Capital Celluloid 2017 - Day 217: Mon Aug 7

When You Read This Letter  (Melville, 1953): BFI Southbank, NFT1, 6.20pm


This 35mm screening, also being shown on August 14th, is part of the Jean-Pierre Melville season at BFI Southbank. You can find full details here.

Chicago Reader review:
Sex, religion, and blackmail feed the cauldron of this early thriller (1953) from Jean-Pierre Melville, the French cinema’s preeminent misanthrope. A young novitiate (Juliette Greco) is called home to watch over her younger sister (Irene Galter) after their parents are killed in a car accident, and when the sister is raped by a handsome drifter (Philippe Lemaire), the former nun comes after him packing more than a rosary. The atmosphere is so thick with lust and vengeance that any Catholic reading of the story is impossible; here the Church is just another shadowy institution, where people hide from their own evil.
JR Jones


Here (and above) is an extract.

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