To avoid turning into Private Pyle, I think it’s best I stay away from the tumblrs for the next few days weeks. Bear with me you crazy, wonderful people, I’ll be back with decent content soon enough. Lot’s of love, The Insatiables
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To avoid turning into Private Pyle, I think it’s best I stay away from the tumblrs for the next few days weeks. Bear with me you crazy, wonderful people, I’ll be back with decent content soon enough.

Lot’s of love,

The Insatiables

Many people will tell you that The Paperboy — based on Pete Dexter’s novel, brought to the screen by Precious director Lee Daniels — is a trash masterpiece, an instant camp classic, so bad it’s good. These people, these critics, are simply not to be trusted about any question of judgment for a long time based on that half-hearted ironic “endorsement” of one of the worst films of the year, never mind at Cannes… overstuffed with too many plots and themes and then festooned with loose plot threads and laughable images sticking out of it; it’s like a dead porcupine, bloated with rot in the sun. The Paperboy, in short, makes A Time to Kill look like To Kill a Mockingbird. The classic question of bad movies is “Who wrote this shit?” But we know the answer to that, usually, up in the credits in bold shameless type. What “The Paperboy” demonstrates all too well is that the better question to ask of a bad movie is “Who read this shit and thought any good could come of it, whether stars or crew or producers or distributors?” via: The [never-not-brilliant] Playlist
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Many people will tell you that The Paperboy — based on Pete Dexter’s novel, brought to the screen by Precious director Lee Daniels — is a trash masterpiece, an instant camp classic, so bad it’s good. These people, these critics, are simply not to be trusted about any question of judgment for a long time based on that half-hearted ironic “endorsement” of one of the worst films of the year, never mind at Cannes… overstuffed with too many plots and themes and then festooned with loose plot threads and laughable images sticking out of it; it’s like a dead porcupine, bloated with rot in the sun. The Paperboy, in short, makes A Time to Kill look like To Kill a Mockingbird.

The classic question of bad movies is “Who wrote this shit?” But we know the answer to that, usually, up in the credits in bold shameless type. What “The Paperboy” demonstrates all too well is that the better question to ask of a bad movie is “Who read this shit and thought any good could come of it, whether stars or crew or producers or distributors?”

via: The [never-not-brilliant] Playlist

Trailer time…

The Master- P.T. Anderson

via: youmightfindyourself

*Editor’s note: How is it possible that this trailer is better than just about everything I’ve seen this year?

Source: youmightfindyourself

Magic Hour

It’s that brief moment when the waning daylight causes everything to take on a holy, hazy glow. It took Terrence Malick about a year to shoot his 1978 movie Days of Heaven because he insisted on filming only during this time of day, but the results perfectly capture and distend that dizzy, overripe feeling of right before something very good ends.

via: youmightfindyourself

Editor’s note: A great extract from a wonderful Pitchfork review of Beach House’s new album, Bloom.

Source: youmightfindyourself

More Than Just a Pretty Picture: Revisiting Terrence Malick’s The New World In The Thin Red Line, first blood is drawn on a cloudy afternoon when, without warning, a Japanese sniper picks off two American soldiers as they ascend a ridge. Before the shock can pass, sunlight emerges, illuminating the hillside grass into which the fallen bodies have vanished. Right here is the essence of Malick’s existential outlook: the utter inconsequence of our short lives compared to the ancient landscape we inhabit and aim to conquer. We all know that a holocaust follows the events of The New World, and Malick doesn’t spell it out for us. His vision does not distinguish between the wars humans wage against each other and the barbarism our technologies inflict on our ecosystem. The achievement of The New World is not to evoke a paradise lost, but to conjure the terrible beauty of the one we remain intent on destroying.
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More Than Just a Pretty Picture: Revisiting Terrence Malick’s The New World

In The Thin Red Line, first blood is drawn on a cloudy afternoon when, without warning, a Japanese sniper picks off two American soldiers as they ascend a ridge. Before the shock can pass, sunlight emerges, illuminating the hillside grass into which the fallen bodies have vanished. Right here is the essence of Malick’s existential outlook: the utter inconsequence of our short lives compared to the ancient landscape we inhabit and aim to conquer. We all know that a holocaust follows the events of The New World, and Malick doesn’t spell it out for us. His vision does not distinguish between the wars humans wage against each other and the barbarism our technologies inflict on our ecosystem. The achievement of The New World is not to evoke a paradise lost, but to conjure the terrible beauty of the one we remain intent on destroying.

Well, here’s an excellent chance to talk about a movie that gets better every time I see it: Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining. The film was originally written off somewhat upon its release, for a number of boring reasons—the miscasting of Jack Nicholson as an everyday guy being driven insane, its apparent unfaithfulness to Stephen King’s source novel, and so on. But I’ll gladly give up a subplot about a faulty boiler—really? Who cares?—for what Kubrick offers. The Shining is one of the most wildly amorphous American films I can think of, one which draws much of its terror from the nagging questions and bogus “continuity errors” that Kubrick nestles into his mise-en-scene. Why do doorknobs appear to switch sides? Why do stickers disappear from Danny’s door? What’s with the ghosts? Or the guy in the dog costume giving a man in a tuxedo a blowjob? And the photo of Nicholson’s character at the end of the film, which suggests that he’s “always” been at the Overlook Hotel? Fans have pored over these questions, and many others, since the film’s release. And all the heady theorizing has itself been profiled in the recent doc Room 237, in which obsessives suggest that the film is Kubrick’s roundabout Holocaust allegory, or that he’s using it to confess that he faked the Apollo 11 moon landing. While I find this stuff interesting, I’m more interested in how this sort of Shining fandom speaks to the film itself. All these unanswered questions only illustrate how wonderfully spongy and open-ended The Shining is, mysteries creeping around the film’s edges like ghosts. He leaves a lot of threads dangling, but in doing so, Kubrick created what may be the greatest testament to his gargantuan talent—he transmuted the work of a pulpy American author into something evoking the enigmatic splendor of Alain Resnais. via: John Semley
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Well, here’s an excellent chance to talk about a movie that gets better every time I see it: Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining. The film was originally written off somewhat upon its release, for a number of boring reasons—the miscasting of Jack Nicholson as an everyday guy being driven insane, its apparent unfaithfulness to Stephen King’s source novel, and so on. But I’ll gladly give up a subplot about a faulty boiler—really? Who cares?—for what Kubrick offers. The Shining is one of the most wildly amorphous American films I can think of, one which draws much of its terror from the nagging questions and bogus “continuity errors” that Kubrick nestles into his mise-en-scene. Why do doorknobs appear to switch sides? Why do stickers disappear from Danny’s door? What’s with the ghosts? Or the guy in the dog costume giving a man in a tuxedo a blowjob? And the photo of Nicholson’s character at the end of the film, which suggests that he’s “always” been at the Overlook Hotel?

Fans have pored over these questions, and many others, since the film’s release. And all the heady theorizing has itself been profiled in the recent doc Room 237, in which obsessives suggest that the film is Kubrick’s roundabout Holocaust allegory, or that he’s using it to confess that he faked the Apollo 11 moon landing. While I find this stuff interesting, I’m more interested in how this sort of Shining fandom speaks to the film itself. All these unanswered questions only illustrate how wonderfully spongy and open-ended The Shining is, mysteries creeping around the film’s edges like ghosts. He leaves a lot of threads dangling, but in doing so, Kubrick created what may be the greatest testament to his gargantuan talent—he transmuted the work of a pulpy American author into something evoking the enigmatic splendor of Alain Resnais.

via: John Semley

The one thing that’s helped me to survive is that I’m not bitter.
Orson Welles
RIP Mr. Senak In 1964, the American Library Association awarded Mr. Sendak the Caldecott Medal, considered the Pulitzer Prize of children’s book illustration, for “Where the Wild Things Are.” In simple, incantatory language, the book told the story of Max, a naughty boy who rages at his mother and is sent to his room without supper. A pocket Odysseus, Max promptly sets sail: And he sailed off through night and day and in and out of weeks and almost over a year to where the wild things are. There, Max leads the creatures in a frenzied rumpus before sailing home, anger spent, to find his supper waiting. *Editor’s note: This truly breaks my heart. We’ll miss you, and yes, we’ve loved you so.
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RIP Mr. Senak

In 1964, the American Library Association awarded Mr. Sendak the Caldecott Medal, considered the Pulitzer Prize of children’s book illustration, for “Where the Wild Things Are.” In simple, incantatory language, the book told the story of Max, a naughty boy who rages at his mother and is sent to his room without supper. A pocket Odysseus, Max promptly sets sail:

And he sailed off through night and day

and in and out of weeks

and almost over a year

to where the wild things are.

There, Max leads the creatures in a frenzied rumpus before sailing home, anger spent, to find his supper waiting.

*Editor’s note: This truly breaks my heart. We’ll miss you, and yes, we’ve loved you so.

You can’t really enjoy life until you have a full awareness of death. We tend to have an awareness of death only when something critical happens, like the passing on of a loved one. We should have an awareness of death every day.
Alfonso Cuaron

=

i think tom hiddleston is a fine actor,

but he really is the “poor man’s” michael fassbender.

via:jesuisperdu

*Editor’s note: I completely and absolutely agree. Also, and this might just be me, although I accept that the man is very decent actor, I just hate his face. It just really annoys me that I have to look at it for 90+ minutes.

Source: jesuisperdu

What makes Tarkovsky interesting is the very form of his films. Tarkovsky uses as this material element of pre-narrative density, time itself. All of a sudden we are made to feel this inertia, drabness of time. Time is not just a neutral, light medium within which things happen. We feel the density of time itself. Things that we see are more markers of time. He treats even humans in this way. If we look at the unique face of Stalker himself, it’s a face of somebody exposed to too much radiation and, as it were, rotting, falling apart alive. It is this disintegration of the very material texture of reality which provides the spiritual depth. Tarkovskian subjects, when they pray, they don’t look up, they look down. They even sometimes, as in Stalker, put their head directly onto the earth. Here, I think, Tarkovsky affects us at a level which is much deeper, much more crucial for our experience than all the standard, spiritual motives of elevating ourselves above material reality and so on. There is nothing specific about the zone. It’s purely a place where a certain limit is set. You set a limit, you put a certain zone off-limit, and although things remain exactly the way they were, it’s perceived as another place. Precisely as the place onto which you can project your beliefs, your fears, things from your inner space. In other words, the zone is ultimately the very whiteness of the cinematic screen. -Slavoj Zizek
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What makes Tarkovsky interesting is the very form of his films. Tarkovsky uses as this material element of pre-narrative density, time itself. All of a sudden we are made to feel this inertia, drabness of time. Time is not just a neutral, light medium within which things happen. We feel the density of time itself. Things that we see are more markers of time. He treats even humans in this way. If we look at the unique face of Stalker himself, it’s a face of somebody exposed to too much radiation and, as it were, rotting, falling apart alive. It is this disintegration of the very material texture of reality which provides the spiritual depth. Tarkovskian subjects, when they pray, they don’t look up, they look down. They even sometimes, as in Stalker, put their head directly onto the earth. Here, I think, Tarkovsky affects us at a level which is much deeper, much more crucial for our experience than all the standard, spiritual motives of elevating ourselves above material reality and so on. There is nothing specific about the zone. It’s purely a place where a certain limit is set. You set a limit, you put a certain zone off-limit, and although things remain exactly the way they were, it’s perceived as another place. Precisely as the place onto which you can project your beliefs, your fears, things from your inner space. In other words, the zone is ultimately the very whiteness of the cinematic screen.

Ignatiy Vishnevetsky on Colossal Youth Pedro Costa’s entrancing, nearly three-hour feature solidified his Stateside reputation, transforming the Portuguese filmmaker from a critical cause célèbre into a bona-fide cinephile mystery religion. It’s not hard to see why: though Costa’s guiding principles are as old as (or in some cases older than) cinema itself, his techniques and choice of marginalized subject matter—in this case, Cape Verdean immigrants preparing to move into a Lisbon housing project—feel completely new. For all of the film’s evocations of classicism (Jacques Tourneur and Johannes Vermeer being two big points-of-reference), its production would’ve been impossible without digital technology; the distinctive cinematography—largely lit, like the studios of Renaissance painters, with reflected sunlight—represents the high-water mark of MiniDV as a shooting format. A cast of non-professionals play fictionalized versions of themselves, but instead of using these actors to lend the film a sense of naturalism or verisimilitude, Costa pares down their performances into a series of controlled movements and recitations; the result is a heightened, poetic sense of purpose, aptly summed up by Nathan Lee in The Village Voice as “raw existential intensity.”
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Pedro Costa’s entrancing, nearly three-hour feature solidified his Stateside reputation, transforming the Portuguese filmmaker from a critical cause célèbre into a bona-fide cinephile mystery religion. It’s not hard to see why: though Costa’s guiding principles are as old as (or in some cases older than) cinema itself, his techniques and choice of marginalized subject matter—in this case, Cape Verdean immigrants preparing to move into a Lisbon housing project—feel completely new. For all of the film’s evocations of classicism (Jacques Tourneur and Johannes Vermeer being two big points-of-reference), its production would’ve been impossible without digital technology; the distinctive cinematography—largely lit, like the studios of Renaissance painters, with reflected sunlight—represents the high-water mark of MiniDV as a shooting format. A cast of non-professionals play fictionalized versions of themselves, but instead of using these actors to lend the film a sense of naturalism or verisimilitude, Costa pares down their performances into a series of controlled movements and recitations; the result is a heightened, poetic sense of purpose, aptly summed up by Nathan Lee in The Village Voice as “raw existential intensity.”

Anonymous asked: What movie can “a sad person feeling all sad about life” watch?

“You’ve come to the right place, kid.

Fellini always manages to revive my faith in humanity. 8 1/2 is like the hangover cure for life. If you run out of options, you can just gaze at a picture of Marcello Mastroianni’s face.

Feeling shitty? Watch THE DIVING BELL AND THE BUTTERFLY. Weep at the beauty and persistence of the human spirit.

Need a good laugh? The Marx Brothers. Always. Shotgun that shit like it you got a cold and Groucho is vitamin C. Start with A NIGHT AT THE OPERA.

CASABLANCA can be a good cure—but don’t watch it if your sadness stems from lonely heartsickness. That’s a rough combination. Just watch the “La Marseilles” scene on repeat.

Bright, shiny musicals. Lots of ‘em. SINGIN’ IN THE RAIN on repeat.

If that doesn’t work, consult a physician.”

via: The never not incredible Sales on Film

*Editor’s note: If you haven’t watched the film, stop reading. Go watch it. Come back. Smile.  ”The horror film to end all horror films.”—Joss Whedon The man wasn’t lying. It didn’t seem all that likely that he could deliver on that tongue-in-cheek statement, but Drew Goddard and Joss Whedon’s deconstruction of the genre is so complete and sophisticated, and the ending of The Cabin in the Woods literally shakes the foundation of the “horror film”—just before annihilating it altogether. Once the film approaches its conclusion, and the mechanics of the horror genre that have been manipulating the cabin in the woods have all been made explicit, the cine-commentary matches/exceeds that of Michael Haneke’s Funny Games, and a with sense of humor intact (“Funnier Games”). The key difference is that Goddard and Whedon do it with intelligence, wit and compassion in equal measure. The film is not condescending to its audience, but rather counts on their own knowledge, and, refreshingly, on their own playfulness. It would seem that Haneke would condemn the shameless voyeurism of the horror-viewer, whereas the filmmakers behind The Cabin in the Woods celebrate the fun of horror films while still indicting its more vapid sadistic tendencies seen in recent years. One senses a love and respect for humanity beaming through the final moments of Cabin, rather than the coldness Haneke purposefully substitutes for sincerity, in order to distance himself from his subject, even as he falls prey to the same dynamic between torturer, tortured, and viewer, that he seeks to chastise. Without the same deliberate “arthouse” tactics, Goddard and Whedon are self-reflexive at every turn, questioning the clichés and tropes the genre is built on. And they have so much fun doing it. The film’s one central shortcoming may be its inability to work as a horror film itself. Goddard has a visual intelligence—in one sequence, he emulates J-Horror with smashing results—and successfully generates suspense, but the tension that drives the film comes from the mystery’s unfolding. Cabin’s strength is in its satire, and the film is too funny, too often, for its supposed scares to operate successfully. Nevertheless, if we can count it somewhere among horror films for categorical purposes it joins a shortlist of significant contemporary works in American cinema. Only Rob Zombie comes to mind (though Ti West has his supporters), whose recent Halloween films have challenged the slasher genre with doses of humanism, grotesque aesthetic beauty, and a punishing brutality not meant to satisfy sadistic desires. The inner-workings of the “horror film” are actually built into Cabin’s narrative. In a secret facility, two normal looking men-in-ties, played by Richard Jenkins and Bradley Whitford, are working at some sort of control panel. They have access to actors, cameras, monsters, etc. Anything they need to reach their goal of having five twentysomethings meet their end in a cabin in the woods. These unsuspecting young people are not only lured and trapped but actually altered so as to become the stereotypes deemed necessary by the horror genre. They are stripped of their personalities, uniqueness and intelligence, which are replaced by archetypal models of “the slut”, “the athlete”, “the fool (stoner)”, “the scholar”, and, of course, “the virgin”. The so-called “slut” is, unbeknownst to her, forced to dye her hair blonde before the cabin excursion begins. The “athlete” is actually a sociology major dumbed down and costumed in a letterman jacket. The virgin is not so much a virgin, but as “The Director” (an alluring allusion, I realize) will elaborate near the film’s closing, those pulling the strings “work with what they have”. The five young people are afforded some freedom however. They unknowingly select what will kill them. Meanwhile, back at the facility, co-workers take bets on what it will be. Bradley Whitford’s character hopes that it will be a Merman that will cruelly dispose of the victims. On multiple screens, these men observe as each character is killed, almost bored with what to them seems a merciless necessity. The central point is simple: the convention of stereotyped youth who must be punished is an inadequate, expired crutch that the horror film rests on. Thoughtless human representation is not a prerequisite for the horror film, but a nasty habit. It isn’t so much the violence itself but the reduction of young people to immoral victims: toys to play with. As Whedon criticized: “I’ve been seeing a lot of horror movies that are torture-porn, where kids we don’t care about are mutilated for hours, and I just cannot abide them…It’s [Cabin] an antidote to that very kind of film, the horror movie with the expendable human beings in it. Because I don’t believe any human beings are.” It’s the same sort of inspiration that drove him to create Buffy the Vampire Slayer, where the blonde girl who is chased into an alley by the bad guy can turn around and fight back. Whedon’s humanism and his reverence for horror movies have made for a winning cocktail in television, and now, cinema. The film’s own mythology and accompanying exposition take over the end of the film, cementing its ideas by assembling a cheesy, unsustainable concept that, quite literally, collapses on itself. The argument is that it is at once time to evolve and to get back to some roots—Goddard and Whedon cite the good name of John Carpenter when it comes to their ideal. The dehumanizing, static state of the horror genre is tired and it’s time to move on. In their final exchange, the two most charming characters seem to have moved on already, even before the credits roll. The world is going to end and so is the movie, but it’s time for things to get better. The empowerment of the genre does not negate the empowerment of its characters. via: Adam Cook
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*Editor’s note: If you haven’t watched the film, stop reading. Go watch it. Come back. Smile.

 ”The horror film to end all horror films.”
—Joss Whedon

The man wasn’t lying. It didn’t seem all that likely that he could deliver on that tongue-in-cheek statement, but Drew Goddard and Joss Whedon’s deconstruction of the genre is so complete and sophisticated, and the ending of The Cabin in the Woods literally shakes the foundation of the “horror film”—just before annihilating it altogether. Once the film approaches its conclusion, and the mechanics of the horror genre that have been manipulating the cabin in the woods have all been made explicit, the cine-commentary matches/exceeds that of Michael Haneke’s Funny Games, and a with sense of humor intact (“Funnier Games”). The key difference is that Goddard and Whedon do it with intelligence, wit and compassion in equal measure. The film is not condescending to its audience, but rather counts on their own knowledge, and, refreshingly, on their own playfulness. It would seem that Haneke would condemn the shameless voyeurism of the horror-viewer, whereas the filmmakers behind The Cabin in the Woods celebrate the fun of horror films while still indicting its more vapid sadistic tendencies seen in recent years. One senses a love and respect for humanity beaming through the final moments of Cabin, rather than the coldness Haneke purposefully substitutes for sincerity, in order to distance himself from his subject, even as he falls prey to the same dynamic between torturer, tortured, and viewer, that he seeks to chastise. Without the same deliberate “arthouse” tactics, Goddard and Whedon are self-reflexive at every turn, questioning the clichés and tropes the genre is built on. And they have so much fun doing it.

The film’s one central shortcoming may be its inability to work as a horror film itself. Goddard has a visual intelligence—in one sequence, he emulates J-Horror with smashing results—and successfully generates suspense, but the tension that drives the film comes from the mystery’s unfolding. Cabin’s strength is in its satire, and the film is too funny, too often, for its supposed scares to operate successfully. Nevertheless, if we can count it somewhere among horror films for categorical purposes it joins a shortlist of significant contemporary works in American cinema. Only Rob Zombie comes to mind (though Ti West has his supporters), whose recent Halloween films have challenged the slasher genre with doses of humanism, grotesque aesthetic beauty, and a punishing brutality not meant to satisfy sadistic desires. The inner-workings of the “horror film” are actually built into Cabin’s narrative. In a secret facility, two normal looking men-in-ties, played by Richard Jenkins and Bradley Whitford, are working at some sort of control panel. They have access to actors, cameras, monsters, etc. Anything they need to reach their goal of having five twentysomethings meet their end in a cabin in the woods. These unsuspecting young people are not only lured and trapped but actually altered so as to become the stereotypes deemed necessary by the horror genre. They are stripped of their personalities, uniqueness and intelligence, which are replaced by archetypal models of “the slut”, “the athlete”, “the fool (stoner)”, “the scholar”, and, of course, “the virgin”. The so-called “slut” is, unbeknownst to her, forced to dye her hair blonde before the cabin excursion begins. The “athlete” is actually a sociology major dumbed down and costumed in a letterman jacket. The virgin is not so much a virgin, but as “The Director” (an alluring allusion, I realize) will elaborate near the film’s closing, those pulling the strings “work with what they have”. The five young people are afforded some freedom however. They unknowingly select what will kill them. Meanwhile, back at the facility, co-workers take bets on what it will be. Bradley Whitford’s character hopes that it will be a Merman that will cruelly dispose of the victims. On multiple screens, these men observe as each character is killed, almost bored with what to them seems a merciless necessity.

The central point is simple: the convention of stereotyped youth who must be punished is an inadequate, expired crutch that the horror film rests on. Thoughtless human representation is not a prerequisite for the horror film, but a nasty habit. It isn’t so much the violence itself but the reduction of young people to immoral victims: toys to play with. As Whedon criticized: “I’ve been seeing a lot of horror movies that are torture-porn, where kids we don’t care about are mutilated for hours, and I just cannot abide them…It’s [Cabin] an antidote to that very kind of film, the horror movie with the expendable human beings in it. Because I don’t believe any human beings are.” It’s the same sort of inspiration that drove him to create Buffy the Vampire Slayer, where the blonde girl who is chased into an alley by the bad guy can turn around and fight back. Whedon’s humanism and his reverence for horror movies have made for a winning cocktail in television, and now, cinema.

The film’s own mythology and accompanying exposition take over the end of the film, cementing its ideas by assembling a cheesy, unsustainable concept that, quite literally, collapses on itself. The argument is that it is at once time to evolve and to get back to some roots—Goddard and Whedon cite the good name of John Carpenter when it comes to their ideal. The dehumanizing, static state of the horror genre is tired and it’s time to move on. In their final exchange, the two most charming characters seem to have moved on already, even before the credits roll. The world is going to end and so is the movie, but it’s time for things to get better. The empowerment of the genre does not negate the empowerment of its characters.

via: Adam Cook

Varda reacts heatedly to my rather impolitic, obvious question, about her Le Bonheur (1965). “Let’s not go back to that,” she bristles. “That was more than ten years ago.” For the thousandth time, someone has asked Varda how she could make a film showing a wife drowning herself in a lake so that her husband can hang out freely with his mistress. “Some people misunderstood Le Bonheur,” she replies disdainfully. “Women have become upset and asked, ‘How could you replace a woman with another woman?’ That’s what life is about. A man is replaced by another man in war. A woman is replaced by another woman in life.” Another point of contention: Varda can not tolerate puritanical responses to Le Bonheur’s conclusion, where the husband blissfully marries the mistress. “If his wife committed suicide, and he wants to feel good with another woman, he has the right! Do you think he should cry for twenty years?” via: Gerald Peary
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Varda reacts heatedly to my rather impolitic, obvious question, about her Le Bonheur (1965). “Let’s not go back to that,” she bristles. “That was more than ten years ago.” For the thousandth time, someone has asked Varda how she could make a film showing a wife drowning herself in a lake so that her husband can hang out freely with his mistress.

“Some people misunderstood Le Bonheur,” she replies disdainfully. “Women have become upset and asked, ‘How could you replace a woman with another woman?’ That’s what life is about. A man is replaced by another man in war. A woman is replaced by another woman in life.” Another point of contention: Varda can not tolerate puritanical responses to Le Bonheur’s conclusion, where the husband blissfully marries the mistress. “If his wife committed suicide, and he wants to feel good with another woman, he has the right! Do you think he should cry for twenty years?”

via: Gerald Peary