Marion Hänsel | WatchedThis
Marion Hänsel
Directing
Biography
Marion Hänsel (née Ackermann; 12 February 1949 - 8 June 2020) was a French-born Belgian film director, producer, actress and screenwriter.
Filmography Movies
Acting
Palaver
"Palaver" tells us the day of three Congolese students (Albert, Victor and Marcel) who visit Bruges for a tour of the city, and end up on the beaches of Ostend. During their trip, they cross a beautiful blond on the arm of an equally superb African.
¡Ay, Carmen!
The personal and professional story, told in first person, of Spanish actress Carmen Maura, director Pedro Almodóvar's first muse and a brilliant artist in her own right.
Berthe
Berthe, a pretty young woman, has suffered from a mental disease since she was a child. A doctor has tried for years to understand her behavior and to teach her some basic notions such as those of time and emotional expression. But he also tends to use her as a guinea-pig and does not oppose her parents when they decide to marry her as a way to solve her problems. Unfortunately the cure proves worse than the disease as Berthe's husband, who soon tires of her, abandons her and leaves her more helpless than ever... —Guy Bellinger
Par-delà les nuages – Le cinéma de Marion Hänsel
On the basis of conversations with Hänsel and some of her permanent crew members, a remarkable portrait is created of a filmmaker who is also her own producer, i.e. boss. The relationship between characters and their natural environment plays a major role in her work that is often based on novels.
One Sings, the Other Doesn't
The intertwined lives of two women in 1970s France, set against the progress of the women's movement in which Agnes Varda was involved. Pomme and Suzanne meet when Pomme helps Suzanne obtain an abortion after a third pregnancy which she cannot afford. They lose contact but meet again ten years later. Pomme has become an unconventional singer, Suzanne a serious community worker - despite the contrast they remain friends and share in the various dramas of each others' lives, in the process affirming their different female identities.
There Was a Little Ship
A woman, hospitalized for a relatively long period, observes what surrounds her. She has time to dream, to revisit certain moments of her life. These memories, like small bubbles begin with her birth in Marseille in 1949 and bring us to Antwerp, Paris, New York, England… to end in Flanders in 2015, after she gets out of the hospital. There Was A Little Ship is a filmic-biographical essay, sincere and poetic.
Mauvaises réponses
Marion Hänsel was cast for this story of a man's job interview for an important position in a company that doesn't go the way he expected.
Le Lit
Martin, a sculptor, is dying in his bed on a barge that floats along a fog-shrouded waterway. As he agonizingly descends into a final oblivion, his second wife is at his bedside, comforted by his first wife -- also present.
Pol. Bru.
Production
Sounds of Sand
On the one hand, there’s the desert eating away at the land. The endless dry season, the lack of water. On the other there’s the threat of war. The village well has run dry. The livestock is dying. Trusting their instinct, most of the villagers leave and head south. Rahne, the only literate one, decides to head east with his three children and Mouna, his wife. A few sheep, some goats, and Chamelle, a dromedary, are their only riches. A tale of exodus, quest, hope and fatality.
Sounds of Sand
On the one hand, there’s the desert eating away at the land. The endless dry season, the lack of water. On the other there’s the threat of war. The village well has run dry. The livestock is dying. Trusting their instinct, most of the villagers leave and head south. Rahne, the only literate one, decides to head east with his three children and Mouna, his wife. A few sheep, some goats, and Chamelle, a dromedary, are their only riches. A tale of exodus, quest, hope and fatality.
Black Ocean
Though its aftertitles detailing the history of French nuke experiments suggest otherwise, writer/director Marion Hänsel’s Black Ocean is not a political treatise or a history lesson, instead taking advantage of the remote, isolated environments in which the experimentation took place – as well as the monumental imagery of the act itself – in order to communicate a more universal story about the power of awe. Ocean principally follows three young sailors on a French naval vessel in 1972, who are on course for an unknown destination in order to help carry out the bomb tests they’ve yet to personally witness. The film is essentially divided into two parts: before and after the blast.
Black Ocean
Though its aftertitles detailing the history of French nuke experiments suggest otherwise, writer/director Marion Hänsel’s Black Ocean is not a political treatise or a history lesson, instead taking advantage of the remote, isolated environments in which the experimentation took place – as well as the monumental imagery of the act itself – in order to communicate a more universal story about the power of awe. Ocean principally follows three young sailors on a French naval vessel in 1972, who are on course for an unknown destination in order to help carry out the bomb tests they’ve yet to personally witness. The film is essentially divided into two parts: before and after the blast.
Dust
A South African spinster murders her father after he rapes the wife of the black foreman for his plantation.
Dust
A South African spinster murders her father after he rapes the wife of the black foreman for his plantation.
Clouds: Letters to My Son
Marion Hänsel directed this personal meditation on the joys and responsibilities of parenthood, in which a narrator reads Hansel's philosophic musings on raising her young son on her own, while carefully shot and selected footage of different cloud formations from around the world provide a striking visual backdrop. Catherine Deneuve read Hänsel's text in the original French-language version of Nuages; Charlotte Rampling did the honors for the English-language print, while Barbara Auer, Carmen Maura, and Antje De Boeck respectively lent their voices to the German, Spanish, and Dutch editions of the film.
The Quarry
This thriller investigates the mysterious assassination of a gay pastor in rural South Africa. Without witnesses or explanations, the crime appears to the police and others as a jigsaw puzzle without enough pieces. The police then suspect and arrest people based on the usual prejudices, black and coloured people who plant marijuana in this case. Meanwhile, the true assassin not only goes his way unpunished from the very beginning, but becomes one of the rural town's most respected citizens. The sheriff at one point does begin having certain suspicions, and from there on the bulk of the plot is played out. The location is a very arid part of South Africa, so with so much desert rock, there are bound to be quarries. Some may reveal important secrets.
The Cruel Embrace
Ludovic is the son of Nicole, a single mother who married Micho, a man older than her. He agreed to adopt her son. Ludo is the scapegoat of Tatave, first son of Micho and the favoured victim of his teacher. Communication between Ludo and his mother is non-existent. While her own health is deteriorating, she eventually entrusts him to an asylum.
The Cruel Embrace
Ludovic is the son of Nicole, a single mother who married Micho, a man older than her. He agreed to adopt her son. Ludo is the scapegoat of Tatave, first son of Micho and the favoured victim of his teacher. Communication between Ludo and his mother is non-existent. While her own health is deteriorating, she eventually entrusts him to an asylum.