La Vallée (film)

La Vallée

Theatrical release poster
Directed by Barbet Schroeder
Written by Barbet Schroeder
Starring Bulle Ogier
Jean-Pierre Kalfon
Valérie Lagrange
Michael Gothard
Jérôme Beauvarlet
Monique Giraudy
Music by Pink Floyd
Distributed by Imperia Films
Release dates
  • 11 July 1972
Running time
 100 minutes
Country France
Language French

La Vallée is a 1972 French film written and directed by Barbet Schroeder. The film stars Bulle Ogier as Viviane, a woman who goes on a strange and accidental voyage of self-discovery through the New Guinea bush.

Pink Floyd recorded an album, Obscured by Clouds, as the soundtrack to the film. After recording had finished, the band fell out with the film company, prompting them to release the soundtrack album as Obscured by Clouds, rather than La Vallée. In response, the film was retitled La Vallée (Obscured by Clouds) on its release.[1]

The actress credit "Monique Giraudy" is actually an alias of Miquette Giraudy, a longtime vocalist and synthesizer player who went on to play in progressive rock/space rock band Gong with her partner Steve Hillage, and later formed the electronic group System 7 with Hillage.

Synopsis

Viviane (Ogier), the wife of the French consul in Melbourne, joins a group of explorers in search of a mysterious hidden valley in the bush of New Guinea, where she hopes to find the feathers of an extremely rare exotic bird. Along the way through the dense jungles of Papua New Guinea and on the peak of Mount Giluwe, she and the small group of explorers make contact with the Mapuga tribe, one of the most isolated groups of human beings on earth, who inspire them to explore their own humanity, unfettered by their own subjective ideas of "civilization". The search becomes a search for a paradise said to exist within a valley marked as "obscured by cloud" on the only map of the area available dated as surveyed in 1969.

Trivia

Footage from La Vallée was incorporated into the horror film Hell of the Living Dead.

Cast

References

  1. ↑ Mason, Nick (2004). "There Is No Dark Side". Inside Out: A Personal History of Pink Floyd (New ed.). Widenfeld & Nicolson. p. 164. ISBN 0-297-84387-7.

External links