La maison Nucingen (2008)

Director:

Raoul Ruiz

Writers:

Raoul Ruiz (scenario), Honoré de Balzac (based on a story)

Stars:

Elsa Zylberstein, Jean-Marc Barr, Laurent Malet

Cast

Cast overview:
Elsa Zylberstein	...	Anne-Marie
Jean-Marc Barr	...	William Henry James III
Laurent Malet	...	Bastien
Audrey Marnay	...	Léonore
Laure de Clermont-Tonnerre	...	Lotte (as Laure de Clermont)
Thomas Durand	...	Dieter
Miriam Heard	...	Ully
Luis Mora	...	El doctor
Anna Sigalevitch	...	(voice)
Lolita Chammah	...	(voice)
Olivier Torres	...	(voice)
François Margolin	...	(voice)

Storyline

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Plot Keywords:

old dark house | poe | reference to edgar allan poe | b movie | fever dream | 

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Genres:

Horror

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Details

Country:

Romania France Chile

Language:

French

Release Date:

3 June 2009 (France)

Also Known As:

Miss Christina

Filming Locations:

Chile

Company Credits

Production Co:

Margo Films, MACT Productions, Centre National de la Cinématographie (CNC)

Technical Specs

Runtime:

94 min 87 min 94 min 94 min (Buenos Aires Festival Internacional de Cine Independiente)

Color:

Color

Did You Know?

Trivia

During prep, cast and crew were asked to watch Dreyer's Vampyr - Der Traum des Allan Grey (1932), Ulmer's The Black Cat (1934) and Tourneur's I Walked With a Zombie (1943).

User Reviews

"When the legend becomes fact, print the legend ."...

...or so-in French translation- said the father of William James III (no relation), says William, alias Pee Wee Crane, pulp novelist, who sitting in a restaurant hears invisible diners (mis)tell his own story. Most of the film is a flashback- the others' version, William's version, a mixture of both?- we can't know.

William has broken his promise to his wife, Anne-Marie, and gambled again- this time successfully. They go to what he has won; an estate- in Patagonia in 1925 we eventually learn- where the inhabitants are Austrian by birth but insist on speaking French, where the fact that William now owns it makes no difference to the original inhabitants (who aren't very concerned about whether they are dead or alive either). Slowly and formally a strange and mysterious ghost story emerges. It is sumptuously and elegantly filmed, with events taking place off-screen or behind the camera, relishing oddities and absurdities and finally an epilogue ties it all together in an arbitrary but logical way- a characteristic Ruiz film, which recognises it is a film and relishes it too.