Isabelle aux Dombes (1951)

9min | Drama, Horror, Mystery | Jan 1, 1951 | Released

Pialat's first film was the 8-minute short Isabelle aux Dombes, shot in 1951 when the director was 26 years old. The film is an entirely silent montage of documentary footage, ragged experimental techniques — mainly some negative-image inserts — and symbolic psychodrama that's surprisingly not too different from the work that Stan Brakhage would begin making just a year or two later. Images of death proliferate throughout the film, and what started as a loose documentary soon becomes an eerie psuedo-horror piece that's obsessed with death and decay. (FilmAffinity)

Director: Maurice Pialat

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