COLONIAL INQUEST Les McLaren and Annie Stiven’s Life Is a Very Strange Thing
Australian directors Les McLaren and Annie Stiven don’t consider Frédéric Duvelle particularly extraordinary. Yet it is the bizarre, entertaining, sad and enlightening twists and turns of the eccentric Frenchman’s life that fill the frames of their intimate documentary Life Is a Very Strange Thing (2017). The film crackles with energy, fuelled 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.
Premiering at the Brisbane International Film Festival, Life Is a Very Strange Thing takes us through the French city of Bordeaux, on the banks of the river Garonne. We move down alleyways lined with cafes and shops, nearby patisseries teasing with elegant morsels of sweet treats – among them Bordeaux’s ubiquitous
