Restarting at A

The theme of recommencer continues...

A is for ailleurs/elsewhere

"Mon père continue à conduire en regardant droit devant lui, ma mère est déjà ailleurs."

The mot of note from this week's French lesson is ailleurs and is from a children's book that I'm reading peu à peu with my French teacher. When I've finished the book, I'll divulge the the title, author and illustrator.

A is for Antonieta

Qui est-elle? Spanish director Carlos Saura (perhaps best known for his film Carmen, 1983) tells the story of Maria Antonieta Rivas Mercado through a French psychologist who is researching suicides of famous women. Antonieta is the story of a Mexican francophile, intellectual, writer, feminist and arts patron during the time of a bloody Mexican revolution.

Although I saw this film in French with German subtitles and indeed, Antonieta, is played by the French actress Isabelle Adjani and the other main character Anna is a French psychologist (played by German actress and chanson singer, Hanna Schygulla)– research for this post reveals that it is indeed a Spanish film (thanks for the info, IMDb). I cannot imagine Adjani or Schygulla speaking in Spanish, though. And it didn't seem to me that the film was dubbed. So, even though it's been verified by IMDb I wonder on.

For fans of Carlos Saura and this film: a link to an interview in 1982 by Valeria Ciompi

Antonieta, Carlos Saura Between the Past and the Present

(from a book of Interviews with Carlos Saura, edited by Linda M. Willem, 2003)

Le photo: Merci Monsieur Foufou. Rocamadour, France. Mai 2009.