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The Human Pyramid
(La pyramide humaine)

Introduction by Jean-Michel Frodon
Directed by Jean Rouch.
France/Ivory Coast, 1961, DCP, color, 90 min.
French with English subtitles.
DCP source: Icarus Films

At the initiative of the filmmaker and ethnographer, Black and white students from a high school in Abidjan improvise scenes inspired by their relationships with one another. A review by Éric Rohmer in Cahiers du Cinéma made very clear how this experimentation with the means of cinema to highlight a reality is, above all, a work of great beauty, where beauty is a condition of truth.

PRECEDED BY

  • La mer et les jours

    Directed by Alain Kaminker and Raymond Vogel.
    France, 1958, DCP, black & white, 26 min.
    French with English subtitles.
    DCP source: Cinematheque de Bretagne

Chris Marker wrote the beautiful commentary for this short film—one with an impressive sense of live action and visual poetry—about the lives of Breton sailors and their families. One of the two directors, Alain Kaminker (Simone Signoret's brother) lost his life during the shooting of one of the most impressive scenes in the film.

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