Resisting Paradise      

Director: Barbara Hammer
Running Time: 80 minutes     
USA 2003

War forces people to make choices.  World War II is the setting for this film that highlights the painters Henri Matisse and Pierre Bonnard along with war resisters and refugees. They all lived or passed through Cassis and other towns along the Mediterranean Coast where light made a paradise of shimmering reflections.

Shot in the French Mediterranean fishing village of Cassis, the film recounts the histories of French and German Resistance fighters as well as those of the painters Bonnard and Matisse, who continued to produce landscapes, portraits and still life in this land of light and beauty, even as the Nazis occupied France.

How can art exist during a time of such political turmoil? The unique Resistance stories of the wife, daughter and son on Henri Matisse are highlights of this compelling documentary, noted for its painterly beauty and complex editing strategies.


Screenings:

22 October 7.30 p.m. Modern Art Oxford
25 October 7.00 p.m. Maison Francaise
29 October 6.00 p.m. Oxford Brookes (The Lloyd Lecture Theatre)