Brief Crossing ( Brève traversée )

Brief Crossing (DVD) (*)

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Original Title: Brève traversée
Screened, competed or awarded at:
Venice Film Festival
Other Film Festival Awards

Language Selections:
English ( Dolby Digital 2.0 )
English ( Subtitles )
French ( Dolby Digital 2.0 )

Product Origin/Format:
United Kingdom ( PAL/Region 2 )

Running Time:
81 min

Aspect Ratio:
Anamorphic Widescreen (1.78:1)

Special Features:
Anamorphic Widescreen
Interactive Menu
Scene Access

Movie filmed in 2001 and produced in:
France ( France, Benelux )

Directed By:
Catherine Breillat

Written By:
Catherine Breillat

Actors:
Sarah Pratt ..... Alice
Gilles Guillain ..... Thomas
Marc Filipi ..... Magicien
Laëtitia Lopez ..... Assistante magicien
Marc Jablonski ..... Cuisinier du self
Christelle Dacosta ..... Douanier Français
Nicholas Hawtrey ..... Vieil anglais
Franck Lemaitre ..... Serveur de la boite
Philippe Quaisse ..... Photographe
Jean-Claude Cavelier ..... Serveur de la boite
Alexandre Le Balidec ..... Douanier Français

Synopsis:

Thomas (Gilles Guillain), a good-looking, 16-year-old French boy, races to catch a ferry from La Havre to Portsmouth. The clerk allows him on, despite the fact that his papers are in disarray. In the ship's cafeteria he meets Alice (Sarah Pratt), a much older British woman. Speaking English, she invites him to sit with her in the crowded dining room, and asks his name. He tells her, then eats silently. She seems to study him intently. "Mine's Alice, if you're interested," she says after a few uncomfortable moments. He's embarrassed, but still says little. She stares at him, and eventually, he returns her stare. Then, he lights a cigarette. "I should quit," he says. As he struggles with his English, explaining why he smokes, she tells him she speaks French, and the conversation becomes a bit easier. A sexual attraction is clearly building between them as he asks her to the bar for a drink. Eventually, Thomas learns more about Alice. She's recently separated from her husband, she explains. She seems depressed. "Life is interminable and boring, but it goes by fast," she warns him. He suggests they take advantage of their night on the ship to engage in a little bit of romance. She scoffs at the young people on the dance floor and he distances himself from them. They watch a magician perform his cheesy act. She complains at length about the way men treat women, but maybe Thomas is different? Brief Crossing, written and directed by Catherine Breillat (Romance), was produced as part of a series of ten French films under the heading, "Masculin/Feminin." The film was shown at Lincoln Center in New York as part of their 2003 Film Comment Selects series.

Desire for a subject that functions like a brief fling with no future as such, yet embellished by that very fact. Because something fleeting and futureless is not necessarrily pathetic or trivial. A brief crossing, perhaps an initiatory trip. Filming a guy's 'first time', filming him like a girl. Gut level skin deep... Nostalgia for vast ocean liners, for places 'beyond the law' where you can venture outside of life, safe within an interlude. Describing a passion while respecting classical tragedy's unity of time and place, setting the stage for the eternal play of Masculine/Feminine. A hot-blooded Latin temperatment versus an apparently cool English one. A ship - one night - Sudden intimacy between an Englishwoman whose complexion is frosted by bitterness and a teenager whose gaze glows like ardent coals.

Thomas, a French adolescent, meets Alice, an English woman in her thirties. The sea crossing encourages the woman to strike up a conversation, and then to enter into the game of seduction. Thomas lets himself be guided by her.

This product was added to our catalog on Friday 12 February, 2010.

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