35 Shots of Rum (2008)

“35 Shots of Rum,” a quiet and lovely new film by the French director Claire Denis, is partly concerned with measuring that distance, the bewildering chasm between huge and tumultuous international movements and individual lives. It is self-evident that the story of Joséphine and Lionel, an African immigrant whose wife was German, is bound up in a complicated history of demographics and political economy. The fact that nearly all of the characters in this film are French while few are white is a further index of how the European landscape has changed in recent decades.

excerpt By A. O. SCOTT for NTY
Published: September 16, 2009


Film Forum 209 West Houston Street, New York, NY