Tuesday, April 29, 2008

Some More Scripts She's Written

Catherine Breillat co-wrote Nuit de l'océan (there's no English title, but it translates to Night of the Ocean), about a mother whose son who disappears at sea, with Luigi De Angelis and director Antoine Perset in 1992. There's no DVD or even video release in any region.

In 1984, she wrote L'Araignée de satin (The Satin Spider) with director Jacques Baratier. Set in the 1920's, Catherine Jourdan plays Solange, a ballet instructor obsessed with satin and who is having an affair with the headmistress at an all-girl boarding school. The girls are disappearing under mysterious circumstances, so an inspector lurks around questioning everybody. But that doesn't stop Solange from having an affair with one of the students. This is a very weird one, based on a play called Les Détraquées (The Demented) by P.L. Palau.  There's no DVD of this film, but it was released as an untranslated, PAL VHS in France and even an English subtitled PAL VHS in the UK.

In 1993, Breillat and Pascal Bonitzer wrote Couples et amants (roughly translated: Couples and Lovers) with director John Lvoff. Allmovie gives us this slightly awkward synopsis, "Seemingly, Paul (Jacques Bonaffee) and Isabelle (Marie Brunel) have a wonderful, harmonious marriage. Yet Isabelle is not averse to having a little side action with another man in the afternoon, and Paul is really getting into his romance with one of his ophthalmic patients, a young woman who pursues him more than he pursued her. Even those little affairs might not indicate that there is much wrong with the marriage, but when Paul find's out about Isabelle's little affair, he behaves like a thug rather than the sensitive, easygoing man he has appeared to be. By contrast, the constant bickering of a couple they both know seems to indicate real intimacy between them, despite the fact that they are on the verge of divorce." There is no DVD, but this was released on video in Canada (untranslated, NTSC).

She co-wrote the screenplay for Aventure de Catherine C., about a French actress who moves to Austria, with Jean-Pierre Kremer and director Pierre Beuchot in 1990. It's based on the two Adventure Catherine Crachat novels of Pierre Jean Jouve (which have since been published as one): 1928's Hécate and Vagadu, written in 1931. It was never released on DVD, but did come out as an untranslated, PAL VHS tape in France.

Finally (for this post, there's still a bit more to come), Breillat co-wrote Milan noir (Black Milan) with three other writers, including director Ronald Chammah in 1987. It's a thriller starring Isabelle Huppert who plays, as Allmovies.com tells us, "Sarah, a woman who has settled into a more or less normal life in Milan after her lover, a much-wanted terrorist, left the scene. Her life becomes complicated indeed when she becomes aware that he is about to return. The difficulty is that not only is she aware of this, but the police and various underworld groups are also. How is she to protect her own life under the circumstances, much less keep her lover from falling prey to the various traps that are being set for him?"

Do any of these sound interesting? Well, then go get a job at a DVD studio and get them to put them out, please. Because Breillat's films are seriously under-represented on DVD. :(

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