- Wild Grass
Wherever he is, I hope Alain Resnais is eating Cat Munchies right now—what a wonderful case that would be of afterlife imitating art. The last scene of Resnais’s Wild Grass (2009) is one of the most heroic movie moments I know, wherein the last authentic French surrealist (then 88 years old) resolves to go on fighting to the very end. If you haven’t seen the movie—or if you haven’t seen it on a big screen—do whatever you can to catch it at Doc Films this Thursday at 7 PM, where it’s being shown from 35-millimeter. (Incidentally this is a great week for Resnais on celluloid—on Friday night at 6 PM the new print of Je T’aime, Je T’aime screens at the Siskel Center.) You should also skip the next paragraph of this post.
Bréton’s experiments in automatic writing were shaped by a rigid set of rules that placed the writer at the mercy of his subconscious. These experiments celebrated the aspects of human existence that could not be subjugated to reason—romantic love being crucial among them. A surrealist romance in the tradition of Bréton’s novel Nadja, Wild Grass exults romance as a force so powerfully irrational it continues to move us even after we’re dead.
