As part of the retrospective “William Klein: Films, etc.,” this screening invites you to discover the film “Mode In France.”
The film will be preceded by a selection of 17 commercials directed by William Klein for various advertisers, including Dim, Yves Saint-Laurent, Le Bourget, Lux, Fabergé, Kelton, Renault, la Pie qui Chante… Klein made a great many commercials, which enabled him to finance his own projects. Mode In France, 80 minutes, 1985. Directed by William Klein. Based on an idea by Teri Wehn Damisch. Almost 20 years after making Qui êtes-vous Polly Maggoo?, William Klein once again films the world of fashion, which he readily mocks but which nonetheless fascinates him. Mode In France, commissioned by the Ministry of Culture, was intended to be a promotional film about fashion and emerging designers in France. In the end, Klein delivered an anti-documentary, a carnival of everything experimental and offbeat about 1980s fashion. Klein films, in his own way, a world at the crossroads of fashion figures, contemporary art, Parisian nightlife, and the “Palace” years: ironic, deconstructed, and hard-hitting. “A film about FASHION, about IN, in FRANCE. But above all it is a film, even twelve films, ranging from slapstick to crime thriller, from comedy to ballet, from video to collage. Grace Jones leaves James Bond for Alaïa and Marivaux. Four-year-old children prove that clothes make the person. Nous Deux turns psychodramatic: models, lying across a double-page spread in a horizontal confessional, pour their hearts out. In a Hard Mode Shop, obsessives ‘voyeurize’ in the fitting rooms, Live and other peep shows. Three Mack Sennett covergirls race through 20th-century fashion in acrobatic fast-forward. Teenagers run through the full scale of possible looks. Sapho becomes a singing cashier; Tcheky Karyo, a police commissioner, is seized by the fox-trot. For Castelbajac, Arielle Dombasle plays the revue leader, Voulzy and Voulzettes models sing, Ben and Di Rosa paint dresses live. A magician puts a society evening in his pocket. Jean-Paul Gaultier dresses an entire Paris neighborhood, butchers, housewives, and pickpockets. Etc. Etc.” William Klein
Price: From 0 to 14 euros.
Source: paris.fr — photo: © Poster for the film “Mode in France”