Méditerranée

Méditerranée (1963)

Nothing is certain … in this muted evolution.

[Here] Pollet made a work that is the very definition of what French critics like to call an ovni or ufo (as in ‘unidentified filmic object’). [It] has been described as being ‘like a comet in the sky of French cinema,’ an ‘unknown masterpiece,’ and an ‘unprecedented’ work that refuses interpretation even as it has provoked reams of critical writing. Its rhythmic collage of images – a girl on a gurney, a fisherman, Greek ruins, a Sicilian garden, a Spanish corrida – is accompanied by an abstract commentary written by Sollers, and only the somber lyricism of Antoine Duhamel’s score holds the film’s elements together. At first viewing, you fear that [it] might fly apart into incoherent fragments. Instead, over the course of its 45 minutes it invents its own rules, and you realize you’re watching something like the filmic channeling of an ancient ritual.

Date of release
1963-04-23
TMDB
5.8 / 10 (39)
Runtime
44m
Genres
Documentary
Director
Jean-Daniel Pollet

Interesting facts

Méditerranée is a 1963 French experimental film directed by Jean-Daniel Pollet with assistance from Volker Schlöndorff. It was written by Philippe Sollers and produced by Barbet Schroeder, with music by Antoine Duhamel. The 45 minute film is cited as one of Pollet's most influential films, which according to Jonathan Rosenbaum directly influenced Jean-Luc Godard's Contempt, released later the same year. Footage for the film was shot around the Mediterranean, including at a Greek temple, a Sicilian garden, the sea, and also features a fisherman, a bullfighter, and a girl on an operating table.

Read on Wikipedia · Text from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. Data from Wikidata.

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