BAM will close out Women’s History Month with a celebration of César-nominated filmmaker Claire Denis. According to a press release, the Brooklyn venue will host “Strange Desire: The Films of Claire Denis” from March 29-April 9. It’ll mark the largest-ever U.S. retrospective of the acclaimed French director’s work.
“Denis’ work is a delicate balance of contradictions,” the press release states, “her films are beloved, yet elusive; influential, yet singular; grounded in corporeality, but with a shifting relationship with time.” It continues, “Born in France, raised in colonial Africa where her father was a civil servant, and eventually returning to France as a teenager, Denis subtly explores race and colonial relationships, love and eroticism, the texture of bodies and environments, and the elasticity of time.”
The series will kick off with “Beau travail,” Denis’ reimagining of Herman Melville’s “Billy Budd.” The award-winning film sees an ex-Foreign Legion officer looking back on his past leading troops in Djibouti. “Strange Desire” will also feature Denis’ other explorations of colonialism: “Chocolat,” the filmmaker’s debut, centering on a white French woman’s relationship with her Cameroonian servant; “No Fear, No Die,” about Caribbean immigrants and set in the world of cockfighting; and “White Material,” starring Isabelle Huppert as a woman living in an unnamed African nation and refusing to give up her coffee plantation, even as civil war breaks out.
Among the other titles screening are the Cannes’ Directors’ Fortnight prize-winning romance “Let the Sunshine In,” horror pic “Trouble Every Day,” and father-daughter drama “35 Shots of Rum.”
Denis herself will be at BAM on April 3 for the sneak peek screening of her latest film, “High Life.” Starring Juliette Binoche and Robert Pattinson, the pic is about a group of death-row inmates who are sent to deep space under false pretenses — and subjected to unethical experiments. Its theatrical run kicks of in NY and LA on April 5.
Go to BAM’s website for more details on “Strange Desire: The Films of Claire Denis” and its full schedule.
