27 April – 7 May

Spanning several decades and continents, the career of Louis Malle (1932–1995) is littered with awards, contradictions and controversy. Though initially associated with the French New Wave, Malle began to consciously distance himself via a public ambivalence towards the theoretical concerns of the group as well as a fierce ambition to stand out as the leading director of his day. This special season of imported 35mm prints courtesy of the Ministère des affaires étrangères showcases a director contentedly teetering on the divide between mainstream success and subversive mayhem.

Dir: Louis Malle France 1957 88mins 35mm
Malle’s suspenseful feature debut traps its players in a Hitchcockian labyrinth of modern technology and old-fashioned bad luck as a murderous pair of lovers are brought undone by a chain of events triggered by a elevator. Malle’s only true genre film is also a precursor of the explosion of New Wave films that followed soon after. A mournful jazz score by Miles Davis perfectly underlines the director’s bleak modernist vision. Stars Jeanne Moreau and Maurice Ronet.

Dir: Louis Malle France/West Germany/Italy 1974 137mins 35mm
This brilliant, perceptive and moodily shot account of an opportunistic French peasant who joins the Gestapo during the German occupation was the first dramatic feature from France to air, without compromise, the thorny and deeply divisive issue of collaboration. Lucien is treated with cool objectivity, revealing the ultimate banality of his repellent actions, in this subtly complex tale of guilt, innocence and the amorality of power. Stars Pierre Blaise and Aurore Clément.

Dir: Louis Malle France 1987 104mins 35mm
An emotional project very close to Malle’s heart and based on an incident from his own child­hood, this film reflects on the Holocaust through the expe­rience of two young boys attending a Roman Catholic boarding school during WWII. Julien is Catholic, while his new friend Bonnet is Jewish, secretly granted asylum from the Nazis by the school headmaster. Nuanced and emotionally devastating, this is widely considered to be the crowning achievement of Malle’s career.

Winner Golden Lion Venice Film Festival 1987.
Listed in 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die

Dir: Louis Malle France 1963 108mins 35mm
A bleak tale of an alcoholic determined to end his life, based on the novella by Pierre Drieu La Rochelle, who later killed himself in after collaborating with the Nazis. Discharged from a sanatorium, Alain visits his bourgeois friends in Paris to see if anything can dissuade him from his course. The stark cinema­tography, along with Erik Satie’s plaintive score, effectively evokes the protagonist’s emotional alienation. Stars Maurice Ronet and Jeanne Moreau.

Winner Special Jury Prize Venice Film Festival 1963.

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