STRANGE PLEASURES: Anicée Shahmanesh in Robbe-Grillet's "Successive Slidings of Pleasure"

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STRANGE PLEASURES: Anicée Shahmanesh in Robbe-Grillet's "Successive Slidings of Pleasure"
by Darius Kadivar
17-Jan-2011
 
French Iranian actress Anicée (Shahmanesh) Alvina in the semi erotic avant garde movie "Glissements progressifs du plaisir" directed by "nouveau roman" author Alain Robbe -Grillet.   WARNING: Some scenes in this clip may be unsuitable for young viewers:
     
  PLOT:  
 
A young woman is questioned by the police and the judges, suspected of being a modern witch. The girl who shared her apartment has been found dead, and a pair of scissors impaled through her heart, as she lay attached to the bedposts. Apparently, the girl does have powers, to make all people around her fall prey to her spell, glissing progressively into desire, lust, and the unknown.  "Successive Slidings of Pleasure" is a strange film that contains plenty of surreal moments and lots of sleaze. The movie itself was considered in it's time as truly unique and bizarre, so fans of unusual European art-house exploitation won't be disappointed.  
   
About the Director Alain Robbe-Grillet:
A Self Portrait by Robbe Grillet about his likes and like nots. He also mentions traveling to world capitals  including Tehran


  Born in Brest in 1922, Alain Robbe-Grillet initially studied mathematics and biology. He graduated from the Paris-based Institut National Agronomique (National Institute of Agronomy) in 1945, and embarked on a career of scientific research in the tropics and in France. Then at age thirty, he decided to change the direction of his career and to concentrate on the thorny problem of literature. His novels were at first panned by the fashionable critics of the time, but he succeeded in winning, (along with such now famous friends as Samuel Beckett, Nathalie Sarraute, Claude Simon, Marguerite Duras), worldwide recognition and wide readership for the last literary movement in France known as "Le Nouveau Roman" or "New Novel". His books have been translated in some thirty languages and include: Le Voyeur (1955), La jalousie (1965), La maison de rendez-vous (1965), Project pour une révolution à New York e Djinn (1981), Le miroir qui revient (1985), Les Derniers jours de Corinth (1994). At forty he emabarked on a parallel career as screen writer and film director, venturing once again in unorthodox narrative structures. Winner, with Alain Resnais, of the "Golden Lion" in Venice in 1961 for L'année dernière à Marienbad (Last Year at Marienbad), he won the Louis Delluc Prize two years later for L'immortelle, the first film wich he wrote and directed himself. This film was followed by Trans-Europe-Express (1966), L'homme qui ment (The Man who Lies) (1968), L'Eden et aprés (Eden and Afterwards) (1970), Glissements progressifs du plaisir (The Slow Slidings of Pleasure) (1974), Le jeu avec le feu (Playing with Fire) (1975), La belle captive (The Beautiful Captive) (1983) and Un bruit qui rend fou (1995) (The Blue Villa). He lives in seclusion in the countryside in Normandy, where he tends to his collection of cacti. Yet he continued to travel the world, and to teach modern literature and film to graduate students in several American Universities. He died in  Caen, Calvados, Basse-Normandie, France (heart ailment) in 2008.

About Anicée Alvina:

Also known as Anicée Schahmaneche (b. Anicée Shahmanesh or Anicee Schahmane on 28 January 1953, Boulogne-Billancourt, France - d. 11 November 2006, Boncourt, Eure et Loir, France from cancer) was a French singer and actress.

Born to a French mother and an Iranian father, Anicée made her first movie appearance in Elle boit pas, elle fume pas, elle drague pas, mais... elle cause ! in 1970 and became famous for her lead roles in Glissements progressifs du plaisir (1974) and Le Jeu avec le feu, two movies directed by Alain Robbe-Grillet. She starred in the 1971 Lewis Gilbert film Friends, whose soundtrack helped launch the singing and songwriting careers of Elton John and Bernie Taupin.

She played a femme fatale in the Jacques Doniol-Valcroze movie where she seduces Jacques Weber. She then appeared in films directed by Gérard Blain and Bernard Queysanne, among others.

She had the lead role in the TV comedy Les 400 coups de Virginie which was shown on TF1 in 1979.

 

Recommended Readings:

Anicée (ALVINA) Shahmanesh: France's Sex Icon of the 1970's By Darius KADIVAR



Iranian Pioneers in French New Wave Cinema by Darius KADIVAR 

Related Blogs:

MON CINEMA: Anicée (Alvina) Shahmanesh and Sean Bury in Friends (1971)

 

Anicée (Alvina) SHAHMANESH in Lesbian Movie 


Anicee (Alvina) Shahmanesh (28th January 1954-11Th November 2006): Persian Sex Icon of French Cinema Dies in Paris at Age 53 By Darius KADIVAR 

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more from Darius Kadivar
 
humanbeing

interesting

by humanbeing on

thanks dk. 


Shemirani

Thanks !

by Shemirani on

i wish i knew she was half iranian... when i was a kid i used to watch her on tv (les 400 coups de virginie). she was very beautiful funny and so cool in this series !! Good old days :)