The Story of a Three-Day Pass

Melvin Van Peebles's first feature follows a Black American soldier stationed in France. Turner takes a three-day pass and goes to Paris; the weekend he spends with a French woman he meets there shows him and those around him his position again. The film carries the question of race outside America. In France Turner is seen as an American, but when he returns from leave the hierarchy inside the army has not changed. The narrative builds the difference between those two views alongside comedy. Unable to make films in America, Van Peebles went to France and made this first feature there in French. The form comes directly from the French new wave: jump cuts, interior voice and scenes close to improvisation. The film returned to America as a French production and opened the way for its director. Who it's for: those interested in sixties independent cinema and the history of Black filmmaking. Who it's not for: viewers expecting a plain narrative; the film is formally tied to the experiments of its period.