Olivier Assayas

On Chris Darke's reading, Olivier Assayas sends his subject and his form in different directions in Late August, Early September: the subject returns to his older films, while the formal dexterity he showed in Irma Vep stays where it was. The same piece writes him the answer to a national complaint as well. It used to be said of French art cinema that there was too much talking, and by Darke's account Assayas came up with a simple solution to it: his characters orate as much as anyone still, but he keeps them in motion and wraps their surroundings in a ceaseless stir. Darke says too that he can carry an elegant, Techine-style anatomisation of feeling and a stylistic sleight of hand at once. The 2021 Cesar nomination in the adapted screenplay category came to him from Cuban Network.