Thursday, November 21, 2013

Melancholic Landscapes

Une femme en Afrique (1985) - Depardon
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Photographer/director Raymond Depardon equates his unfulfilled desire with the vast, empty desert. The whole film is told by an unseen narrator observing a young, androgynous French woman/traveling companion (Françoise Prenant) as she mumbles back sweet nothing to the camera in various stages of undress. The main draw of the film is not the Woody Allenesque neurosis of the narrator. It's the scenery from Djibouti to Alexandria, seen from the balcony, train, boat and plane, mostly over the young woman's shoulders. Depardon captures the melancholy of the desert landscape like no other.