Favourites of the Moon

Les favoris de la lune

Italy, Soviet Union, France

1984

105 Min

Color

1.66:1

French

Currently 3.9/5 Stars.
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SCR Otar Iosseliani, Gérard Brach

CAST Katja Rupé, Alix de Montaigu, François Michel, Jean-Pierre Beauviala, Pascal Aubier, Christiane Bailly, Bernard Eisenschitz, Hans Peter Cloos, Maïté Nahyr, Mathieu Amalric, László Szabó, Yannick Carpentier, Fanny Dupin, Marie Parra Aledo, Gabriella Sheer, René Vo Van Mihn, Gaspard Flori, Emilie Aubry

SOUND Claude Bertrand, Alix Comte, Jacques Maumont, Dominique Roy

Venice (In Competition): Grand Special Jury Prize, Berlinale (Forum)

Synopsis

“It is impossible to recount this film because of all the parallel stories that get out of hand, but it is about bartering things, the carousel of love affairs, the exchange of feelings. In Paris’s 13th arrondisement, which on the surface appears so straightforward, Iosseliani depicts the hectic activity of those subjected to the laws of exchange and delivers a hilarious comedy. His 40 odd protagonists do not have names but they are clearly characterized in their behavior, forming a microcosm of society. The fact that the thieves survive is not surprising in a world that lives from theft without wanting to acknowledge it. Whereas the citizens are driven out and their being together is shown in fast motion only as a seemingly nonsensical abstract movement, the thieves are hedonists having the time of their life.” (Eva Hohenberger) —Arsenal

Director

Otar Iosseliani

A major director of the Soviet sixties who continues to make internationally acclaimed films. A child musician and music student, Iosseliani switched to mathemetics at Moscow State University, then attended VGIK, studied directing under Dovzhenko, and graduated in 1961. His first major film, April, resulted in his being denied work for two years, during which worked as both a sailor and day laborer. He returned to direct films such as Falling Leaves, which takes a documentary approach to depicting Georgian life. His films took subtle, elliptical paths to critiquing the Soviet Union until he emigrated to France in the early 1980s, at which time his pictures ~~-often still set in the Soviet territories~~- became marginally more explicit. But his movies are much too concerned with universality, the mysteries of human existense and the beauty of nature, to be overtly political. Though still residing in France, since the fall of the Soviet Union Iosseliani has worked more closely… read more