La Cérémonie

Director: Claude Chabrol
Cast: Isabelle Huppert, Sandrine Bonnaire, Jacqueline Bisset
France, 112’, 1995, color
French with Turkish subtitles

In the 1960s and early '70s, Claude Chabrol was celebrated as the Gallic Hitchcock for his crisp, character-rich thrillers. La Cérémonie, his 1997 hit adapted from Ruth Rendell's novel A Judgement in Stone, is a return to form, an assured domestic drama set in the upper-class household of the kind but condescending Lelievres family. Sandrine Bonnaire, excellent in an enigmatic, uncommunicative role, stars as their new, neurotically silent maid Sophie. She performs her duties efficiently and emotionlessly, staring out from behind an implacable, mask-like face born of loneliness and defensiveness. Isabelle Huppert is the town's gleefully misanthropic postmistress Jeanne, a gossipy, energetically insolent misfit who hates the Lelievres. When she becomes Sophie's best friend, her pathological game of taunts and gossip goes into overdrive with her sudden access to their house, and an already simmering class conflict boils over in unleashed anger. Chabrol charts the cascade of mischief and misunderstandings to its shattering conclusion, with sensitivity to character and an eagle-eyed remove that makes the explosive climax all the more chilling. It's a devastating thriller, one of Chabrol's best, and a powerful portrait in hate and psychosis pushed over the edge in misunderstanding, manipulation, and mistrust. Jacqueline Bisset is the fumbling but sincere Mme. Lelievres, Jean-Pierre Cassel her complacent husband, and Virginie Ledoyen (A Single Girl) their sensitive young daughter.

Every Man For Himself

Every Man For Himself

Coup de torchon

Coup de torchon

La Cérémonie

La Cérémonie

Isabelle Huppert: A Life to Play

Isabelle Huppert: A Life to Play

Loulou

Loulou

Story of Women

Story of Women

White Material

White Material

Fluid Rego

Fluid Rego

While Paula Rego belatedly was recognised as one of the leading feminist pioneers of her age, little has been written about her exploration of fluid sexuality. Indeed the current of sado-masochism in her drawings and paintings, has tended to encourage an understanding as a classic clash between the patriarchy and exploited women.

Midnight Stories: The Soul <br> Aşkın Güngör

Midnight Stories: The Soul
Aşkın Güngör

The wind blows, rubbing against my legs made of layers of metal and wires, swaying the leaves of grass that have shot up from the cracks in the tarmac, and going off to the windows that look like the eyes of dead children in the wrecked buildings that seem to be everywhere as far as the eye can see.

Giacometti in Paris

Giacometti in Paris

The second part of exhibition illustrates Alberto Giacometti’s relations with Post-Cubist artists and the Surrealist movement between 1922 and 1935, one of the important sculptures series he created during his first years in Paris, and the critical role he played in the art scene of the period.