GET 35% OFF YOUR FIRST YEAR!

Limited time - use promo code: FALL35 at checkout

Live stream preview

Watch this video and more on OVID.tv

Watch this video and more on OVID.tv

Start your free trial

Already subscribed? Sign in

Towards Mathilde

Prismatic Ground • 1h 23m

Directed by Claire Denis • Documentary • With Mathilde Monnier • 2004 • 84 minutes

Emphasizing raw physicality, craft, and in-the-moment fervor over exposition, Towards Mathilde, from filmmaker Claire Denis (Beau Travail, 35 Shots of Rum, Let the Sunshine In), is a documentary portrait par excellence.

At its center is Mathilde Monnier, whose title as head of the Montpellier National Centre for Choreography sends her and an elite group of dancers through numerous, demanding performance pieces, each captured on sumptuous 8 and 16mm images by cinematographers Agnès Godard and Hélène Louvart. Monnier's significant talents are a clear point of fascination and admiration for the film crew, yet her mysterious aura — that of an artist totally in command of themselves and, by extension, the viewers — remains throughout. Released in the U.S. for the first time, Towards Mathilde is a singular work among Denis' era-defining oeuvre.

"Startlingly beautiful. A star directorial performance that expands the boundaries of what a documentary can be." —Travis Mackenzie Hoover, Slant

Tags
16mm, 35 shots of rum, 8mm, agnès godard, art and architecture, artist, artists, aura, beau travail, cinematography, claire denis, craft, dance, documentary, elite, europe, expository, fascination, fervor, film crew, film stock, france, gender studies, grasshopper films, herclouds, high life, hélène louvart, let the sunshine in, mathilde monnier, montpellier national centre for choreography, mysterious, oeuvre, ovid, performance, performing arts, physicality, portrait, s_0067, s_0290, s_0339, s_0486, talent, title_t, title_tuvwxyz, towards mathilde, western europe, womandirector, women's studies, world regions

Up Next in Prismatic Ground

  • A Spell to Ward Off the Darkness
    1:38:13
    A Spell to Ward Off the Darkness

    A Spell to Ward Off the Darkness

    Directed by Ben Rivers & Ben Russell • Drama • With Robert Aiki Aubrey Lowe • 2014 • 98 minutes

    A SPELL follows an unnamed character through three seemingly disparate moments in his life. With little explanation, we join him in the midst of a 15-person collective on a small Estonian island; ...

  • The Two Faces of a Bamileke Woman
    1:16:30
    The Two Faces of a Bamileke Woman

    The Two Faces of a Bamileke Woman

    Directed by Rosine Mbakam • Documentary • 2016 • 76 minutes

    Rosine Mbakam left Cameroon at 27 to live in Belgium. Seven years later—having studied film and married a European—she returns to make what she calls a journey into darkness—to the village of her birth, and later to the capital city of ...

  • Level Five (Chris Marker)
    1:50:10
    Level Five (Chris Marker)

    Level Five (Chris Marker)

    Directed by Chris Marker • Drama • With Catherine Belkhodja, Kenji Tokitsu • 1996 • 106 minutes

    A woman (Laura), a computer, an invisible interlocutor: such is the setup on which LEVEL FIVE is built. She "inherits" a task: to finish writing a video game centered on the Battle of Okinawa—a traged...

×