Pialat is often considered Cassavetes’ brother in arms for envisioning dramatic cinema as founded in the irascible, unpredictable turmoil of life. A painter himself, this is an impressionistic, textured yet austere work—many films have been made about the genius of Van Gogh, but none better this.
Examinations of sex and class may be nothing new, but this remarkable feature is distinguished by Maurice Pialat’s clear-eyed scrutiny of human behavior. Starring Gérard Depardieu and an incredible Isabelle Huppert, Loulou is a riveting dissection of sexual liberation and the dynamics of power.
Maurice Pialat won a hotly contested Palme d’Or at Cannes for this unforgettable drama about spirituality in a cold world. By turns calm and violent, the controversial and intense masterwork, starring Gérard Depardieu and Sandrine Bonnaire, dances between the sacred, the carnal, and the profane.
Maurice Pialat never shied away from exposing the darkest corners of the human experience, and his third feature remains his most boldly confrontational. Unblinking in its surveyal of a sick woman’s final days, The Mouth Agape bears tough, unadorned witness to the realities of end-of-life care.
