The Botanical Avatar of Mademoiselle Flora
Early Short Films of the French 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 Early Short Films of the French New Wave
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The Fifteen Year Old Widows
Directed by Jean Rouch • Drama • 2023 • 25 minutes
“When I’m old, at 25, I’ll get married and that will be the end.” —Véronique
In this short, Jean Rouch turns his anthropological eye to bourgeois teenage girls in Paris, in the summer of 1964. Caught in the in-between world of adolescence (the...
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Directing Actors by Jean Renoir
Directed by Gisèle Braunberger • Documentary • 1968 • 22 minutes
Actor Gisèle Braunberger sits across a small table from Jean Renoir. She leans forward, focusing intently on the director, her hands rhythmically fidgeting, as he outlines the premise of the script page he is about to work through ...
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Van Gogh
Directed by Alain Resnais • Documentary • 1948 • 18 minutes
Classic French New Wave director Alain Resnais’ early film, VAN GOGH won an Oscar for best short documentary film. Recently restored, this 1948 boundary-pushing short brilliantly evokes the life of Vincent Van Gogh, using only his paint...
