The Botanical Avatar of Mademoiselle Flora
France Before the New Wave • 14m
Directed by Jeanne Barbillon • Drama • With Bernadette Lafont, Louis Mesuret • 1965 • 15 minutes
In a small French town, Flora (Bernadette Lafont) has a six-week fling with a soldier. But this is no passionate affair. Her lover, the cartoonish Charles (Louis Mesuret), ignores her advances, insists she watch as he drinks bowl after bowl of the expensive coffee she prepares for him, and berates her if lunch is not made on time. Increasingly depressed, Flora is drawn to nature, and finds she has a much greater affinity for plants than for people.
Music by Michel Legrand and Jacques Loussier. Camera by Raoul Coutard.
Up Next in France Before the New Wave
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Ô saisons ô châteaux
Directed by Agnès Varda • Documentary • With Danièle Delorme • 1956 • 21 minutes
This early Agnès Varda short looks at the castles of the Loire Valley — and the unusual histories and personalities behind them. Punctuated by first-person accounts, excerpts from well-known poems, and stylish re-cr...
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Fric-Frac
Directed by Maurice Lehmann • Drama • With Fernandel, Michel Simon, Arletty, Hélène Robert • 1939 • 106 minutes
Fernandel was a 20th-century French phenomenon – once he emerged from supporting roles in the early ‘30s, with his inimitable equine mug, enormous incisors and friendly eyes, he comman...
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Olivia
Directed by Jacqueline Audry • Drama • With Edwige Feuillere, Simone Simon • 1950 • 96 minutes
OLIVIA is a remarkable work by one of France’s first ground-breaking female filmmakers, which easily merits rediscovery today after being neglected for almost 70 years.
Plunging the viewer—and the ma...
