Strass Café
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1980 (experimental, 62 minutes, black and white, French)
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Film Description [in French] :
"Film poétique évoquant l'aventure d'une chanteuse solitaire et de l'artiste qu'elle avait peut-être aimé avant de partir un jour pour toujours sans laisser de traces autres que des souvenirs."
-- Michel Jacques
(source)
Film Description:
"Shot in black and white, the film deals with urban alienation as it shows images of the cool Montreal cityscape set to a soundtrack of fragmented spoken word. Through these impressionist visuals, Pool tells the story of two people looking for love—but they never meet."
-- Katerine Monk
(source)
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| Film Credits (partial): |
| Written by: |
Léa Pool, Luc Caron |
| Produced by: |
Léa Pool |
| Principal Cast: |
Céline Lacoste, Luc Caron |
| Narrator: |
Léa Pool, Antoinette Ammann |
| Cinematography: |
François Bouchard |
| Film Editing: |
Léa Pool |
| Music: |
Philippe Chevalier |
| Production Company: |
Les Productions Strass Enr. |
(sources)
Notes about Strass Café
(sources)
Quotes about Strass Café
"[Léa Pool's] first feature, Strass Café, is the most abstract and experimental, with much tracking through deserted city streets, past walls and railway lines, and a female voice-over articulating themes of memory and loss, the possible story of a relationship between a nameless man and woman."
-- Bill Marshall
(source)
"In many respects, Strass Café resembles the works of
Marguerite Duras: an insistent music that returns as a strange leitmotif, the
same slow editing, the same tendency in the immobility of shots and
sometimes the mobility of the camera, the same monochromatic tone of
the narrators and, finally, the same stigmatized narrative-representative
spaces between image and sound."
-- Lucie Roy
(source)
Quote about Strass Café [in French]
"La voix de Léa Pool se fait entendre pour la première fois en 1980, par le biais de Strass Café, un premier long métrage dont le style évoque celui de Marguerite Duras. Tourné de façon indépendante, ce film produit l'effet d'une bombe auprès de plusieurs cinéastes en devenir, qui y trouvent une esthétique et un ton nouveaux dans le cinéma québécois."
-- Marcel Jean
(source)
Bibliography for Strass Café
Book Chapters
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Roy, Lucie. "Deviated Narrative in the Early Films of Léa Pool."
In Essays on Quebec Cinema, edited by Joseph I. Donohoe, 91-102. East Lansing: Michigan State University Press, 1991.
Journal Articles
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Turcotte, Diane. "Pragmatique et esthétique du film de
mémoire : l'example de 'Strass Café'." Cinémas 6, no. 2-3 (Spring 1996): 199-214.
[in French]
Articles from Newspapers, Magazines, or News Websites
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Bonneville, Léo. "Entretien avec Léa Pool." Interview with Léa Pool. Séquences, January 1985.
[in French]
