Claude d'Anna
2021
Verdi Macbeth Chailly
Claude d'Anna
Leo Nucci, Shirley Verrett
Claude D'Anna's film of Verdi's Macbeth is a gloomy affair, stressing the descent into madness of the principal villains. It's acted by the singers of the Decca recording of the opera (with two substitutions of actors standing in for singers) and the lip-synching is generally unobtrusive. The musical performance is superb, conducted by Riccardo Chailly with admirable fire, and sung by some of the leading lights of the opera stages of the 1980s. Shirley Verrett virtually owned the role of Lady Macbeth at the time, and she delivers a terrific performance, the voice equal to the role's wide register leaps and it's suffused with emotion, whether urging her husband on to murder or maddened by guilt in the Sleepwalking Scene. Leo Nucci's resonant Macbeth may lack the ultimate in vocal color and steadiness (his last notes of the great aria Pietà, rispetto, amore are wobbly) but he compensates with intensity in both singing and acting.
Verdi Macbeth Chailly
Macbeth
Claude d'Anna
This production of Giuseppi Verdi's opera based on Macbeth, the famed play by William Shakespeare, is a musical succès d'estime but falls short in the cinematic arena. Shirley Verrett stars as the murderous and ambitious Lady Macbeth, Leo Nucci co-stars as her similarly ambitious but slightly more scrupulous husband, who has the good grace to feel some horror at his deeds before he does them. The entire opera was filmed inside a Belgian castle, and some of the smaller parts are obviously lip-synched to pre-recorded music.
Macbeth
Trompe l'oeil
Claude d'Anna
Max von Sydow, Laure Dechasnel
Anne lives with her husband in Belgium where she works as a restorer of paintings. When she becomes pregnant, she finds herself remembering a picture she did some time ago and of which she has no memory, no recollection of what happened to it. It becomes her goal to discover and clarify the mystery behind this painting, at the same time she notices that a strange man is following all of her moves.
The Broken Mirror
Salomé
Claude d'Anna
Jo Champa, Tomás Milián
John the Baptist, the prophet of Israel, is imprisoned by Herod, governor of Judea for protesting Herod's marriage to his brother's wife. Jealousies rage and Herod's step-daughter and niece Salome seduces Herod by means of a torrid dance to give her the head of the prophet - but then tries to save the life of the man she has thus condemned. Updated to a WWII setting
Salomé
Retrouver Sara
Claude d'Anna
Laura Conejero, Montse Guallar
Armelle, a French nurse who just recovered from the stab in the face she got from Nadim, his partner, starts a search to get back her daughter, who was taken away by Nadim. Alone before the law, she will do all she can to reach her objective. She puts up posters, founds an association, gets funds to pay for the search, and informs the media about it. An amazing human team gets down to work from France to Montreal, including Paris and Vancouver, until Armelle can hug her daughter again in an airport in the east of Canada, almost three years after she had lost her.
Retrouver Sara
Daisy et Mona
Claude d'Anna
Marina Golovine, Dyna Gauzy
The difficult reunion between a tough young mother and her neglected daughter provide impetus this gritty, but upbeat French drama. Daisy, a typical young woman of the X-generation, seems to have no ambition in her life; she lives for the moment and the moment is often self-destructive. Abused as a child, she affects toughness and bravado to disguise her inner fears. Mona, Daisy's seven-year old daughter, is the result of the sexual abuse Daisy suffered while she was a child. Mona was raised by her father, but after he went to prison and his girlfriend rejected her, Mona must return to her mother. The reunion is not joyful and the two must lower plenty of mutual barriers if they are to bond. When Mona's lover Sami is arrested for a shooting, Daisy and Mona go on the lam. To survive they become con-artists and petty thieves. Just as things start to improve, finds out that her new boss has been having her deliver kiddie-porn.
Daisy and Mona
La mort trouble
Claude d'Anna, Férid Boughedir
Aly Ben Ayed, Ursule Pauly
Three sisters visiting their uncle in his island home, find themselves alone with the late uncle's manservant. Their relations reveal a dark side in all of them, and gender, racial, and class tensions that lead to situations of humiliation, domination and sex, and death.
La mort trouble
État de manque
Claude d'Anna
Bruno Salomone, Eva Mazauric
Three collegues decide to go for a break to a sea spa hotel because they are overwhelmed with stress at work. There, they come to the realization that all their problems actually stem from one man. This man, who is making a fool of them works in the same company.. Now it's time for revenge!
Foursome
