“The longer it goes on with such a trivial subject, the funnier it gets.” — Luc Moullet

The 1980s saw Luc Moullet further his experiments with short subjects. Barres (1983) and Essai d’ouverture (1988), two of Moullet’s most beloved shorts, are both structured around increasingly absurd variations on a single scenario. The former is an exhaustive account of “the sole sport of Parisians”: evading the barriers on the Paris Métro. The latter, inspired by Moullet’s own dyspraxia, depicts the filmmaker on a lifelong journey to open stiff Coca-Cola bottletops. 

In the featurette Les Sièges de l’Alcazar (1989), Moullet returns to the passionate cinephilia of 1950s Paris. Guy (Olivier Maltinti), a critic for Cahiers du cinéma, is covering a retrospective of the obscure Italian filmmaker Vittorio Cottafavi at the run-down Alcazar cinema. As he dutifully returns each day, he begins to suspect that Jeanne (Jacqueline Moreau), a critic from the rival magazine Positif, is following him. Alcazar is a loving send-up of the culture from which Moullet emerged, and one of the finest films ever made about going to the movies.

This screening will be followed by an online Q&A with Luc Moullet, hosted by Sam Warren Miell, editor of Narrow Margin. 

Programme
Barres, dir. Luc Moullet, France 1983, 15 mins.
Essai d’ouverture, dir. Luc Moullet, France 1988, 14 mins.
Les Sièges de l’Alcazar, dir. Luc Moullet, France 1989, 54 mins.