French cinema

French cinema

My good friend Ollie posted a tribute to Bernard Tavernier, the French film director a couple of days ago. I must admit that my knowledge of French cinema is limited – but what I have seen, from Betty Blue to Baise Moi by way of Les Valseuses simply works differently from a standard Hollywood blockbuster, or a routine British romcom. There are questions – and they are not necessarily answered, even if you watch a film repeatedly.

That British and American audiences haven’t seen many French films is unfortunate: variety is usually good, and seeing how others do things broadens one’s own thinking and aspirations. We don’t have to abandon our own culture to appreciate others, and we undermine other cultures at our own peril, in the end.



The narrative is different, the style is different. And so’s the language, which is challenging for most British (and, I suspect) American people, for whom SHOUTING and SPEAKING SLOWLY in English is as close as we get to fluency in another tongue. We’re missing out…

I have worked with two French models – both are thoroughly outside the norm, and both are delightful to work with. And both are comfortable with the erotic, to an extent that this website is not: fortunately, their style and talents remain apparent in more restrained images!

Flo X is incredibly fit and toned, and her modelling explores a space somewhere between yoga and suffering. I’ve simply met nobody like her, ever, and she has very specific aims and views about what her work should achieve and look like.



By way of contrast, Chloe is in some ways a very conventional glamour and nude model – but her sense of style is unusual, and unerringly excellent: the clothes she wears are distinctively different from everyone else I know…

Different perspectives matter, and we are all enriched by having the chance to understand how others think and construct stories. The same applies to languages, beliefs, and even photographs.