Wild Grass DVD & Download

Adapted from a novel,  L’Incident by the French author Christian Gailly,  the film playfully examines the complications that ensue from the discovery by Georges (André Dussollier) of Marguerite’s (Sabine Azéma) stolen purse. This opens up the possibility for both Georges and Marguerite of rushing into the irrational, of just following their impulses where ever they may lead, with no heed to the consequences,  that eventually leads to the much-discussed surprise ending.

Filmography

2009 LES HERBES FOLLES (WILD GRASS)

2006 COEURS (PRIVATE FEARS IN PUBLIC PLACES)

2003 PAS SUR LA BOUCHE (NOT ON THE LIPS)

1997 ON CONNAÎT LA CHANSON (SAME OLD SONG)

1993 SMOKING and NO SMOKING

1992 GERSHWIN

1989 I WANT TO GO HOME

1986 MÉLO

1984 L’AMOUR À MORT (LOVE UNTO DEATH)

1983 LA VIE EST UN ROMAN (LIFE IS A BED OF ROSES)

1980 MON ONCLE D’AMÉRIQUE (MY AMERICAN UNCLE)

1976 PROVIDENCE

1974 STAVISKY...

1968 JE T’AIME JE T’AIME

1967 LOIN DU VIETNAM (FAR FROM VIETNAM)

1966 LA GUERRE EST FINIE (THE WAR IS OVER)

1963 MURIEL OU LE TEMPS D’UN RETOUR (MURIEL, OR THE TIME OF RETURN)

1961 L’ANNÉE DERNIÈRE À MARIENBAD (LAST YEAR AT MARIENBAD)

1959 HIROSHIMA MON AMOUR

1958 LE CHANT DU STYRÈNE

1956 TOUTE LA MÉMOIRE DU MONDE

1955 NUIT ET BROUILLARD (NIGHT AND FOG)

1953 LES STATUES MEURENT AUSSI (STATUES ALSO DIE)

codirected by Chris Marker

1950 GUERNICA

codirected by Robert Hessens

CREW

Director                                         Alain Resnais

Producer                                        Jean-Louis Livi

Executive Producer                         Julie Salvador

Coproducer                                    Valerio De Paolis

Screenwriters                                 Alex Réval, Laurent Herbiet

Based on the novel                         L’Incident  by Christian Gailly, Editions de Minuit

Director of Photography                  Eric Gautier

Production Design                          Jacques Saulnier

Costumes                                     Jackie Budin

Sound                                          Gérard Hardy, Jean-Marie Blondel, Gérard Lamps

Assistant Director                          Christophe Jeauffroy

Continuity                                     Sylvette baudrot

Editor                                           Hervé de Luze

Music                                           Mark Snow

A French-Italian coproduction F Comme Film - StudioCanal - France 2 Cinéma - Bim Distribuzione

With the support of Canal+,TPs Star and Eurimages

In association with Cinémage 3

With the support of the Centre National de la Cinématographie

And Région Ile-de-France

104 mins– Scope – SRD - DTS

CAST

Marguerite Muir                            Sabine Azéma

Georges Palet                              André Dussollier

Suzanne                                      Anne Consigny

Josépha                                       Emmanuelle Devos

Bernard de Bordeaux                    Mathieu Amalric

Lucien d’Orange                            Michel Vuillermoz

Narrator                                       Edouard Baer

Neighbour                                    Annie Cordy

Elodie                                          Sara Forestier

Jean-Mi                                        Nicolas Duvauchelle

Marcelin Palet                               Vladimir Consigny

Sikorsky                                      Dominique Rozan

Mickey                                         Jean-Noël Brouté

Marguerite’s Acolytes                    Elric Covarel-Garcia, Valéry Schatz, Stéfan Godin, Grégory Perrin

Marcel Schwer                              Roger-Pierre

DVD of the Week, Time out

'A darkly brilliant gem'

Geoff Andrew, Time Out

"One of the most impressive and enjoyable films in the competition....

Crammed with delirious set design, red herrings, mischievous comedy and a dazzlingly inscrutable ending, Wild Grass showed a maestro rallying magnificently and – at the age of 87 – producing one of the liveliest, freshest films here."

Jonathan Romney,  The Independent

"A meteor of out-and-out strangeness...

what keeps us watching is the film's stylistic flamboyance. Wild Grass seethes with a mercurial brio not seen in a Resnais film for ages

it's a magnificent rebirth, with Resnais proving more playful, more provocative, more downright youthful than he has been in years.

At 88, film-makers aren't supposed to make comebacks this exuberant. Wild Grass is wild all right, and so, apparently, is the old master at its helm."

Jonathan Romney, Independent on Sunday

Read the full review

Pick of the Week

"This playful, stylish study of an imaginary romance... Veteran Resnais crafts a silky, genre-hopping middle-aged romance that’s full of wonders and mysteries"

Guardian Guide

An exploration of desire...

A funny, soulful movie about love and other agonies, Wild Grass” is among his finest in years, which makes it an event...

it does confirm its director as one of the giants of the art.

Manohla Dargis, The New York Times

Read the full article

Visually lovely

Peter Whittle,  The Sunday Times

Resnais finding a boisterous breath of new invention, spinning an extravagant, self-deconstructing, hugely entertaining story of unrequited love”.

Joanthan Romney  The Independent

“the most sublime film I’ve seen in Cannes in years, a hallucinatory, entrancing work in which each scene is surprising”

Todd McCarthy

Former nouvelle vague wunderkind Alain Resnais has made his friskiest film in years with the comedy of unconscious desires...MASTERFUL

deadly serious, or an extended joke? A summing-up of the œuvre, or a taking-off into unknown skies? It manages, magisterially, to be all of these things at once.

Wild Grass is about nothing less than life, love and death... Resnais fully finds here what he has sought since at least Life is a Bed of Roses

Adrian Martin, Sight And Sound

‘Frisky and baffling’

Tim Robey, The Daily Telegraph

‘…it’s the fluent film-making and elliptical editing that have become Resnais trademarks.’

Derek Malcolm, The Evening Standard

Edward Lawrenson, The Big Issue

★★★★

‘A splendidly idiosyncratic mixture of flippant screwball comedy and melancholy musing on unpredictable fate and crazy coincidences.’

‘A very enjoyable and oddly touching tale.’

Allan Hunter, The Express

★★★★

‘In Alain Resnais’ Wild Grass, a charmer from a French arthouse hero,  characters  take leave of their senses while the director rediscovers his own.’

‘It is incredibly charming’

‘Lots of meanings. Lots of clevernesses…it is lovely to see.’

Nigel Andrews, The Financial Times

'Cheeky and confident...

‘This joyfully skittish farce from 88-year-old maestro  Alain Resnais… maybe one of the director’s finest, and its loopy final line is the cryptic cherry on this oddball gâteau.’

David Jenkins, Time Out

‘No signs of creative burn-out for Alain Resnais, the pioneering French New Wave director who’s now 88.’

‘A wonderfully eccentric offering from Resnais, with fine ensemble performances to match.’

Tom Dawson, TOTAL FILM

★★★★

'The performances are remarkable'

David Parkinson, Empire

'Now into his eighties he is still bamboozling audiences with his odd meditations on desire and memory’

Anthony Quinn, The Independent

‘By teasing out the mismatch between the ordinary and the cinematic, Resnais' eccentric farce is slight and profound in equal measure.

Film4.com

‘This is the kind of film that lingers in the mind and keeps us smiling, because we know how irrational but marvellous it is to latch on to a complete stranger in a way that makes no sense, like wild grass sprouting through a crack in the motorway.’

Rich Cline, contactmusic.com

Psychodrama, sex farce, tragedy, comedy—Wild Grass is all these things and more…Alain Resnais' masterpiece

Keith Uhlich, Time Out New York

A constant confounding  delight

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