Nick Hammond
L’Engloutie
The Dark Magic of the Alps
Louise Hémon’s first feature film, L’Engloutie (literally meaning “The Engulfed One” but due to be released in the Anglophone world with the title The Girl in the Snow), is inspired by her great-great aunt, Aimée Bigalet, who wrote of her … Read More
L’Étranger
The Scent of Alienation
Some well-known and/or much-loved novels have proved notoriously difficult to portray onscreen. Books, for example, that rely on the internal thoughts of their heroines or heroes, such as Jane Austen’s Emma or Madame de Lafayette’s La Princesse de Clèves rarely … Read More
Les Mondes de Colette
Outrageous, Immoral and Multitalented
Having visited the writer Colette’s childhood home in Saint-Sauveur-en-Puisaye on a sun-kissed spring day last year with two good friends, I suppose it was payback time when I arrived alone at the exhibition “Les Mondes de Colette” at the Bibliothèque … Read More
David Hockney 25
Unstoppable Hockney
One advantage of being possibly the most famous living artist and having reached the grand old age of 87 is that the world gets to see retrospectives of your work at regular intervals. So is it worth making the effort … Read More
Lumière: l’Aventure Continue
Big-Screen Pioneers
The release of Thierry Frémaux’s delightful new documentary, Lumière: l’Aventure Continue, has been timed in France to coincide with the 130th anniversary of the first-ever showing of a film on the big screen, Louis Lumière’s Workers Leaving the Lumière Factory … Read More
Théâtre de l’Athénée Louis Jouvet
An Italianate Parisian Jewel
While Parisian theatrical and musical life is dominated by its large theaters (Palais Garnier, Opéra Bastille, Comédie Française, Mogador, Odéon), so many smaller establishments deserve to be visited. One recent such “discovery” for me (I blush to admit) is the … Read More
Un Ours dans le Jura
The Bear Did It
It sometimes helps to go to a film with low expectations – on the rare occasions when they are turned upside down, the sense of sheer pleasure and relief afterward feels all the better. That was the case with the … Read More
L’Uomo Femina
Women Rule!
I have long been an admirer of conductor Vincent Dumestre and his excellent period-instrument orchestra Le Poème Harmonique. Specializing in French music from the 17th and early 18th centuries, it has staged and recorded seldom-performed music for over 25 years. … Read More
Vivre, Mourir, Renaître
Life After HIV
There is something poignant in director Gaël Morel’s decision to situate his new film, Vivre, Mourir, Renaître (To Live, To Die, To Live Again), between 1990 and ’95; it was during that period that Morel first made his name as … Read More
Les Chevaux de Géricault
Equine Obsession
I wonder how many of the equestrian teams at this summer’s Paris Olympics managed to take time off to see the exhibition of Théodore Géricault’s paintings, “Les Chevaux de Géricault” (“Géricault’s Horses”) at the Musée de la Vie Romantique (due … Read More