La Corne d'or is mostly concerned with religious ritual, examining the mosque (and former cathedral) discussed in Byzance. As a contrast against Istanbul's status as a center of historical religious conflict, Pialat — drawing here on texts by the French poet Gérard de Nerval — also describes...
In a deliberately erratic and disjointed fashion, this film follows the adventures of Bernard (Jean-Pierre Leaud). A young man from the provinces, he makes his pilgrimage to Paris and seeks adventure while living on a barge.
Nina and Lizzy meet at the mental institution they are committed to. Nina, who feels guilty for her father's death, has been depressed since the tragic event. As for Lizzy, a slightly unbalanced girl, has been confined there after a suicide attempt. One Saturday night, Lizzy persuades Nina to sneak...
A quick look at Auvers-sur-Oise, the place where Vincent Van Gogh spent the final months of his life and where he and his brother were both buried. Produced as part of the "Chroniques de France" TV series.
An American sculptor, passioned by literature, comes to Paris to perfect his art, but ends up with barely no money, and to survive has to sell The New York Herald Tribune, at night, to his compatriots. A look at the bohemian Parisian life of the fifties.
Maître Galip is the most poetic and powerful of Pialat's Turkish Chronicles, using the poems of Nazim Hikmet to accompany a series of evocative images of ordinary working class people in Istanbul. This was the film that Pialat himself claimed was the most complete realization of what he was aiming...
Impressive sound design, non-linear editing, great ‘expressionistic’ locations and b&w cinematography, this is an experimental piece for Pialat, a psychological/gothic thriller of sorts...
Ruby Alcow becomes assistant manager of a factory, twenty years after failing his baccalaureate five times, engaging in absurdist shenanigans with his coworkers. Pialat's early short film made for Olivetti's end-of-year party, where the filmmaker was then a sales representative; an homage to silent...
Pehlivan focuses on a three-day wrestling competition, an ancient tradition that dates back over a thousand years to the time of the Ottoman Empire, originating in the games the soldiers would play to entertain themselves in between battles. Maybe that's why there's more than a hint of...
Pialat's first film was the short Isabelle aux Dombes, shot in 1951 when the director was 26 years old. The film is an entirely silent montage of documentary footage, ragged experimental techniques — mainly some negative-image inserts — and symbolic psychodrama that's surprisingly not too...
