Le joli mai (The Merry Month of May)
Directed by Chris Marker and Pierre L’Homme
Written by Chris Marker and Catherine Varlin
1963/France
Sofracima
First viewing/Netflix rental
[box] Narrator (English version): Why search for beauty in a dove and poetry in poets? When you have owls, painters, cosmonauts, inventors, lovers… [/box]
Chris Marker and company make a beautiful documentary about a beautiful city and its people at a particular time.
The setting is Paris. The time is May 1962. President de Gaulle advocated independence for Algeria. The French overwhelmingly voted for independence and an end to the war in April but feeling still ran high. Progress continued on rehousing Parisians suffering a crunch dating from WWII. Lovers loved, poets wrote, and the average Joe tried to make ends meet while having a good time. All these facets of Parisian life are explored in the film accompanied by striking images of Paris’s grand and not-so-grand locales.
This is very much a film of its time and my appreciation could have been heightened by more of a knowledge of French history. I love Paris and I enjoyed it very much anyway. Recommended.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oev6gGMTF9o
Trailer
