Film: Pattes Blanches

I'm doing a great job of getting through my film list these days, of which more later. Anyway, today was Pattes Blanches, at the BFI - a French film from 1949.

I didn't wheeze today after climbing onto the Hungerford Bridge - that's an improvement. Also an improvement on last time I was at the BFI was that the film wasn't in Screen 1 (NFT1), which would have meant I had to come all the way back from the box office to where I entered the building in the first place. No, this evening's was in NFT2, which is a lot closer to the box office. And I do like the programme notes they make available for each showing - a study of the film, on two sides of an A4 page. Just had time to read it before the lights went down.

So, this is a romantic French melodrama from 1949, set on the wild coast of Normandy. Jock, the local innkeeper, arrives from town with a new squeeze, Odette, whom he introduces as his niece but with whom he shares a bedroom. The maid, Mimi, a hunchback, is ordered to wait hand and foot on her, and of course resents it. Then we have the lord of the manor, Julien - impoverished these days, and made fun of - and his illegitimate and resentful half-brother, Maurice, both of whom take a fancy to Odette, just as Mimi develops a crush on Julien. Ah yes, 'tis worthy of a Shakespearian tragedy - and, indeed, things do not end well. But, as a whole, 'twas charming, and I thought Mimi was gorgeous, despite her stoop. And Maurice plays a blinder as the villain of the piece.

Tomorrow is another of those double-bills at Riverside Studios, and I think I may go. French again - 8 Women and In the House, which is one I've wanted to see for a long time and is my reason for considering this double-bill. They're good value though, two films for the price of one. Then I've booked for Into the Abyss on Tuesday, at the BFI again - another Werner Herzog documentary, it's a study of a man on death row, convicted of a triple homicide. Also today, I finally found a date when I could get tickets for A Season in the Congo, which is packing them in at the Young Vic. For the matinee of Saturday 10th August, there were precisely two tickets left - one at the higher price level, downstairs, and one in the gallery. But that turned out to be a stool. Doesn't sound too comfortable - so I booked the ticket downstairs. Which is a relief, because now I can STOP CHECKING!!