Nénette et Boni

Director: Claire Denis, Claire Denis, Claire Denis, Claire Denis, Claire Denis

1996 / 103min / 35mm

Alice Houri and Grégoire Colin’s characters, an estranged sister and brother from a broken home, provide the title of Denis’s exceptionally tender, radiantly lit drama: 15 and pregnant, Nénette shows up on the doorstep of her brother, a terminally horny 19-year-old line cook at a Marseilles pizzeria, and after initial misgivings, the siblings tentatively begin to form a family. Frequent Denis collaborators Tindersticks contribute a fine score, though the musical highlight is her use of the Beach Boys’ “God Only Knows.” “For Nénette et Boni, we (Godard and Denis) knew that we wanted the opposite of the film I did before (I Can’t Sleep, 1994). We wanted to work with long lenses and do mostly close ups, to be extremely close.”—Claire Denis

35mm collection print courtesy of the UCLA Film & Television Archive

Intro and Q&A with Agnès Godard on Sunday, April 2nd at 5:45pm