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Life Is a Very Strange Thing
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Filmmaker Name:
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Les McLaren, Annie Stiven
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Film Length:
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78 min
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Film Year:
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2018
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Duration:
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76-90 min
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Decade:
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2010s
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Language:
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in English, French
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Subtitle Language:
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English subtitles
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Color:
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color
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Closed-captioned:
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closed-captioned
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Region:
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Europe
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Subject:
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Identity Studies
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[ <script/style> code inserted at beginning of text ]
Life Is A Very Strange Thing is an intriguing mosaic of post-colonial France revealed through four generations of a remarkable French family.
Australian filmmakers Les McLaren and Annie Stiven last saw Frédéric Duvelle in the 1970s when he was a rebellious teenager recording traditional music in remote villages of Papua New Guinea. Forty years later, a chance reunion became an opportunity to fill in missing decades and to discover his remarkable family history, from his Governor grandfather in colonial Indochina to the populist politics and terror attacks of contemporary France.
We meet Frédéric's parents: mother Elisabeth, a politically engaged textile artist who raised Fred and his two sisters in a working-class suburb of Paris; and composer father Charles who grew up in Laos and Cambodia, and became celebrated for his pioneering recordings of traditional music in Africa.
Frédéric's recounts his own unlikely journey from school dropout, to ethnomusicologist then executive of a multinational garbage enterprise. He is a wily raconteur and avid collector of brocante. Shadowed by his endearing ancient dog Punch, encounters with friends in Paris and Bordeaux unfold rich layers of French culture and identity: an enigmatic African artist discusses Cubism; a cameo family lunch with a menu of oysters, history and politics; a 93-year-old WW2 Resistance veteran who forgives; and an irascible brocanteur who can't forget.
The youngest generation confront issues at the heart of cosmopolitan France: Frédéric's niece is an activist with FEMEN who protest against conservative values as the populist right-wing National Front is on the rise, and his daughter has a near encounter on the night of the Bataclan terror attack.
Life Is A Very Strange Thing is part road movie, part meditation. Its unique mix – of observation, archive footage from PNG
and Indochina, indigenous music and rich sound design – evokes a lyrical
and compelling portrait of family, place, politics, and memory.
“The film crackles with energy, fueled by Duvelle’s irresistible charm and intelligence; as a character, he’s every director’s dream: irascible and an oddball; cuddly, endearing and benevolent. A complex man encapsulated in a film that’s impressive in scope yet full of heart as an intimate study of a storied, colourful individual.” – John Catania, Metro Magazine
“An unusually nuanced, subtle, and insightful foray into the cultural
politics of contemporary France.” – Steven Feld, School for Advanced
Research, Santa Fe
“I haven't seen such a brilliantly crafted film for a long time. The film shows us that the story of France is not only local but includes the stories of travellers throughout the colonial and post-colonial world. Yet at the same time it carries us into the life of metropolitan France today with an intimacy that is thoroughly enjoyable.” – David MacDougall, Filmmaker & Film Scholar, Austrailian National University
SELECTED SCREENINGS
Cinematographiques de Cannes, France, 2018
Rencontres - cinema des Antipodes, St Tropez, 2018 Brisbane International Film Festival, Australia, 2017 Antenna Documentary Festival, Sydney, Australia, 2017
Life Is A Very Strange Thing
Written, Directed, Produced
Les McLaren & Annie Stiven
Associate Producers
Oscar McLaren
Celine Rouzet
Camera, Sound, Editing
Les McLaren
Archive Camera, Sound - Papua New Guinea
Steve McMillan
Les McLaren
Frederic Duvelle
Music
APRA AMCOS
Institute of PNG Studies
C. Duvelle Field Recordings
Vingan Pty Ltd
Piano Improvisation by Veronique Duvelle
Nalésonko by Ballaké Sissoko
'Gale' by Olivier Ker Ourio & Danyel Waro ℗ Label Cobalt
Photographs, Images
Duvelle Family Collection
C. Duvelle Field Photographs
Hisham Mayet Collection
Archives municipal d'Ivry-Sur Seine
Editions A. Leconte
Jean Hermann
Paintings by Mathias Kauage
Vingan Pty Ltd
Archive Video
Duvelle Family Collection
Ina, France
iTélé-Canal+
Antydote-Mondomix
NASA | O.Khazal
Vingan Pty Ltd
Stock Media
Pond5/av geeks
Sweet TV
P. Adams Photography
dubassy
Plotzki
Translation
Frederic Duvelle
Kim Doan Gerrand
Silvia Martínez Jimeno
William Martin
Aldous Scales
Justine Verreydt
Image Grade, Animation
Roen Davis
Sound Mix
Julian Ellingworth
Film Restoration
Ray Argall
Legal Services
Gai Steele
Special Thanks to
Frédéric & the Duvelle family
Nathalie Berron
Kate Gauld
James Gerrand
Colleen Moore
Magie Family
William Martin
Andrew Pike
Tom Zubrycki
Thanks to
Screen Australia
Liz Stevens
Alyssa Orvis
Thanks also to
Yves Dupouy
Gary Kildea
Haydn Keenan
Tricia Kirby
Don Niles
Clare Norton
Hisham Mayet
Chris Owen
Mark Ragg
Fiona Strain
Leo Sullivan
Yasmin Tadich
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