The Marines
France • 21m
Directed by François Reichenbach • Documentary • 1957 • 21 minutes
François Reichenbach follows a group of young men from the day they enlist in the US Marine Corps, all the way through basic training. The power of this is twofold. It lies in the poetic visuals focused on the men’s faces and expressions (scared, determined, chastened), and in the critical commentary, which questions the need to humiliate, threaten, and even endanger the lives of these recruits. Filmed around the time of the Ribbon Creek incident, which saw the drowning death of six Parris Island recruits on a night-time forced march, this original version of the film was suppressed by the US military, which demanded changes to Reichenbach’s anti-militarist commentary.
Up Next in France
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The Little Cafe
Directed by François Reichenbach • Documentary • 1963 • 12 minutes
A slice-of-life film shot in a provincial cafe and hotel in the city of Bethune in the department of Pas-de-Calais, in Northern France. Older men smoke, drink beer and read the paper, young lovers gaze into each other’s eyes, and...
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Martin Roumagnac
Directed by Georges Lacombe • Drama • With Marlene Dietrich, Jean Gabin • 1946 • 108 minutes
This tragic postwar romance is a tale of class anxiety and classic Romantic fatalism, run through with a typically French frankness about sex and gender. Jean Gabin is the titular character, an unpretent...
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Heart of Stone
Directed by Claire Billet, Olivier Jobard • Documentary • 2018 • 89 minutes
Thirteen-year-old Ghorban arrives in Paris after having made the 8,000 kilometre journey from Afghanistan on his own. In France, however, he is faced with an absurd situation: He’s stuck. “There is neither a beginning no...
