On Mayukh Sen's Wall

Mayukh, It's not easy for us in the US to keep up with performers from other countries, even France, unless their work continues to be art house fare or auteurist films that we at least get to read about. Some years back, after revisiting Love on the Run, one of my favorite Truffauts, I was impressed by Claude Jade's maturity in the eleven years since Stolen Kisses. Whatever happened to her, I wondered, and upon looking her up found that she had been working constantly in film, theatre, and tv, most of which we never hear about, let alone see. I was relieved that the cinema had not lost another talented and beautiful women, but then when I looked her up again a few years later, I learned that she had died of cancer in her fifties. Made me want to give up Imdb! Anyway, all this is about the difficulty in following Nathalie Baye's career. I agree with your assessment of her. And, speaking of conventional beauty, one of the things I like about film today is the greater acceptance of unusual looks. Many of the women in movies now who are generally considered quite beautiful have quirky, off-beat features which only enhance the overall picture. Yes, in their earliest films, "they" are still trying to make them look just like "all the other girls", but as they build their careers they are able to hold on to their uniqueness. I'm thinking here of such varied players as Nicole Kidman, Michelle Pfeiffer, Charlize Theron, and Scarlett Johansson, to name a few. ///// Pennies from Heaven had a tough act to follow when I saw it. Though I am not a fan of television, the original BBC production of Dennis Potter's play is one of the best things I have ever seen on tv, and as much as I like Martin and Peters, for me they couldn't match the work of Bob Hoskins and Cheryl Campbell. I have yet to see any Beneix, but he is on my list. Lately, I have been seeing some Mikio Naruse and Rafaello Mattarazzo, both of whom are new to me and very good. A recent English movie that was a very pleasant surprise for me was The Wings of a Dove, the best performance I have seen from Bonham Carter (that wasn't a surprise!), and I was also impressed by Allison Elliott. ///// So there it is for now, Mayukh. Cheers. Bob