2008 ‘35 Rhums’ Directed by Claire Denis
Lionel, a widower, has raised his daughter, Josephine, on his own since she was young. The two are used to living alone, depending solely on one another. But, now that Josephine is older, Lionel is beginning to realize they cannot stay isolated forever.
Soudaine Compagnie Pandora Film ARTE France Cinéma WDR/Arte Cofinova 4 Sofica Soficinéma 4 Canal+ TPS Star CNC Eurimages Région Ile-de-France Filmförderung Hamburg Schleswig-Holstein
"i didn't think i'd miss it."
how mundane details/experiences acquire meaning in our lives and the paralyzing fear of losing them and having to create new ones.
I want to call this--and pretty much any Claire Denis film--a "rumination," but that implies that the goal is something rational, something of the mind, rather than an emotional understanding. Perhaps it's more fair to qualify her work as "emotional ruminations," and here, the loose, poetic lens of her cameras has captured many small snippets of an unlikely family's life in the midst of flux. This implies a lot more action that is seen, but all the same, there is an undercurrent of chaos to it, glimpses of turmoil, unspoken conflicts. The film uses this to linger on many threads, many ideas, with these four people at its core.
Most of these threads are knotted together by Lionel and Jo,…
"I didn't think I'd miss it."
claire denis is either using really dark sorcery and sacrificing infant children to be this superlative in dealing with the camera and its subjects, to extract the deepest possible emotional reaction with so much as a twinge musical note, someones dark eyes looking at someone they love, pitter patter of train tracks, or she really is that fucking good. idiots will probably go with the former.
"Please feel free."
Inspired by Yasujirō Ozu's Late Spring as well as the relationship between her own mother and grandfather, Claire Denis' 35 Shots of Rum graciously depicts the inhabitants of an anodyne Parisian apartment complex as a highly codependent yet touching non-traditional family. At the center of this uncommon clan are Lionel (Alex Descas)—a taciturn widower who drives a commuter train (more shades of Ozu as well as Denis' former mentor Wim Wenders)—and his devoted young-adult daughter Josephine (Mati Diop). Gingerly infringing upon the cozy stasis of their shared life are two admirers, Lionel's terminally lonely ex-lover Gabrielle (Nicole Dogue) and the mercurial Noé (Grégoire Colin)—who lives with a sweet kitty, struggles with inveterate wanderlust, and produces a thick…
[Minor spoilers]
Something is off about many of the synopses I’ve read for this film:
Imdb: "The relationship between a father and daughter is complicated by the arrival of a handsome young man."
Netflix: "This heartfelt slice-of-life drama by filmmaker Claire Denis tells the story of widower Lionel (Alex Descas), a train driver, and his grown daughter, Sophie (Mati Diop). The two spend most of their time together, but change is in the cards. A neighbor (Grégoire Colin) becomes attracted to Sophie, a family friend retires and Lionel tries to maintain a friendship with his ex-girlfriend (Nicole Dogue)."
Metacritic: "A widowed conductor, looking forward to retirement, lives with his grown daughter in a Paris suburb. When a neighbor starts to…
Like a warm and enveloping hug you never want to end, Claire Denis' "35 Shots of Rum" is another romantic and stunning piece from a truly underrated artist. Following tightly knit people in a homey yet mundane setting as they live their lives day-by-day, the narrative presents itself as more of a rhythmic and flavorful examination rather than a straightforward story. It's the little moments which interest Denis and the longing and desire of these characters present us with enough to keep our attention the entire runtime. What we don't know about them through the already enriching and minimal dialogue, we get through body language and facial expressions. The dance scene with Ralph Thamar's "Siboney" and The Commodores' "Nightshift" presents…
A fucking masterpiece of the highest order. Immediate all-time Top 10 status. Denis in prime form. Godard cements herself as the greatest active cinematographer we have. Performances are touching, subtle, and immaculate. Astounding to me that I waited this long to see it. Wow wow wow wow.
In 35 Shots of Rum, Denis and her actors speak through silences. It is what is unsaid, what is implied and what is absent that defines this film. It is a sombre work, but also uplifting, a film that captures a central relationship (father and daughter) with resonant specificity. It is a film that never leads the viewer by the hand, existing instead as naturalistic cinema where precise details only become apparent over time.
This works so well because the film is so much about how one relationship can drown out everything else. 35 Shots of Rum is overpowered, intoxicated perhaps, by the moments of connection between Alex Descas' Lionel and Mati Diop's Joséphine (the same Mati Diop that would…
Claire Denis’ “35 Shots of Rum” is a lyrical portrait of the entanglements that arise from a life constantly in motion.
Unfolding in trains, taxis, and along the banks of barge canals, “Rum” shares a restlessness of heart with its characters. The movie’s subjects are not fleeing their past or their imperfect present. They are wagering that movement equals progress, even if it happens in microcosm over large swaths of years.
Denis’ upbringing as the daughter of a civil service employee makes her an apt orator on the nomadic. In “Rum,” she seems to have an innate empathy with how humans merge in and out of each other’s existences - so often with unnoticed, or unremarked-upon loss.
Denis’ depiction of…
"What's this thing about 35 shots?" -Bar patron,
- 5x5 Directors Challenge 3 (Claire Denis 1/5): boxd.it/7ALXq
So good.
Families can form delicate ecosystems with their surroundings so when a man becomes interested in a woman this film shows how it ripples through other relationship in a small rental community, specifically that of a father and daughter. Claire Denis is unique in the degree to which she lets silence speak volumes more than the text of the dialogue, which is often not that significant. 35 Shots of Rum is a wonderful film about being stuck in ruts in life and what you do with yourself to make life worth living and how to deal with change. The performances and direction are beautiful.
What a nice film.
When is a rice cooker more than just a rice cooker? When it’s in the masterful hands of Claire Denis, who somehow transforms it into a moving metaphor for the evolving relationship between a Parisian train conductor (Alex Descas) and his devoted twenty-something daughter (Mati Diop) as he gently nudges her out of the nest and each tests the waters of new relationships. Warmed by the ember-glow of Agnès Godard’s beautifully burnished cinematography, Denis’s delicately bittersweet take on the Ozu-style family drama conveys worlds of meaning and emotion—attraction, heartache, loss, hope—in a mere glance, a gesture, and, yes, a kitchen appliance.
