Barrie Pattison whirls through Paris

Supercinephile Barrie Pattison is on his way to the Pordenone Silent Film Festival. There may be more reports.

The problem with DVDs here in Paris is where to stop. I collected a thirties Stavisky scandal movie I didn't know about and a nice copy of THE IRON MISTRESS (Gordon Douglas, USA, 1952). I left STARS IN MY CROWN (Jacques Tourneur, USA, 1950) behind as it' been on local TV.

The delights of the trip are undermined by the prospect of ruination by the Australian dollar's collapse.

Benoit Poelvoorde (left) in Le Tout Nouveau Testament

New French movies are a mixed batch with the Benoit Poelvoorde Le Tout Nouveau Testament at the top of the scale. Benoit is a cranky old God (capital G) living in Brussels and tyranising his wife and child by confining the TV watching to the sports channel.

Jesus is a one foot devotional statue who animates to give his sister advice. She revolts, steals the key to Benoit's computer and sends everyone in the world a text message giving them the date of their death before escaping through linked washing machines. When Benoit follows indignantly he arrives during a wash cycle and the alarmed house wife maces him.  Unlikely likely to get English language showing.

The Michel Gondry Microbe et Gasoline  is a fun departure with the kids taking their home built car on the road disguised as a timber shack; The Arnaud Despechin Trois Souvenirs de Ma Jeunesse/My Golden Days with Mathieu Amalric (himself currently getting a Cinematheque retro) remembering his youth is also substantial; Yves Angelo's new Sylvie Testud movie Notre Fils takes a while to assert. The latest version of  The Lady in the Car with the Glasses and the Gun (Joann Sfar, France/Belgium, 2015) (As well as the Anatole Litvak film made in France in 1970, there is a Baltic version) is mainly a voyeurist exercise with the lead, Freya Mavor, in various stages of undress though the Japrisot plot occasionally asserts.

More to come.