set to classical music, which visually interpret selected works of Debussy, Dvorak, Ravel, Sibelius, Vivaldi, and Stravinsky. The liveliest piece, set to Ravel's Bolero, delineates a series of "spontaneous generations" from an abandoned Coke bottle. The most haunting piece, set to Sibelius' Valse Triste, depicts a forlorn cat wandering the ruins of a condemned building and constantly hallucinating that he is back in the lap of luxury. Allegro Non Troppo is the brainchild of gifted Italian animator Bruno Bozzetto. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Once again, Disneyland plays host to Winston Hibler, the familiar narrator (and sometimes writer/director) of Disney's "True-Life Adventures" short subject series. Hibler describes the various techniques used for making such up-close-and-personal nature documentaries as the then-upcoming Disney theatrical feature Secrets of Life, including the development of miniature lense and stroboscopic "cold" light. Highlights include a foray into a beehive and a visit to an ant colony, and a time-lapse-photography sequence of blossoming plant life to the tune of Maurice Ravel's "Bolero". Searching for Nature's Mysteries originally aired two months before the official November 20, 1956 release of Secrets of Life. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide