Directors Beatrice Minger, who also is the writer, and co-director Christoph Schaub share credits on the prize-winning feature E.1027: Eileen Gray and the House by the Sea. Using an unusually low-emotion approach to storytelling, the film recounts several decades in the life of a special house in Roquebrune-Cap-Martin, in the south of France. In September, First Run Features is bringing this film to stream on Amazon, Apple, and Kanopy. It also will be available on DVD.
Eileen Gray was an Irish-born furniture and interior designer, as well as architect. She was living in Paris in the 1920s, living either a lesbian or bi-sexual lifestyle. With encouragement by Romanian-born journalist and architect Jan Badovici, a man who was “a moon in her orbit.” Gray purchased a small plot of land on an almost inaccessible edge of the sea and designed and oversaw construction of a house there.
It was not like architecture by leading European male architects of the period, many of whom saw buildings as forms of machines. Instead, this artful house was crafted to speak to the soul of its creator. The early to mid-century period covered is an interesting one because it involves the Bauhaus style, the International, Modern Movements, and Modern Architecture styles, and forms of avant-garde art.
Three actors give standout performances: Natalie Radmall-Quirke as Gray, Axel Moustache as Bado, and Charles Morillon. Morillon plays the third important character, Swiss-French architect/artist Le Corbusier. At the end of the film, the audience is treated to archival footage of the real Eileen Grey in her mid-late nineties.
The story is complicated but told in a user-friendly manner. The house is built.Gray and Bado live there. Gray leaves after a couple years. Le Corbusier moves in with Bado. Then, the real-life plot moves from peaceful living to a tale of desecration and disrespect. It is also a story of male domination, although I feel that reviewers have stressed that aspect more than the film actually demonstrates.
Le Corbusier is a dominant personality. Whether he represents all males cannot be true. He takes over and paints giant murals on the clean white walls. Of course there is more to the story, but it would be a shame to tell all.
The cinematic style is impressive. It has been a while since I’ve admired the mise-en-scene of a film—the ability of a single image to express the totality of an idea significant to that film. The camera placement, the content of each image, its balance and design, are exquisite. So many of the individual shots could be frozen and studied.
E.1027 combines newly-shot footage with footage from avant-garde classic films such as Emak Bakia and Ballet Mechanique, as well as newsreels and other stock footage.
There have been other films about Eileen Gray, but I haven’t seen them yet. I’m pleased that First Run Features is giving E.1027: Eileen Gray and the House by the Sea a wide home-viewing release. It’s educational, artful, and entertaining.
Audrey Kupferberg is a film and video archivist and retired appraiser. She is lecturer emeritus and the former director of Film Studies at the University at Albany and co-authored several entertainment biographies with her late husband and creative partner, Rob Edelman.
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