76 A nos amours.

[What A Disgrace]

A nos amours.



A portrait of youth in bloom; a tale of one family’s dissolution; a reflection upon the danger and the mystery in living. Maurice Pialat’s serene, perilous masterwork provides the movie romance a definitive check and eminently deceptive balance — the X scratched on top of the O.

In one of the astonishing film debuts, Sandrine Bonnaire plays Suzanne, a free spirit and the vessel for an almost Brontëan choler. She’s 16, and men exist — diverse lovers, an overbearing brother, and the father portrayed by Pialat himself in an unforgettable turn that displays the full magnitude of the cinema giant’s tenderness, force-of-will, and presence of being.

Woven through with indelible images and heart-stopping moments (and culminating in the infamous “dinner party scene”), A nos amours. [To Our Romance / Here’s to Love] is a pure creation, a film that will live so long as there’s still either movies or love. The Masters of Cinema Series is proud to present Pialat’s landmark film for the first time on DVD in the UK.

Special Features

• Gorgeous new anamorphic transfer of the film in its original aspect ratio
• New and improved English subtitle translations
• 16-minute 2003 interview with star Sandrine Bonnaire, conducted by former Cahiers du cinéma editor-in-chief, and current director of the Cinémathèque Française, Serge Toubiana
• L’Œil humain [The Human Eye], a 55-minute film by director Xavier Giannoli that analyses A nos amours. and features former Cahiers du cinéma editorial director Jean-Michel Frodon, actors Jacques Fieschi and Sandrine Bonnaire, and other members of the cast and crew
• 14-minute excerpt from a 1983 TV interview with Maurice Pialat from the set of A nos amours, and featuring rushes of scenes that don’t appear in the finished film
• 31 minutes of video screen-tests from 1982 for actors that variously appear and do not appear in the finished film
• Original theatrical trailer for A nos amours, along with trailers for the six other Maurice Pialat films released by The Masters of Cinema Series
• 48-page booklet containing a new essay about the film by writer and filmmaker Dan Sallitt, a two-page image-essay by Craig Keller, and a transcript of the sit-down conversation that took place between Maurice Pialat and Jean-Luc Godard in 1984, appearing for the first time in an English translation

[evillights]

Play.com has initial specs. No details on the booklet, but the disc specs seem identical to the Criterion release, minus the interviews with Breillat and Gorin.

The A nos amours. page is now live at the MoC site.

[Duncan Hopper]

My copy arrived this morning, but no sign of Sous Le Soleil De Satan just yet.

I watched La Gueule Ouverte last night, what a tremendous film. Not an easy watch by any means, but very rewarding.

[Yojimbo]

My copy arrived this morning, but no sign of Sous Le Soleil De Satan just yet.

I watched La Gueule Ouverte last night, what a tremendous film. Not an easy watch by any means, but very rewarding.

I received both it and 'Satan'
(just watched 'A Nos...' another Pialat great: great performances by Bonnaire and himself, especially.
And by the ensemble cast.
Although I thought the mother and brother's 'tantrums' were a tad overdone, betimes

'La Guele' is possibly the best film deaing with a terminal illness I've seen: the often black humour certainly helps

[tenia]

Funny thing : I didn't want to spend any more money in MoC sales, so I skipped A nos amours, but found the French Gaumont edition in a special sale just this afternoon, and didn't resist.

Among the 5 Pialat I've seen (I haven't seen Sous le soleil de Satan yet), I think it's my favorite with L'enfance-nue.
There is something really deep in here, especially between Bonnaire and Pialat himself. They both show an amazing presence on screen.

[Mozart]

Tonight at Arte (French/German TV) from 8:15pm on in HD.
Afterwards a new french 52 min documentary/making of from 2011 about the film by David Thompson.

Was wondering, where Arte has got the master, as this film was not part of the announcements of HD-remasters in 2013 by Gaumont.
http://ww.criterionforum.org/forum/view ... 51#p390119" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[The Fanciful Norwegian]

I think Gaumont's had an HD transfer of this for years. If you check out the specs for the Criterion DVD, it says the transfer was done in HD (which is repeated in the "about the transfer" section of the booklet). L'enfance nue also has an HD transfer per Criterion, so maybe that's why these two Pialats were excluded from the list -- they're already in HD, so Gaumont doesn't feel the need to do remasters.

[NABOB OF NOWHERE]

Tonight at Arte (French/German TV) from 8:15pm on in HD.
Afterwards a new french 52 min documentary/making of from 2011 about the film by David Thompson.

Was wondering, where Arte has got the master, as this film was not part of the announcements of HD-remasters in 2013 by Gaumont.
http://ww.criterionforum.org/forum/view ... 51#p390119" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Saw both last night and found 'A nos amours' still staggering after countless viewings. The doco is drawn from much the same material as already on Gaumont /MoC discs but is glued together with an updated interview with Sandrine Bonnaire, who goes into her relationship with Pialat in more emotional detail, including the rupture after turning down the part taken by Marceau in Police. There is a touching scene when the terminally ill Pialat is reconciled with her on a TV chat show.
One thought crossed my mind regarding Pialat's subterfuge when the Dad, who he plays, "returns from the dead" to interrupt a family celebratory meal. There is a similar strategy employed by Mike Leigh I seem to remember when the christmas meal is interrupted by the arrival of the police in Vera Drake, allegedly unexpected by the actors, bar Vera I think. I am not sure whether it was an improvisation re-played out subsequently on camera or captured 'live' as by Pialat. Whatever the case, I fond both these great examples of visceral film-making.

[MichaelB]

Ken Loach does this too - in Looking for Eric, Steve Evets apparently had absolutely no idea that when he turned round he'd find himself face to face with the real Eric Cantona. That gobsmacked astonishment is the real thing, and obviously had to be nailed on the first take.

[Drucker]

Slowly making my way through all of these MOC releases. I picked all of them up a few years ago during some idle time in the pandemic after being bowled over by L'Enfance Nue, and yet have only just got around to this one now. I found it equally as riveting as the other films of his I've seen and I've been thinking about the imagery and film all morning. It's not really worth to pick out a singular favorite piece of the film as it all flows together so beautifully and unlikely, especially with Robert ending up married at the end of the film! There's talk in the liner notes about the film perhaps being over the top, but if I went back to my teenage years, I think the roller coaster of emotions does quite a good job of reflecting reality. I think falling in love with someone on Friday and breaking up with them on Sunday...is kind of exactly what 16 and 17 year olds do! While I may not personally relate to the behavior in the film, I can certainly think of some old friends it did apply to.

There's a line in the liner notes by Sallitt which perfectly captures what I loved about this film and Pialat in general: "Pialat is sincere in associating the naked emotion of Nom's music with Suzanne, and he he is also sincere when he undermines the usual intermediate dramatic steps between the raw material of life and the purity of his emotional response."

The undermining of usual intermediate dramatic steps is exactly what Pialat does so well, and why the domestic violence in say "We Won't Grow Old Together" is so effective. His films do such a good job of establishing their central actors and making them liable to behave the way they do, so suddenly, is so jarring and effective. This film felt no different, but given it's subject matter, also had such a beautiful dreamlike atmosphere, especially as it winds its way down towards the end.

[zedz]

The undermining of usual intermediate dramatic steps is exactly what Pialat does so well, and why the domestic violence in say "We Won't Grow Old Together" is so effective. His films do such a good job of establishing their central actors and making them liable to behave the way they do, so suddenly, is so jarring and effective.

A nos amours has a perfect illustration of both Pialat's elision of dramatic developments and his punishing trust in his actors in the scene where the father walks into the family gathering. According to the script, and in the minds of all the actors, the father was dead, so when Pialat just walks onto the set, what you're seeing is the actors struggling in real time to deal with the rug being pulled out from under them: Evelyne Ker's rage in the scene is genuine. On the one hand, it's an arsehole move by Pialat, but on the other hand, without it we wouldn't have that electrifying scene as it is.