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Life Is a Very Strange Thing

Les McLaren, Annie Stiven

Life Is a Very Strange Thing
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Life Is A Very Strange Thing is an intriguing mosaic of post-colonial France revealed through four generations of a remarkable French family.

Australian filmmakers Les McLaren and Annie Stiven last saw Frédéric Duvelle in the 1970s when he was a rebellious teenager recording traditional music in remote villages of Papua New Guinea. Forty years later, a chance reunion became an opportunity to fill in missing decades and to discover his remarkable family history, from his Governor grandfather in colonial Indochina to the populist politics and terror attacks of contemporary France.

We meet Frédéric's parents: mother Elisabeth, a politically engaged textile artist who raised Fred and his two sisters in a working-class suburb of Paris; and composer father Charles who grew up in Laos and Cambodia, and became celebrated for his pioneering recordings of traditional music in Africa.

Frédéric's recounts his own unlikely journey from school dropout, to ethnomusicologist then executive of a multinational garbage enterprise. He is a wily raconteur and avid collector of brocante. Shadowed by his endearing ancient dog Punch, encounters with friends in Paris and Bordeaux unfold rich layers of French culture and identity: an enigmatic African artist discusses Cubism; a cameo family lunch with a menu of oysters, history and politics; a 93-year-old WW2 Resistance veteran who forgives; and an irascible brocanteur who can't forget.

The youngest generation confront issues at the heart of cosmopolitan France: Frédéric's niece is an activist with FEMEN who protest against conservative values as the populist right-wing National Front is on the rise, and his daughter has a near encounter on the night of the Bataclan terror attack.

Life Is A Very Strange Thing is part road movie, part meditation. Its unique mix – of observation, archive footage from PNG and Indochina, indigenous music and rich sound design – evokes a lyrical and compelling portrait of family, place, politics, and memory.
“The film crackles with energy, fueled by Duvelle’s irresistible charm and intelligence; as a character, he’s every director’s dream: irascible and an oddball; cuddly, endearing and benevolent. A complex man encapsulated in a film that’s impressive in scope yet full of heart as an intimate study of a storied, colourful individual.”  –  John Catania, Metro Magazine

“An unusually nuanced, subtle, and insightful foray into the cultural politics of contemporary France.” – Steven Feld, School for Advanced Research, Santa Fe

“I haven't seen such a brilliantly crafted film for a long time. The film shows us that the story of France is not only local but includes the stories of travellers throughout the colonial and post-colonial world. Yet at the same time it carries us into the life of metropolitan France today with an intimacy that is thoroughly enjoyable.” – David MacDougall, Filmmaker & Film Scholar, Austrailian National University

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Credits

Life Is A Very Strange Thing

Written, Directed, Produced

Les McLaren & Annie Stiven


Associate Producers

Oscar McLaren

Celine Rouzet


Camera, Sound, Editing

Les McLaren


Archive Camera, Sound - Papua New Guinea

Steve McMillan

Les McLaren

Frederic Duvelle


Music

APRA AMCOS

Institute of PNG Studies

C. Duvelle Field Recordings

Vingan Pty Ltd

Piano Improvisation by Veronique Duvelle

Nalésonko by Ballaké Sissoko

'Gale' by Olivier Ker Ourio & Danyel Waro ℗ Label Cobalt


Photographs, Images

Duvelle Family Collection

C. Duvelle Field Photographs

Hisham Mayet Collection

Archives municipal d'Ivry-Sur Seine

Editions A. Leconte

Jean Hermann

Paintings by Mathias Kauage

Vingan Pty Ltd


Archive Video

Duvelle Family Collection

Ina, France

iTélé-Canal+

Antydote-Mondomix

NASA | O.Khazal

Vingan Pty Ltd


Stock Media

Pond5/av geeks

Sweet TV

P. Adams Photography

dubassy

Plotzki


Translation

Frederic Duvelle

Kim Doan Gerrand

Silvia Martínez Jimeno

William Martin

Aldous Scales

Justine Verreydt


Image Grade, Animation

Roen Davis


Sound Mix

Julian Ellingworth


Film Restoration

Ray Argall


Legal Services

Gai Steele


Special Thanks to

Frédéric & the Duvelle family

Nathalie Berron

Kate Gauld

James Gerrand

Colleen Moore

Magie Family

William Martin

Andrew Pike  

Tom Zubrycki


Thanks to

Screen Australia

Liz Stevens

Alyssa Orvis


Thanks also to

Yves Dupouy

Gary Kildea

Haydn Keenan

Tricia Kirby

Don Niles

Clare Norton

Hisham Mayet

Chris Owen

Mark Ragg

Fiona Strain

Leo Sullivan

Yasmin Tadich

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