Jaques Rozier

What a discovery !

Thanks to medimops in Germany ( Tax dodgers Amazon do not deliver any longer to New Zealand, but all the better: I detest the bloodsucking US companies such as Starbucks, Apple, Amazon etc, who pay crappy wages, produce in sweatshops and pay hardly any taxes, so alternatives are a good thing ! ) I managed to order a 5 DVD set of Jaques Rozier films, a French director, born 1926, who is one of the lesser known members of the French New Wave movement and has collaborated with Jean-Luc Godard.
Three of his films have been screened at the Cannes Film Festival.

The 4 feature length films of his I watched were: 1963 Adieu Philippine, 1971 Du Cote D’Orouet, 1976 The Castaways of Turtle Island,1985 Maine-Ocean Express (Prix Jean Vigo). 2 of the films left a deep impression on me: Du Cote D’Orouet and The Castaways of Turtle Island.

How I read Rozier:
Roziers’ films are impressive investigations into situations away from the daily grind of life. In both films the protagonists take time out from their ordinary lives, in Du Cote D’Orouet 3 young women and a man at a holiday destination,( quite in Eric Rohmer style that one ), in The Castaways ( a roaring comedy ) the protagonists end up at a Robinson Crusoe style holiday, which exposes all the pitfalls of a modern mindset.

At the end of each film everybody returns to their lives, a sobering experience that one…

Here some excerpts: