Billy Corgan, Aleksandar Hemon And Others Introduce Their Favorite French Movies

By Steven Pate in Arts & Entertainment on Sep 20, 2013 7:25PM

Picking a favorite French movie might be a little like picking a favorite French wine: fraught with neuroses. It's not just the riskiness a choice from a set of candidates with a rich tradition and a reputation for self-regard poses, but with so many candidates from Méliès to Gondry, there are just too many to pick from. The Alliance-Francaise de Chicago enlisted some local heavy hitters to pick theirs for a six-film retrospective this fall, and we have to say the results look delicious. Given that your $8 admission for each screening also gets you a glass of French wine along with the screening, the A-F's series is easy to recommend.

Things get started Wednesday, Sept. 25. Our own favorite Bosnian-American Chicagoan author, Aleksandar Hemon. Fresh off the publication of his nonfiction collection The Book of My Lives earlier this, Hemon year picks an impeccable classic with Jean Renoir's The Rules of the Game. This 1939 film is a charming fable of the collapse of the European aristocracy on the brink of World War II. If this were a wine, we'd have to call it exceedingly smooth even as it ages, showcasing an almost effervescent complexity underneath the surface. Oaky.

Local musician, wrestling promoter and tea shop proprietor Billy Corgan makes the second pick and it happens to be one of our own top movies, French or otherwise, Jean Vigo's L'Atalante. This irresistible love story about two honeymooners cruising the Seine in the most economical way possible, is deceptively simple, but you can come back to it again and again. Decidedly working class, we'd call this an unfailingly drinkable table wine that you hoard and cherish even more than the priciest glass. Crisp.

Rounding out the series is a bit more of a grab-bag, but depending on the accompaniment and mood, may constitute a good value. Chicago-based NBC News corespondent Kevin Tibbles will introduce an interesting film about Quebec's October Crisis, which inspired the Toronto-born reporter to become a journalist. Jazzman, Alexandre Pierrepont picks Buñuel's surrealist classic L’Age d’Or. Finally, the Consul General of France in Chicago, Graham Paul, has a hit romantic comedy, Un Plan Parfait from the top of last year's French Box office returns.

The Alliance Francaise de Chicago is located at 54 W. Chicago Avenue. Registration and more information is available on their website.