27 August2 I forgot to mention in my earlier message that two films were screened in competition today: *Le Septieme Ciel,* by Benoit Jacquot (France) *The Winter Guest* by Alan Rickman (UK) Jacquot's film tells the story of Mathilde, who quit her job, shoplifts, and faints from time to time. Her husband Nico, a surgeon, fails to see what's happening to his wife. Mathilde meets a doctor who hypnotizes and seduces her...or is the doctor a fantasy she invents to escape from herself? However, her condition improves significantly. Suddenly, Nico falls ill, becomes depressed and can no longer love the "new" Mathilde, who has recovered from her health condition and is reborn sexually. It is Nico's turn to lose and find himself. Jacquot said: "There's always a direct relationship linking that state between sleeping and waking (that hypnosis accentuates) and cinema." Rickman's (debut) film tells the story of four couples from four generations. Frances (Emma Thompson) and her mother Elspeth (Thomspon's mother Phyllida Law): daughter/mother. Frances is unable to overcome the recent death of her husband and refuses to get out of bed, while her mother is draging herself through the icy hills of the Scottish sea town where Frances lives to regain the trust and affection of her grieving daughter. Alex (Frances's 16 year old son who has taken charge of himself and his mother after his father's death) and Nina (his coquettish neighbor) take their first step towards adulthood and engage in a breathkless encounter. Chloe and Lily, two old ladies, read through the obituaries to choose which funeral to go to befire braving the sea-front waiting for a bus that might never come. Tom and Sam decide to cut school and go to the beach. They dare each other to walk on the frozen water which stretches before them. Of the "winter guest," Rickman has said: "It's the person beckoning to you from afar. There's a horizon in everyone's life. In the film it's the chance for all the characters to look inward." Another film, shown in the "Midnight" section today was *Affliction* by Paul Schroeder (USA), with Nick Nolte, James Coburn, Sissy Spacek, William Dafoe (who gave Alida Valli her Golden Lion...go figure), Mary Beth Hurt. Lastly, for today's P.S., a number of films from The Venice FilmFest will be shown in Hollywood (that's all I know). Gloria Monti ---- Online resources for film/TV studies may be found at ScreenSite http://www.sa.ua.edu/screensite