Louis Malle is my cinematic hero. I’m always amazed at how he made movies that caused a shirt-storm of controversy, but when you see them, they’re so beautiful. He had so much feeling for his characters and such an innate sense of how to direct. My favourite period of his is when he returned from India.

Lacombe, Lucien isn’t an easy movie to stomach. It’s pretty austere, but it’s very…beautiful? Malle had some of the biggest balls in cinematic history, but he never called attention to it. There wasn’t anything he wouldn’t tackle. A total debaser, not as scandalous as Kubrick or Bunuel, but… nearly as good.

I love how at the end of the movie the narrative dissolves into this poetic sequence of nature and Lucien and his girlfriend living in the wild. I love how we don’t witness what happens to Lucien. This movie has so many ambiguities.

I think it’s one of the greatest films ever made.