https://vo.rs/tags/new-french-extremity/Latest from the New French Extremity desk at vo.rs.Hugo -- gohugo.ioenThis work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.Mon, 05 Feb 2024 13:00:00 +0000https://vo.rs/screen/new-french-extremity-shock-with-a-thesis/<p>The phrase was an insult before it was a genre. The critic James Quandt coined &ldquo;New French Extremity&rdquo; in a 2004 essay for <em>Artforum</em>, and he meant it with a curled lip — a scolding aimed at a cluster of French filmmakers he saw wallowing in rape, mutilation and bodily disgust as if provocation were the same thing as depth. The label stuck, as the good insults do, and then something awkward happened. The films it described turned out, on closer inspection, to be among the most intellectually serious genre cinema Europe produced in a generation. The extremity was real. The disdain was misplaced.</p>Mon, 05 Feb 2024 13:00:00 +0000https://vo.rs/screen/martyrs-2008-new-french-extremity-with-a-thesis/<p>Some films you argue about with friends. Pascal Laugier&rsquo;s <em>Martyrs</em> (2008) is one you argue about with yourself, for years, usually at three in the morning. It is the most punishing film to come out of the movement critics christened the New French Extremity, and it is also, awkwardly for anyone who wants to dismiss it as endurance-test cruelty, the most intellectually serious. The brutality is real and unremitting. Underneath it is a genuine argument about suffering, belief and what, if anything, lies on the other side of pain. Whether the argument earns the brutality is the question the film hands you and refuses to answer on your behalf.</p>Sun, 28 Dec 2014 09:00:00 +0000