alr

A Slightly Pregnant Man
(L’Evénement le plus important depuis que l’homme a marché sur la lune)

Directed by Jacques Demy.
With Catherine Deneuve, Marcello Mastroianni, Micheline Presle.
France/Italy, 1973, DCP, color, 94 min.
French with English subtitles.

Demy’s utopian comedy presents Catherine Deneuve still looking like a fairy tale princess and Marcello Mastrioanni—Italian cinema’s icon of cool masculinity—as her sensitive, slightly pregnant boyfriend. The crayon-colored concoction of absurdity and exaggeration remains tethered to Earth by Demy’s sweetly mundane depiction of their working class lives and the characters’ subdued reactions to the unnatural situation. In Demy’s playful speculation of what could happen in such an upside-down world, basically, everyone handles it fairly well. For better or worse, the surprising phenomenon is immediately incorporated into the wider social schema as well as the capitalist imperative—a maternity clothing company the first to see profit potential. Good natured depictions of men suddenly frantic about birth control, healthcare and the rights of their bodies make way for their understanding women a little bit more while women are amused and enlightened by seeing funny reflections of themselves.

Part of film series

Read more

Once Upon a Song... Jacques Demy

Current and upcoming film series

Read more

Fragments of a Faith Forgotten: The Art of Harry Smith

Read more

The Yugoslav Junction: Film and Internationalism in the SFRY, 1957 – 1988

Read more

From the Jenni Olson Queer Film Collection

Read more
a double-exposed image that includes a 16th century Russian man being fed grapes by another amid decadent decor

Wings of a Serf

Read more
a close-up of a Bissau-Guinean woman wearing a scarf on her head and looking directly at the camera with a slight smile

Le Dépays + Sans soleil

Read more
Peter Sellers wearing a large hat with "ME" embroidered on it, and gripping a Pilgrim-like collar

Carol for Another Christmas

Read more

Satyajit Ray’s Apu Trilogy