Patience

Patience is a virtue, and one of the only virtues I can claim. Years ago, I saw Claire Denis' brilliant film US Go Home during a Film Festival retrospective. As soon as I watched it in the stillness and darkness of the Forum Theatre, I wanted to rewatch it and show it to friends and linger over scenes and sit it on my shelf or post up dumb links to the best bits of it. Co-written by Denis and the French cinema royalty of Anne Wiazemsky*, the film was the first outing for the fictional brother/sister pairing of Alice Houri and Gregoire Colin who Denis then cast again as brother and sister in one of my favourite flicks Nenette et Boni.

But, to this day, it is has not been released on VHS or DVD and both the film, and Tous les garçons et les filles de leur âge, the suite of films that it was commissioned alongside, seem intended only for television broadcast. I wrote to the producers at one point begging for a copy. I wrote to some other chump at the television station. All to no avail. But now, years have passed, and some cheeky little lover has finally posted up one of the best scenes onto youtube. Thankfully, I do a youtube search on US Go Home every few months and finally, yesterday, I got my reward.

When I wrote about my favourite dance scenes many months back, this scene easily counted amongst them, but I have not been able to link to it... Until now. Hold your breath. Wait for it. And dig:

* Here she is with Jean-Pierre Léaud in La Chinoise:

And, again in La Chinoise:


And, of course, in her debut with Bresson: