Tonight's Film:
Eden and After (1970)

Series curated by Jake Mikler

"Half a century before Fifty Shades of Grey, Robbe-Grillet choose sadomasochism as his poetic muse and built an entire filmography around it."
— Film Comment

Alain Robbe-Grillet is best well known as a French Novelist affiliated with the nouveau roman (new novel), a group of French writers that also included Michel Butor, Nathalie Sarraute, and Marguerite Duras, who set out to radically alter the conventions of the traditional novel. Robbe-Grillet's first foray into the realm of cinema is probably his most widely known amongst film goers, penning the script for Last Year At Marienbad (1961), directed by Left Bank filmmaker, Alain Resnais. Although this film is widely known, many are unfamiliar with the filmography that would follow.

This series sets out to expose audiences to the criminally overlooked films that Robbe-Grillet would go on to create. These films, like Marienbad and his novels, are a surrealist's dream, in which the apparent contradictions between the real and the imagined, the subjective and the objective, can cease to exist. The films are intricately linked in their diversion from convention, filled with ambiguity, narrative uncertainty, and a healthy dose of sadistic eroticism.

Robbe-Grillet's career in film was prolific, starting in 1963 and ending in 2006, directing nine films in total. This series sets out to track the evolution of Robbe-Grillet's art in cinema, beginning with his first two films which are also his most accessible, L'imortelle (1963) and Trans-Europ-Express (1966) to the more challenging, labyrinthine puzzle film, Eden and After (1970). The series offers a rare opportunity to catch up on a neglected oeuvre, films which have rarely been screened in the States but are as unforgettable as a dream.