Alain Robbe-Grillet Movies
Influential French novelist Alain Robbe-Grillet, a leading figure in the French Nouveau Roman literary movement of the late '50s, strongly advocated what he called chosisme, his theory that the only reality comes from the physical, not the mental, plane; therefore, the only way to understand reality and remember it is through the manipulation of the physical, something that should be represented in writing from a purely objective level. In the work of Robbe-Grillet, the concept of time and narrative progression was more fluid -- they would begin as standard narratives, and then gradually break down into abstractions largely devoid of obvious clues as to whether events were unfolding in the past, present, or future, thereby destroying the notion of reality. In the early '60s, Robbe-Grillet joined the Left Bank movement of French literati who sought to expand the horizons of their craft through cinema when he penned the screenplay for Resnais' landmark film L'Anee Derniere a Marienbad (Last Year at Marienbad), a complex inward journey into the mind of a nameless woman; in so doing, the film offers a fascinating glimpse into the true nature of human memory. Two years later Robbe-Grillet debuted as a director with L'Immortelle, a film with similar themes. He continued directing, but subsequent efforts have been less innovative. By the late '70s, erotic themes, albeit highly psychoanalytical and symbolic ones, began to figure prominently in his work. Robbe-Grillet died in 2008 at age 85. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
The revered and celebrated Alain Robbe-Grillet's supernatural drama C'est Gradiva qui vous appelle (AKA That is Gradiva Who Calls You) - a French-Belgian co-production - concerns John Locke, an art historian immersed in Asian research on the Marrakeshi casbah, accompanied by Belkis, his servant and mistress. Amid his studies of Eugene Delacroix, Locke repeatedly encounters a lithe, ethereal female presence in the city's medina (or Arabic quarter) who draws him seductively through the city's mazelike streets, again and again, but repeatedly vanishes. He then encounters Anatoli, a self-professed antique dealer and curator of Oriental artifacts for beginners itching for a challenge. Belkis persuades Locke to keep his distance from these individuals, but Locke blatantly ignores her admonitions and forges ahead - never quite realizing that the spirits are toying with him, and drawing him into a dead-end psychosexual black hole. ~ Nathan Southern, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Arielle Dombasle
- 1995
This European produced animation/live-action fairy tale will appeal to both children and adults. The frequently surrealistic work took 15 years to make and cost $15 million. It is the tale of young Prince Jan, who has been sent to a quiet coastal resort to study for his final exams, but instead Jan spends most his time with his new friend the lighthouse keeper. Jan ignores the warnings of the locals who claim that the loony lighthouse man eats sea gulls for breakfast. Maybe he is crazy, but this does not prevent the prince from entering the keeper's dream-land Taxandria, a phantasmagorical place devoid of time, memory, and progress. The land is ruled by a two-headed prince and his policemen who insure that everyone there lives in the Present (it is illegal to discuss the past or future). While at first, Taxandria seems a magical, wonderful place, Jan soon sees the darker sides of this strange world. The people are not happy living only in the present; it is repressive. Soon he sees that many suffer from extreme paranoia. One young man, Aime, seems to be a catalyst for change in Taxandria as he is obsessed with learning about the country's past. Later Jan falls in love with Ailee who is trying to free herself from the paradisiacal confines of the Garden of Mirth, where women are kept away from men. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Armin Mueller-Stahl
- 1995
The complexly interwoven lives of the residents of an isolated Greek island form the basis of this psycho-sexual drama from iconoclastic film-maker Alain Robbe-Grillet. Living on the island are a few native Greeks, several Chinese, who spend their days playing mah-jongg, Nordmann, a boozy screenwriter, and seductive Sarah la-Blonde, the madam at the Blue Villa, the town whorehouse, in which Sarah hides Santa, alias Lotus Blossom. Sarah is teaching Santa to sing an aria from Wagner. One day, Frank, who could be a ghost, arrives on the island. At first he never speaks and appears to be looking for something or someone. It is later learned that he was involved in the supposed death of Santa, who just might be Nordmann's daughter. It is up to the local police chief, Thieu, to figure out what parts of the story are true and what parts are fiction. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Fred Ward, Arielle Dombasle, (more)
This French film has a plot that sounds like an expansion of an urban legend. Walter (Daniel Mesguich) and Sara (Cyrielle Claire) are a married couple who have just moved into a new home together. Everything seems to be going well, despite Walter's fascination with a mysterious woman named Marie-Ange (Gabrielle Lazure) in a nightclub. Then one night, running an errand for Sara, Walter finds Marie-Ange tied up in the middle of the road. He takes her to the nearest villa, hoping to contact a doctor, but he only ends up locked in a bedroom with her. In the midst of their inevitable passion, visions of Magritte paintings dance in Walter's head, for some reason. In the morning, Marie-Ange is gone and Walter's neck is bleeding. ~ John Voorhees, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Daniel Mesguich, Gabrielle Lazure, (more)
- 1975
When Carolina (Anicee Alvina), the daughter of wealthy banker Georges de Saxe (Philippe Noiret), is reported kidnapped, it is upsetting to him even though he knows it isn't true. The kidnappers have taken the wrong person. The banker hires Frantz (Jean-Louis Trintignant) a disheveled, seedy detective to find his daughter and hide her safely away. She soon finds herself in a fantasyland whorehouse, where all kinds of extreme perversions are routinely practiced. There, a near-double of her father whips and then seduces her. Eventually, she and the private eye escape or leave, having extorted the kidnapping money from the girl's father. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Jean-Louis Trintignant, Philippe Noiret, (more)
- 1973
The erotomaniac girl in this French film likes to tie her boyfriend up and make love to him. She also likes to cover herself with various unlikely unguents and make love to him. On one occasion, after she has tied him up but before she can return to him covered in raw egg and paint, someone slipped in and stabbed him to death with a pair of scissors. Naturally, she is the principal suspect in the killing. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Anicée Alvina, Olga Georges-Picot, (more)
- 1970
This plodding film concerns the bored college students who hang out at the cafe Eden. Hoping for adventure, one girl gets more than she bargains for when she and her date are chased by vicious gang members. She manages to escape when he is killed, but when she returns with help, the body is gone. Soon she is off to Tunisia to locate a stolen painting. After an erotic nude posing before a total stranger, she is kidnapped and chained by Arabs who pump her for information. ~ Dan Pavlides, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Catherine Jourdan, Pierre Zimmer, (more)
- 1968
This complex and witty crime drama is set aboard a Paris train bound for Antwerp. Aboard are a husband and wife. Also aboard, but during a different time and space, is a gangster. The husband and wife are planning to make a film, Trans-Europ-Express featuring an actor who looks exactly like the gangster. The film takes a free-form rather than chronological approach to telling the tale. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Jean-Louis Trintignant, Marie-France Pisier, (more)
- 1968
This enigmatic, plodding story concerns a man who may or may not have betrayed a resistance fighter in his hometown during World War II. He has supposedly been shot down by the Nazis and wanders into town. Mourning the death of an unseen comrade, he is taken in by the family of the dead rebel. He engages in a superfluous affair and witnesses the lesbian relationship between the man's sister and a female servant. When passions subside, the family has doubts about the reliability of the man's stories. This avant garde feature leaves the viewer to decide if the downed airman is telling the truth or covering up for his deeds leading to the death of the heroic resistance fighter. ~ Dan Pavlides, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Jean-Louis Trintignant, Ivan Mistrik, (more)
- 1967
In this provocative sci-fi drama from Alain Resnais, a man wakes up in a hospital after an attempted suicide. He has invented a time machine that has proven effective, but only transports the subject back in time for one minute. Upon his release, he gets his hands on the machine to go back to a time he fondly remembers spending with a woman he apparently has feelings about. The two stroll on the beach before she leaves for Scotland. He follows her, but tragedy ensues and it is not clear if he has killed her or if she died an accidental death. The time-machine angle of the film features a dreamlike series of flashbacks making it unclear if the action is presently unfolding or is merely a vague memory from the past. ~ Dan Pavlides, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Claude Rich, Olga Georges-Picot, (more)
- 1963
French avant-garde novelist Alain Robbe-Grillet, who previously wrote the screenplay for the ground-breaking L'Annee Derniere a Marienbad, made his directorial debut with this allegorical drama. A man known as N (Jacques Doniol-Valcroze) encounters L (Francoise Brion), a mysterious woman who may or may not be involved with M (Guido Celano), a Turk who kidnaps women and forces them into prostitution. N finds himself falling in love with L, who suddenly disappears. When she reemerges, N persuades L to join him for a vacation; as they drive out of town, one of her dogs dashes into the road. Swerving in a desperate effort to save the dog, N loses control of the car and L is killed. N becomes obsessed with the accident, for which he cannot forgive himself. L'Immortelle was nominated for the Golden Bear award at the 1963 Berlin Film Festival. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Françoise Brion, Jacques Doniol-Valcroze, (more)
A cinematic puzzle, Alain Resnais' Last Year at Marienbad is a radical exploration of the formal possibilities of film. Beautifully shot in Cinemascope by Sacha Vierny, the movie is a riddle of seduction, a mercurial enigma darting between a present and past which may not even exist, let alone converge. The film stars Giorgio Albertazzi as an unnamed sophisticate attempting to convince a similarly nameless woman (Delphine Seyrig) that they met and were romantically involved a year ago in the same enormous, baroque European hotel. In the end, it hardly matters -- they're not characters so much as pawns anyway. Hypnotically dreamlike, Last Year at Marienbad is a surrealist parody of Hollywood melodrama, a high-fashion romance with a dark, alien underbelly. According to screenwriter Alain Robbe-Grillet, the movie is a pure construction, without a frame of reference outside of its own existence -- the lives of its characters begin when the lights go down, and conclude when they come back up. ~ Jason Ankeny, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Delphine Seyrig, Giorgio Albertazzi, (more)
