Robert Guediguian

“Robert Guédiguian is well-known for his idiosyncratic slices of life set
in his beloved Marseille, in films such as Marius et Jeannette (1997)
and À la place du coeur (1998). Whilst most of Guédiguian’s films are set in this historic
French port they span a remarkable range of genres and encompass a
dizzying assortment of themes, including noir-style thriller intrigue,
classic romance and pressing social issues. Ki lo sa?, Guédiguian’s
third feature, is one of his more unusual films in this series, a
surprisingly dark and mystical work which explores various
existentialist concerns through the interlocking prisms of black comedy
and social realism. Read More »

Barsam, Anna’s father, is seriously ill. Before he dies, he would like to bequeath something to his daughter: a sense of doubt. As he flees to Armenia, he leaves several clues in his wake so that Anna can come after him. For Anna, this journey she is obliged to make in an unknown country, becomes what her father wanted it to be: an initiation, a sentimental journey, a second adolescence. She finds him in a little village, lost in the Caucasian mountains, seated dreaming under a blossoming apricot tree. She will come to doubt her identity, her relationships and her commitments. Read More »

From Stephen Holden review in NYT: “In his unsettling urban panorama, “The Town Is Quiet,” the director Robert Guédiguian invests the French port city of Marseille with the same epic sense of drama that infused Robert Altman’s “Nashville.” Raw, wrenching and more starkly tragic than Mr. Altman’s satire, “The Town Is Quiet” evokes a similar vision of a city as a teeming organism in violent, spasmodic flux.
Like “Nashville,” the film is a sprawling mosaic of interlocking stories whose characters run the social gamut, from right-wing upper- class politicians to young North African immigrants to blue-collar dock workers. As much as the director grasps the anxieties of the city’s well-heeled establishment, his sympathies lie with the sufferings of its underdogs, the struggles of its working class and the dreams of newcomers pouring into the city through its teeming harbor. If his identification with the common people recalls Frank Capra, the go-for-broke passion with which he expresses that vision is closer to Pier Paolo Pasolini.” Read More »