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hfrank
Reviews
Applause (1929)
A great example of early sound film.
Rouben Mamoulian established the possibilities the talkie, showing great flexibility in using location shots outdoors. A scene shot on the Brooklyn Bridge walkway just amazed me. Not the static feeling you expect from the first talkies at all. Helen Morgan gives a very moving performance as well, making the obsolete melodrama moving and in places quite modern in its way. With "Applause" and "Love Me Tonight" Mamoulian established the outline for the art of the talking picture.
La chinoise (1967)
I lived this film!
La Chinoise shows the lives of students living in a "Maoist Collective" which was actually a rather bourgeois borrowed apartment. The film shows the contradiction between their lives and their political commitment. In a very real way it it is an example of Maoist criticism/self-criticism. The film also explores the impossiblity of communication between people. It is based on a true story!