Eclipse Series 02: The Documentaries of Louis Malle (1962-1986)

Over the course of a nearly forty-year career, Louis Malle forged a reputation as one of the world’s most versatile cinematic storytellers, with such widely acclaimed, and wide-ranging, masterpieces as Elevator to the Gallows, My Dinner with Andre, and Au revoir les enfants. At the same time, however, with less fanfare, Malle was creating a parallel, even more personal body of work as a documentary filmmaker. With the discerning eye of a true artist and the investigatory skills of a great journalist, Malle takes us from a street corner in Paris to America’s heartland to the expanses of India in his astonishing epic Phantom India. These are some of the most engaging and fascinating nonfiction films ever made.







An energetic evocation of the Tour de France, a meditative investigation of the inner workings of a French automotive plant, and an entertaining snapshot of the comings and goings on one street corner in Paris – Louis Malle’s three French-set documentaries reveal, in an eclectic array of ways, the director’s eternal fascination with, and respect for, the everyday lives of everyday people.

Vive le tour -> IMDB
Humain, trop humain -> IMDB
Place de la République -> IMDB









Louis Malle called his gorgeous and groundbreaking Phantom India the most personal film of his career. And this extraordinary journey to India, originally shown as a miniseries on European television, is infused with his sense of discovery, as well as occasional outrage, intrigue, and joy.











When he was cutting Phantom India, Malle found that the footage shot in Calcutta was so diverse, intense, and unforgettable that it deserved its own film. The result, released theatrically, is at times shocking – a chaotic portrait of a city engulfed in social and political turmoil, edging ever closer to oblivion.











Over the course of a nearly forty-year career, Louis Malle forged a In 1979, Louis Malle traveled into the heart of Minnesota to capture the everyday lives of the men and women in a prosperous farming community. Six years later, during Ronald Reagan’s second term, he returned to find drastic economic decline. Free of stereotypes about America’s “heartland,” God’s Country, commissioned for American public television, is a stunning work of emotional and political clarity.











In 1986, Louis Malle set out to investigate the ever-widening range of immigrant experience in America. Interviewing a variety of newcomers in middle- and working-class communities from coast to coast, Malle paints a generous, humane portrait of their individual struggles.

The Documentaries of Louis Malle – Eclipse Series 2 brings together an incredible run of movies that show the famous director traveling the world, letting his camera lead him and the people he met dictate the stories he would tell. Whether he was following bicyclists over the mountains of France, watching Hindu rituals in India, or talking to struggling farmers in rural America, Malle always leant his subject a sympathetic ear and viewed them with both eyes open. His style only gets more assured over these seven films, and there's not a stinker in the bunch. For the second in their new subdivision, Criterion nails it again. Highly Recommended.

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