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L'immortelle

  • 1963
  • M
  • 1h 41m
IMDb RATING
7.2/10
1.5K
YOUR RATING
L'immortelle (1963)
Watch Bande-annonce [OV]
Play trailer4:52
1 Video
33 Photos
DramaMystery

A sad man meets a beautiful, secretive woman who may or may not be involved in some conspiracy ring dealing in kidnapped women used as prostitutes. After several days of their sadly passiona... Read allA sad man meets a beautiful, secretive woman who may or may not be involved in some conspiracy ring dealing in kidnapped women used as prostitutes. After several days of their sadly passionate relationship she disappears. The sad man is unable to locate her as all the local Turki... Read allA sad man meets a beautiful, secretive woman who may or may not be involved in some conspiracy ring dealing in kidnapped women used as prostitutes. After several days of their sadly passionate relationship she disappears. The sad man is unable to locate her as all the local Turkish people pretend not to remember any such woman. He suddenly finds her again (she finds h... Read all

  • Director
    • Alain Robbe-Grillet
  • Writer
    • Alain Robbe-Grillet
  • Stars
    • Françoise Brion
    • Jacques Doniol-Valcroze
    • Guido Celano
  • See production info at IMDbPro
  • IMDb RATING
    7.2/10
    1.5K
    YOUR RATING
    • Director
      • Alain Robbe-Grillet
    • Writer
      • Alain Robbe-Grillet
    • Stars
      • Françoise Brion
      • Jacques Doniol-Valcroze
      • Guido Celano
    • 17User reviews
    • 17Critic reviews
  • See production info at IMDbPro
    • Awards
      • 1 win & 1 nomination total

    Videos1

    Bande-annonce [OV]
    Trailer 4:52
    Bande-annonce [OV]

    Photos33

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    + 27
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    Top cast15

    Edit
    Françoise Brion
    Françoise Brion
    • L, the Woman
    Jacques Doniol-Valcroze
    Jacques Doniol-Valcroze
    • N, the Man
    Guido Celano
    Guido Celano
    • M, the Stranger
    Catherine Carayon
    Ayfer Feray
    Ayfer Feray
    Nuri Genç
    Nuri Genç
    Belkis Mutlu
    • Servant
    Vahi Öz
    Vahi Öz
    Catherine Robbe-Grillet
    Catherine Robbe-Grillet
    • Catherine
    Sezer Sezin
    Sezer Sezin
    • Turkish Woman
    Osman Türkoglu
    Osman Türkoglu
      Ulvi Uraz
      Ulvi Uraz
      • Antique Dealer
      Osman Alyanak
      Osman Alyanak
      • Police Officer
      • (uncredited)
      Faik Coskun
      Faik Coskun
      • Auto Mechanic
      • (uncredited)
      Asim Nipton
      Asim Nipton
      • Police Chief
      • (uncredited)
      • Director
        • Alain Robbe-Grillet
      • Writer
        • Alain Robbe-Grillet
      • All cast & crew
      • Production, box office & more at IMDbPro

      User reviews17

      7.21.5K
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      Featured reviews

      8AlsExGal

      beautifully filmed and with a non-linear narrative

      A Frenchman, who is a teacher, arrives in Istanbul, and has, or tries to have, a relationship with a mysterious woman in an uncooperative, seemingly threatening, environment.

      The dream-like atmosphere of this film will be immediately familiar to those who have had the pleasure of enjoying Last Year at Marienbad (which was written, but not directed, by Robbe-Grillet); and l'Immortelle feels like a cross between that film and The Color of Pomegranates. The mostly stylized acting is perfectly realized by all concerned, young and old alike; and in short there are no rough seams in the fabric of this film. Maurice Barry is at the camera and provides us with beautiful evocative images of features of Istanbul, such as some of its mosques, the old walls of Constantinople, and the Bosporus waterfront.

      What happens or doesn't happen? We find that facts never quite marshal into realities. Understanding is non-linear. Imagination profanes experience . . . Or is it the other way around? The film is a lyrical opium-dream, evading the rational as it speaks to the subconscious. Highly recommended.
      7Falkner1976

      Brilliant, mysterious, deceitful first film directed by leader of Nouveau roman

      Robbe-Grillet's brilliant first film, just a year after writing the screenplay for Last year in Marienbad (so detailed that it's impossible not to assign autorship of the film as much to him as to Alain Resnais).

      It is interesting to compare the two works, and to note that the narrative and structural innovations of the film directed by Resnais are a constant in Robbe-Grillet's work, both literary and cinematographic. Unfortunately, the stupid author theory has always privileged the director over the screenwriter.

      Resnais certainly endowed Last year in Marienbad with an incredible visual sophistication, an elegance and beauty in the images and an affectation in the interpretations, and it is true that his previous and subsequent work shows an absolute harmony with the material. Also, more importantly, he developed unprecedented abilities in editing. But underneath this cosmetics and this fascinating packaging, the constants of Robbe-Grillet's work underlie.

      L'immortelle is more abrupt, more visually direct, obsessed with space-time raccord discontinuities, but also based on disorientation, on falsehoods, on the reworkings of the mind, on the repetition of the same images with different meanings, on the transforming capacity of the memory. It is, yes, much warmer and more sensual, renouncing the icy formal perfection that results so much in distance in Resnais's work.

      That sensuality, will lead in later works of Robbe-Grillet more and more in an annoying sadomasochistic aberration, and in an undoubted misogyny that reaches the delusional.

      In L'Immortelle, a suspicious and unexpressive protagonist finds himself trapped in a fantasy that involves a woman and a city, both equally mysterious, deceitful and beautiful, in the threatening presence of a controlling corporation made up of neighbors, street vendors, bar customers, fishermen, led by a sinister character with sunglasses and accompanied at all times by a couple of imposing dogs.

      The scenes, as in all of the auteur's films, matter for themselves, for the narrative paths they seem to open, for where they point, rather than as links in a linear story that does not exist. Robbe-Grillet centers them on clichés of the most commercial and serial cinema, flattering the viewer's imagination, as if it were a noir or mistery film, using exotic and fascinating sets ( in this case Istanbul shows all its mystery, its fascination, its decadent charm, its supposedly threatening background, and its most picturesque corners). But time and again Robbe-Grillet ends up disenchanting the viewer, or leaving him in suspense, when everything is shown as a simple decoy, as a false trail that leads nowhere.

      The film could suffer from a story that is too basic and is assumed to be unimportant, a simple starting point for Robbe-Grillet juggling, which can be a bit tiresome in the middle of the film. But Robbe-Grillet knows when to take the puzzle apart to assemble the pieces differently, and thereby regain the attention of the possibly distracted viewer in time.

      Robbe-Grillet would continue down this same path, breaking down soap opera stories into increasingly clever and cerebral games, but also stripping female leads more and more naked, and subjecting them to increasingly unacceptable mistreatment and torture.
      4Bunuel1976

      THE IMMORTAL ONE (Alain Robbe-Grillet, 1963) **

      While the print of this one was more pleasing than the other Robbe-Grillet titles I watched to commemorate his recent passing, the viewing itself was marred by a couple of instances of temporary freezing. The film, then, was perhaps the most pretentious and, well, tedious of the lot – given that there’s hardly any discernible plot!

      Again, we’re thrown into a remote Arabian locale (complete with relentless – and, consequently, extremely irritating – religious chanting) with, at its centre, a glamorous yet vapid femme fatale in Francoise Brion – to whom the title is presumably referring. Frankly, I’m at pains to recall just what went on in the film – even if only a little over 36 hours have elapsed since then…which is never a good thing but, usually, this is a predicament I find myself in after having watched some mindless/low-brow action flick and not a respected art-house one! What’s certain is that, as a film about the search for a missing enigmatic girl, it’s far less compelling and satisfying than Michelangelo Antonioni’s L’AVVENTURA (1960)! Incidentally, the bewildered hero of THE IMMORTAL ONE is played by Jacques Doniol-Valcroze – who happens to be a film-maker in his own right, actually one of the lesser (and, therefore, least-known) exponents of the “Nouvelle Vague”.

      Though I have to admit that – in the long run – I was disappointed by the mini-marathon dedicated to this influential novelist and highbrow film-maker, I’d still be interested in checking out the other efforts he directed (not to mention hope to catch these three again in better representations and, perhaps, a more amenable frame-of-mind). In any case, I still have Alain Resnais’ demanding but highly-acclaimed LAST YEAR IN MARIENBAD (1961) – which Robbe-Grillet wrote, and for which he even garnered an Oscar nomination – to re-acquaint myself with, and that is sure to be an infinitely more rewarding experience...
      6septimus_millenicom

      Francoise Brion is no Delphine Seyrig

      "Immortal" is an odd word for a film which is a chronicle of two characters' deaths foretold. Alain Robbe-Grillet's directorial debut has the circular dream logic and preordained destinies often found in his later films. The heroine (Francoise Brion) may not be physically tied up, unlike actresses in his S&M-heavy later features, but she is just as trapped. The enigmatic, surrealistic, non-linear story-telling remains a breath of fresh air, but the abuse of stereotypes (e.g., exoticizing the Istanbul settings and associating all Turkish men with Ottoman Harems) makes _L'Immortelle_ feel dated.

      _L'Immortelle_ sends me back to _Last Year at Marienbad_. Resnais's 1961 film, with screenplay solely credited to Robbe-Grillet, probably sheds light on what the latter intended in his own directorial work; the differences are telling too.

      I haven't seen _Marienbad_ in decades.

      After this viewing, it strikes me as an author wrestling with a fictional heroine who has a mind of her own. He imposes his words and memory on her, strangles the last drop of autonomy out of his invention, tries to bully her into submission by the sheer force of repetition (although the narrator seems to get confused by his own voice too!). In fact, Robbe-Grillet has published 4 well-regarded, avant garde novels by 1961. In this respect, _L'Immortelle_ is like _Marienbad_. There are numerous other similarities in the acting styles of the supporting characters, the tracking shots, and the editing.

      The main difference is the actress playing the heroine. Robbe-Grillet supposedly didn't like Delphine Seyrig for _Marienbad_; in his own film 2 years later he chose the voluptuous Francoise Brion for her pliant poses. There would be plenty more such vacant female characters in _The Beautiful Prisoner_, _Playing with Fire_, _Gradiva_ ...

      The slim, bird-like Seyrig cannot be more different. With her head tilted, her sharp elbow folded at acute angles, and her even sharper guffaw, she wordlessly creates a counter-narrative. This must be why Resnais picked her. (Seyrig also starred in the almost-as-ambiguous _India Song_. Elizabeth Debicki, who loves to tilt her long frame, may be Seyrig's spiritual descendent.)

      It would be unfair to compare the image quality of _Marienbad_ and _L'Immortelle_, since I streamed the latter off Tubi. No one can match the early Resnais's tracking shots, but _L'Immortelle_ is certainly well framed and thought-provoking.

      Watch it while you still can on Tubitv.
      7athanasiosze

      7.1/10. I liked it but it's not for everyone.

      Alain Robbe-Grillet was the writer of LAST YEAR AT MARIENBAD, this is one of my favorite movies of all time. I must revisit it though, because there have been many years since i watched it. And Time changes everything.

      Robbe- Grillet wrote this movie too. He is the director as well. I liked it but i can understand the reasons why many people won't. It's almost inaccessible. It's too mysterious to call it a mystery movie, i am joking obviously, i just want to emphasize that this is so weird and obscure that i couldn't be sure even if there is a mystery here or a riddle or the creator just plays with viewers' minds. Is there a mystery here to solve or the viewers should just dive in their subconscious, without thinking it too much?

      Is Constantinopole a mythical city here, a place that exists only in dreams because in reality, there are all fake, as the female character keeps repeating? Is it just a scenery for our deepest feelings to rise on the surface? Or a "real" city in which bad things and criminal activities are taking place?

      I liked this movie because it made me contemplate about many things. Françoise Brion is unbelieavably gorgeous. I loved its narrative and the way that certain scenes keep repeating but not exactly the same. It was like a circle, the end is the beginning is the end. Like a cinematic "Ouroboros". Like Nietzsche's Eternal Return.

      I can't rate it higher because it is too cryptic and i am not even sure it is brilliant or the director just being enigmatic for the sake of enigmas. It's more likely this is a STYLE OVER SUBSTANCE movie. Still, if you find it interesting as it was desribed here, watch it.

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        Featured in Fejezetek a film történetéböl: A francia új hullám (1990)

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      FAQ13

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      Details

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      • Release date
        • March 27, 1963 (France)
      • Countries of origin
        • France
        • Italy
      • Languages
        • French
        • Turkish
      • Also known as
        • L'Immortelle
      • Filming locations
        • Istanbul, Turkey
      • Production companies
        • Les Films Tamara
        • Como Films
        • Cocinor
      • See more company credits at IMDbPro

      Tech specs

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      • Runtime
        • 1h 41m(101 min)
      • Color
        • Black and White
      • Sound mix
        • Mono

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