LYCOS RETRIEVER 
Claire Denis
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Claire Denis is a Paris-based filmmaker internationally recognized for her fearless investigation of the human condition with its cross-cultural tensions and family troubles. Denis is a graduate of IDHEC, the French Film School, and served as assistant to Jacques Rivette, Costa-Gavras, Jim Jarmusch, Wim Wenders. Her debut feature film Chocolat (1988), a meditation on colonialism, won her critical acclaim. With films such as US Go Home (1994), Nenette and Boni (1997), Good Work (Beau Travail) (1999), Trouble Every Day (2001), and Friday Night (2003) she established a reputation as the filmmaker who 'has been able to reconcile the lyricism of French cinema with the impulse to capture the often harsh face of contemporary France'. Denis was a bandleader, worked as actress, notably in Venus Beauty Institute (2000), and directed for French TV. Currently she is shooting a film inspired by Jean-Luc Nancy.
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Claire Denis is one of France's most acclaimed and original filmmakers. Since her remarkable debut success with Chocolat (1986), she has produced an impressive series of features which have been intriguing, visually striking, and often highly controversial--including Beau Travail (2000) and Trouble Every Day (2001). Beugnet provides a thematic and stylistic framework within which to consider Denis' work, as well as a comprehensive analysis of individual films. She highlights the resonance of Denis' films in relation to ongoing debates about French national identity and culture, and issues of postcolonial identity, alienation and transgression, as well as examining their exploration of the interface between sexuality, desire and sensuality.This is an essential introduction to Denis, and a sophisticated and illuminating study of her work to date.
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Claire Denis has had one of the bravest careers in modern cinema, always beginning where most directors end and working her way into uncharted territory. With The Intruder, she ventures into territory that is not only uncharted but hitherto unknown. Inspired by philosopher Jean-Luc Nancy’s short autobiographical reflection on his heart transplant and built around the eloquently brooding presence of Michel Subor (Beau Travail, SFIFF 2000), Denis doesn’t so much tell the story of Subor’s Louis as she feels and hacks her way around its contours and tunnels into its core. This is a film about longing on the deepest level imaginable—for a son on the other side of the world and for a life that is always elsewhere. As Denis follows Louis from the French Alps to Geneva to Pusan to Polynesia in search of the child who has grown up without him, she maintains an extremely delicate if not precarious balance between presence and absence: the sheer presence of the physical world, of mountains, lakes, forests, beaches and oceans; and the absence of completeness, the feeling that for Louis, wholeness will always be a continent away. Shot, as always, by the great Agnès Godard.
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Review by Rich Cline Taking the bare-bones of plot from Herman Melville's Billy Budd, French filmmaker Claire Denis has made a haunting, virtually wordless film about youth and jealousy. Beau Travail is a startlingly visual film that works its way under your skin, even though very little actually happens on screen.
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The imaginative French director Claire Denis proved her ability to beautifully choreograph a movie with her first effort Chocolat, released in 1989. This drama... set in Africa, is inspired by Herman Melville's Billy Budd. Sergeant Galoup (Denis Lavant) is in charge of the men in a small French Foreign Legion outpost. These muscular soldiers spend their days in training, doing guard duty, and playing war games. For rest and relaxation, they swim in the ocean and dance in an open-air disco. The Africans in the town view them as strange outsiders from another world.
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From acclaimed director Claire Denis comes a hypnotic reworking of Herman Melville's "Billy Budd" set against the backdrop of a French Foreign Legion outpost in East Africa. Former officer Galoup recounts the story of Sentain, a new recruit who steals the spotlight from him, resulting in jealousy and betrayal that destroys the lives of both men. Denis Lavant, Gregoire Colin star. 90 min. Widescreen (Enhanced); Soundtrack: French Dolby Digital stereo; Subtitles: English; theatrical trailer. In French with English subtitles.
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Claire Denis