The Lovely Month of May

May 1962, Paris. The Algerian war has just ended and France is not at war for the first time in seven years. The crew goes into the street and talks to people: an inventor, a stockbroker, two workers, an African student, a priest, an Algerian labourer, young people. The question is simple: are you happy. Chris Marker and Pierre Lhomme direct; Lhomme also shot it. It is among the first instances in France of what is called direct cinema. Lightweight cameras and synchronised sound had only just come into use and the crew took them into the street; that technical change made the method possible. The best passages are where the answers evade. Talking about happiness, people choose not to talk about the war, the colonies or money, and the film takes that silence as its subject. Marker's narration comments on the events and at times openly contradicts the participants. It runs over two and a half hours and is in two parts. It is also valuable as a record of Paris at that moment; the city entered a large rebuilding shortly afterwards. Who it is for: anyone interested in the history of documentary and in the France of the sixties. Who it is not for: it is very long, the structure is loose, and some of the interviews run on from here.