When Jean-Marie Straub’s La France contre les robots—filmed in December 2019 down the street from his apartment in Rolle—received an online premiere courtesy of Andy Rector’s Kino Slang in May of 2020, it was a small beacon in dark times. Not that the film’s life would have been any easier without the pandemic: let’s not forget that the German premiere of Straub’s penultimate film, the spectacular Gens du lac (2018), only occurred thanks to Klaus Volkmer at the Munich Film Museum, where it was shown with Vincente Minnelli’s (1953). With Straub’s passing on November 20, 2022 at the age of 89, we can be thankful we received one last film and one that is every bit as radical, uncompromising and inspiring as what came before, no matter the form of its presentation. Two films, in fact.
