Le Joli Mai The Lovely Month of May 10/26 Blu-ray (Rental)
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Chris Marker and Pierre Lhomme's portrait of Paris and its people, filmed during May 1962 - the first spring since 1939 that France was not at war, just after the ceasefire that ended the Algerian War. In Part I, 'A Prayer from the Eiffel Tower,' Parisians talk about their everyday attitudes and feelings: a salesman who feels free only behind the wheel, a working-class mother of eight finally moving to a bigger apartment, schoolchildren examining John Glenn's space capsule, investors, young lovers, and the guests at a wedding banquet. Part II, 'The Return of Fantomas,' turns to the city's political and social life, alternating public events such as a funeral for demonstrators killed in street protests with private conversations - schoolgirls on the state of France, engineers on the coming technological revolution, an African student on the racism he faces, a worker-priest torn between the Church and his fellow workers, and an Algerian worker on his conflicts with native Frenchmen. It closes with sweeping views of Paris, the walls of its prisons, and the faces of a city making sense of its moment in history.