History and progress of French Cinema through Resnais Films

Alain Resnais, the most celebrated French film director, is the inceptor of new wave in French cinema. An active film person, of 90 years, in all fields of the industry for over 75 years, Resnais have directed 49 titles, while did editing for 19, camera for four, penned five scripts and proved his acting talent in three.  The 17^th International Film Festival of Kerala admires this multi faceted mogul of French cinema, by including 11 films directed by him in the retrospective category.

Alain Resnais marked the beginning of his career by directing the short film L'aventure de Guy in 1936. Later he focused on documentaries marked by his personal style of deliverance.   The films by Resnais were on artistic themes in the beginning. The documentary on the paintings of Van Gogh, directed by him, made his mark in the international film fraternity and won many awards including the Oscar in 1949 for the best 2-reel short. Resnais used a new way of storytelling and his treatment styles were entirely different from those then followed. Later he moved to political topics and his Night and Fog of 1959 is still the best documentary on the Nazi Concentration Camps. Here also, he followed his own style of documentary making and thus making this one entirely different from those made on war and political themes, at that time.

His first feature film, Hiroshima My Love, released in 1959, considered the one that marked the beginning of new wave in French cinema and thus making Resnais an un-detachable part of French Film Industry. With his latest film be You Ain’t Seen Nothin’ Yet, in 2012, Alain Resnais continues to explore newer limits with his film that are masterpiece of art. This filmmaker par excellence is a recipient of 47 awards, which includes the most prestigious ones like FIPRESCI award, silver Berlin Bear, Golden Lion and British Film Institute awards and so on.

The films of Alain Resnais included in this festival are Muriel (1963), Same Old Song (1997), Last Year at Marienbad (1961),Stavisky (1974), Private fears in Public Spaces or Coeurs (2006), Guernica (1950), Hiroshima Mon Amour (1959), Night and Fog (1955), Statues Also Die (1953), Toute La Memoire Du Monde (1956) and Le Chant Du Styrene (1959).

Muriel or the time of return, the third feature film of Resnais, tells the story of a mother, her step-son, her past lover and step-son’s memories about a girl named Muriel. This 115 minutes film, which won the awards at the British Film Institute Awards and Venice Film Festival, also nominated for Golden Lion award in 1963.

The musical comedy, Same Old Song, deals with the life of six people in Paris, who are inter-related in one way or another. The film won 10 awards and another 8 nominations in various film festivals around the globe. The film bagged six awards in the 1998 Cesar Film Awards, France, including the best actor, best film, editing and screenplay.

Delphine Seyrig, Giorgio Albertazzi and Sacha Pitoëff starring Last Year at Marienbad, is the film discovering the relations between three persons, two men and a woman. The film is famous and much talked one on its narrative style, where the names of the three characters are never revealed. Many critics have named it to be the masterpiece of the director. The film nominated for Oscar awards for its story and screenplay have won three awards including the Golden Lion for director Resnais.

Jean-Paul Belmondo starrer, Stavisky, is the life of Serge Alexandre Stavisky, who is a powerful person and financier by profession of 1930s and the scandals associating with his name that resulted in great political changes in France. This crime drama movie won three awards, which comprises the Top Foreign film award by the National Board of Reviews, USA in 1975.

Seven people, looking for love, despite their romantic aspirations being dashed at every turn is the plot of the film Coeurs or Private fears in Public Spaces. This film was also based in the city of Paris. Coeurs won ten nominations and five awards. Alain Resnais won two best director awards for this film and the FIPRESCI award. French Syndicate of Cinema Critics noted the film as the best film in 2007.

                Guernica is a 13 minutes long film co-directed by Robert Hessens. The film is on the painting of Pablo Picasso, which he painted on hearing the news of Germans bombing the city of Guernica without any prior notice and killing all the inmates of the small city. The film has the voice over Jacques Pruvost, describing the bombing incident. The film was also titled the The Mystery of Picasso and won special jury prize in the 1956 Cannes Film Festival.

                Hiroshima My Love or Hiroshima Mon Amour was the first feature film of the director. Memory and Oblivion themed this film, tells the 24-hour story of a French actress and a Japanese architect, in a brief relation, in Hiroshima, shares their differing perspective on war. The film was nominated for Oscar for best screenplay. The film won five awards at different film festivals globally. The film also gave lot of appreciations for the director from both critics and public.

 Most vivid depictions of the horrors of Nazi Concentration Camp are the storyline of the short documentary Night and Fog. Filmed in several concentration camps and including lot of color and black and white newsreels and archive footages, the documentary still is the most authentic study on the Hitler Concentration camps. The documentary won best documentary award in Prix Jean Vigo in 1956 and was nominated for BAFTA Awards in 1961.

                French essay film, Statues Also Die, co-directed by Chris Marker is about historical African art and the effect of colonialism over it. Because of its criticism of colonialism, the second half of the film was censored in France until the 1960s. The film won the 1954 Prix Jean Vigo for best short film.      

An essay on the potential and the limits of submissively archived human knowledge, masquerading as a documentary on the organization of the National Library of France. This is the theme of the short documentary Toute La Memoire Du Monde. The film is the best historical narrative documentary made on the National Library, which serves the whole scientific community in the world.

Le Chant Du Styrene is the short documentary based on the visit of a large polystyrene factory. The film is narrated in a very poetic and aesthetic manner. This documentary of 19 minutes was also in 1959, the same year Resnais made his feature film debut.

With the 11 films of Alain Resnais, the audience of IFFK will get a chance to understand one of the foremost film industries in the world, The French Film Industry, closer and deeper. These films will also help the movie lovers to better understand the elite standards of French Cinema.