19 February 2005
Love in Paris

TThe next pelikula@titusbrandsma (free) screenings will be on February 19 at 1 p.m. It's a post-Valentine lineup with some provocations set in the City of Lovers to catch your attention.

In Praise of Love / Éloge de l'Amour
Jean-Luc Godard, France, 2001.
97 minutes.

In this latest from the famed French New Wave director, American civilization is relentlessly attacked through the convenient use of a Hollywood film crew seeking to exploit the history of some oppressed French people.

At the heart of this story is the silent, perpetually-depressed intellectual girl whose grandmother happens to be one of those victims still alive.

The film is a rumination on the fragility of human existence, the meaning of life as dictated by memory and identity, art, politics and culture, and the importance of embracing the past in order to make sense of the totality of the lived experience.

Ambitious and immensely grand, Godard excels in simply showing the eternal and redemptive aspect of love - love for the past, love for oneself, and love for life.

Stealing Heaven
Clive Donner, France, 1988.
115 minutes.

Peter Abelard was a famous teacher, logician, moral philosopher and theologian in 12th-century Paris. He was also the most controversial, twice condemned for heresy by ecclesiastical councils in France and risking his career when he falls in love with a young pupil named Heloise.

In an age when chastity is the norm, castration and an unwilling lifetime service to the Church threaten the lovers, who also share a passion for knowledge and the struggle to find a deeper understanding of their illicit relationship.