Nelly Kaplan will soon receive her very first New York retrospective. NYC’s Quad Cinema announced it will be hosting “Wild Things: The Ferocious Films of Nelly Kaplan” from April 12-25. The celebration of “the maverick and unjustly overlooked filmmaker” will kick off with a one-week run of “A Very Curious Girl,” Kaplan’s tale of sexual liberation and power in a small town. This will mark the U.S. premiere of the film’s 60th-anniversary 2K restoration.
Born in Argentina and of Jewish descent, Kaplan moved to France in the early ’50s. “As the French New Wave surged forth,” the Quad notes, “[the filmmaker] was already swimming upstream.” She worked in journalism, surrealistic fiction, film criticism, and documentary filmmaking before collaborating with director Abel Gance on “Magirama” and “The Battle of Austerlitz.” Eventually she transitioned to making her own films, often exploring sexual power dynamics and sexist double standards.
“Women are never passive in my movies,” Kaplan has said, “[they] are never victims!”
“Charles and Lucie” is among the retrospective’s other titles. The 1979 pic sees a middle-aged married couple getting a much-needed jolt in their lives when they inherit a Côte d’Azur villa. Also set to screen is 1986’s “Velvet Paws,” the story of a clairvoyant and criminologist who become embroiled in the affairs of a widow and her late husband.
Synopses and details for “Wild Things'” featured films are below, courtesy of the Quad. Go to the venue’s website to find screening times and more information.
A Very Curious Girl (La Fiancée du pirate)
Opens Fri April 12—U.S. premiere 60th anniversary 2K restoration
Nelly Kaplan, 1969, France, 107m, DCP
Also retitled Dirty Mary, Kaplan’s breakthrough film engages in dark and surreal humor and showcases Bernadette Lafont (The Mother and the Whore et al.) as Marie, a suddenly orphaned young woman who learns to use her village’s hypocrisy to her own advantage—sexually and otherwise. As Kaplan notes, the movie is “the story of a modern-day witch who is not burned by inquisitors; it is she who burns them.”
Post-screening discussion with film critics Amy Taubin and Joan Dupont opening night
Abel Gance and His Napoléon
World premiere 2K restoration
Nelly Kaplan, 1984, France, 80m, DCP
Accessing rare and previously unseen material, Kaplan scripts, directs, and edits a documentary on the odyssey of her late mentor, Abel Gance, into his magnum opus: the 1927 epic Napoléon, which had been restored and salubriously exhibited mere months before his passing in 1981. Kaplan had already screened the movie several dozen times; a decade later, she would author a British Film Institute book on the film containing still more assessments and revelations.
Preceded by three of Kaplan’s documentary shorts: A la source, La Femme Aimée (1966), Les années 25 (1965), and Gustave Moreau (1961)
Charles and Lucie
World premiere 2K restoration
Nelly Kaplan, 1979, France, 96m, DCP
Fiftysomething married couple Daniel Ceccaldi (That Man from Rio) and Ginette Garcin (Cousin Cousine) get a second chance at life and love when their workaday existence is upended by the news that they’ve inherited a Côte d’Azur villa—but will getting there be half the fun? Co-scripted and produced by longtime Kaplan collaborator Claude Makovski; appropriately enough, Kaplan herself materializes onscreen as crystal ball-toting psychic “Nostradama.”
Papa, the Lil’ Boats (Papa, les p’tits bateaux)
World premiere 2K restoration
Nelly Kaplan, 1971, France, 102m, DCP
Kaplan makes a slaphappy run at the kidnap-caper-gone-awry genre. UK actress Sheila White (I, Claudius) stars as wacky heiress “Cookie,” daughter of Sydney Chaplin (real-life son of icon Charlie), who proves to be quite the handful for her bumbling captors (among them Michel Bouquet and Michael Lonsdale). Kaplan edited the film with Noëlle Boisson (The Bear) and cameos alongside a little dog.
The Pleasure of Love
World premiere 2K restoration
Nelly Kaplan, 1991, France, 105m, DCP
Kaplan’s final film (to date) as director was scripted by her with Jean Chapot. Depressed man of letters Pierre Arditi (reunited with Kaplan after Pattes de Velours) lucks into a tutoring gig and is whisked away to a tropical colonial island; there the moves are put on him by Françoise Fabian (My Night at Maud’s), Dominique Blanc (Queen Margot), and (in her first movie) Cécile Sanz de Alba. The cinematography is by Jean-François Robin (Betty Blue).
Velvet Paws (Pattes de Velours)
World premiere 2K restoration
Nelly Kaplan, 1986, France, 90m, DCP
Bernadette Lafont and Michel Bouquet reteam with Kaplan as, respectively, a clairvoyant and a criminologist drawn into the orbit of widow Caroline Sihol; when the latter’s late husband Pierre Arditi turns out to yet have surprises up his sleeve for all of them, Kaplan hones in on the women’s by-necessity connection. The director foregoes her own cameo in favor of ones for colleagues Jean Chapot and Claude Makovski, both as nurses.
