The Hatter's Apprentice is a Victorian-era thriller about a young apprentice hat maker who, driven by his affection for a local flower peddler, creates an exquisite hat, despite his master's warnings. When passion turns to nightmare, it's a struggle for him to escape the grip of madness.

The Hatter's Apprentice is a Victorian-era thriller about a young apprentice hat maker who, driven by his affection for a local flower peddler, creates an exquisite hat, despite his master's warnings. When passion turns to nightmare, it's a struggle for him to escape the grip of madness.

In this exemplary adaptation of a Georges Simenon novel, director Claude Chabrol creates possibly his darkest and most introspective work, in which he explores some of his favourite themes – most notably the idea of a deadly threat hiding beneath a mask of bourgeois respectability. The film is set in a small Breton village where it appears to rain continually and where the hours of night appear to outnumber those of daylight quite substantially. This claustrophobic location lends the film an oppressive, suffocating atmosphere, which is strikingly evocative of the mood of Simenon’s novels. A streak of the driest black comedy permeates the film, making it both oddly amusing and intensely disturbing, a quite different tone to most of Chabrol’s other thrillers. 　　The drama revolves around two men – a hat-maker and a tailor – who live opposite each other but who appear to inhabit totally different worlds. Each man is, in his own way, a prisoner of his own making – the hat-maker is forced to live alone in order to conceal the fact that he killed his wife; the tailor is stifled by the large family who lives with him in his confined house. Each man secretly envies the other, and so a sinister attraction begins to draw them together – with ultimately tragic consequences for both of them. Chabrol’s mastery of the psychological thriller genre enables him to tell this story effectively, using deceptively simple cinematography and surprisingly very little dialogue. Towards that end, he is admirably served by his lead actors, Michel Serrault and Charles Aznavour. 　　In a career spanning fifty years, Michel Serrault has acquired a reputation as one of France’s most versatile and talented character actors. In Les Fantômes du chapelier, he gives one of his most distinctive and memorable performances – indeed it could be said that it his portrayal of the hat-maker Labbé which carries the film and contributes most to it its poignancy and quirky comic slant. Serrault shows an extraordinary ability when it comes to playing characters who are either mad or bad: whilst he manages to frighten, he is also able to arouse sympathy. This is readily apparent in his performance of the hat-maker in this film – even when he is murdering his victims, you cannot help having more sympathy for him than for the women he is disposing of (with an ease which is more comical than shocking). As the film develops, we are drawn further and further into the hat-maker’s troubled world – rather like the tailor who observes him from across the street – and what we are most struck by his not so much his dangerous insanity but rather his tortured humanity. Without an actor of Serrault’s calibre, it is unlikely that Chabrol could have achieved this level of sophistication and depth. 　　Whilst the film is mostly focused on the hat-maker, the tailor also plays an important part in the film, and Charles Aznavour (in another fine performance) allows the character to function brilliantly alongside Serrault’s hat-maker. Perhaps the most important role of the tailor is to provide a kind of psychological bridge which enables the spectator to cross over into the hat-maker’s world. The idea of a voyeur spying on another world is a device Chabrol has used a number of times previously (most effectively in his 1962 film L’Oeil du malin ), but here it is crucial to the film’s development. The tailor also serves as a contrast with the hat-maker – one is well-mannered yet a perpetual outsider; the other is irritable yet an accepted member of the community. Although one man lives alone and the other in a large family, both experience a terrible solitude which leads them inexorably towards self-destruction. There are perhaps as many similarities as differences, which leads us to make some interesting speculations. Could the tailor and the hat-maker be two facets of the same individual? Or could the tailor merely be a projection of the hat-maker’s own conscience? One of the most beautiful aspects of Chabrol’s cinema is its subtle sense of ambiguity, which implies – possibly – that nothing is quite what it seems. What you see depends on who you are and where you happen to be standing – much as it does in real life. Can there ever be such a thing as an objective reality in Claude Chabrol’s universe? 　　Compared with some of Chabrol’s other thrillers, Les Fantômes du chapelier must appear strangely minimalist. It is certainly sparse on dialogue and the film’s dramatic moments are heavily downplayed. Chabrol’s intention is not to create a suspense thriller – that much is evident. Instead, what he offers is a palpably chilling study of a man who is driven – perhaps by the noblest of motives – to murder his crippled wife and who – alone, afraid and guilt-stricken – is drawn further and further into insanity. By keeping the traditional thriller elements to the minimum and by leaving it to the camera and setting to say far more than his actors, Chabrol manages to construct one of his most tragically poignant portraits of human fallibility.

In this exemplary adaptation of a Georges Simenon novel, director Claude Chabrol creates possibly his darkest and most introspective work, in which he explores some of his favourite themes – most notably the idea of a deadly threat hiding beneath a mask of bourgeois respectability. The film is set in a small Breton village where it appears to rain continually and where the hours of night appear to outnumber those of daylight quite substantially. This claustrophobic location lends the film an oppressive, suffocating atmosphere, which is strikingly evocative of the mood of Simenon’s novels. A streak of the driest black comedy permeates the film, making it both oddly amusing and intensely disturbing, a quite different tone to most of Chabrol’s other thrillers. 　　The drama revolves around two men – a hat-maker and a tailor – who live opposite each other but who appear to inhabit totally different worlds. Each man is, in his own way, a prisoner of his own making – the hat-maker is forced to live alone in order to conceal the fact that he killed his wife; the tailor is stifled by the large family who lives with him in his confined house. Each man secretly envies the other, and so a sinister attraction begins to draw them together – with ultimately tragic consequences for both of them. Chabrol’s mastery of the psychological thriller genre enables him to tell this story effectively, using deceptively simple cinematography and surprisingly very little dialogue. Towards that end, he is admirably served by his lead actors, Michel Serrault and Charles Aznavour. 　　In a career spanning fifty years, Michel Serrault has acquired a reputation as one of France’s most versatile and talented character actors. In Les Fantômes du chapelier, he gives one of his most distinctive and memorable performances – indeed it could be said that it his portrayal of the hat-maker Labbé which carries the film and contributes most to it its poignancy and quirky comic slant. Serrault shows an extraordinary ability when it comes to playing characters who are either mad or bad: whilst he manages to frighten, he is also able to arouse sympathy. This is readily apparent in his performance of the hat-maker in this film – even when he is murdering his victims, you cannot help having more sympathy for him than for the women he is disposing of (with an ease which is more comical than shocking). As the film develops, we are drawn further and further into the hat-maker’s troubled world – rather like the tailor who observes him from across the street – and what we are most struck by his not so much his dangerous insanity but rather his tortured humanity. Without an actor of Serrault’s calibre, it is unlikely that Chabrol could have achieved this level of sophistication and depth. 　　Whilst the film is mostly focused on the hat-maker, the tailor also plays an important part in the film, and Charles Aznavour (in another fine performance) allows the character to function brilliantly alongside Serrault’s hat-maker. Perhaps the most important role of the tailor is to provide a kind of psychological bridge which enables the spectator to cross over into the hat-maker’s world. The idea of a voyeur spying on another world is a device Chabrol has used a number of times previously (most effectively in his 1962 film L’Oeil du malin ), but here it is crucial to the film’s development. The tailor also serves as a contrast with the hat-maker – one is well-mannered yet a perpetual outsider; the other is irritable yet an accepted member of the community. Although one man lives alone and the other in a large family, both experience a terrible solitude which leads them inexorably towards self-destruction. There are perhaps as many similarities as differences, which leads us to make some interesting speculations. Could the tailor and the hat-maker be two facets of the same individual? Or could the tailor merely be a projection of the hat-maker’s own conscience? One of the most beautiful aspects of Chabrol’s cinema is its subtle sense of ambiguity, which implies – possibly – that nothing is quite what it seems. What you see depends on who you are and where you happen to be standing – much as it does in real life. Can there ever be such a thing as an objective reality in Claude Chabrol’s universe? 　　Compared with some of Chabrol’s other thrillers, Les Fantômes du chapelier must appear strangely minimalist. It is certainly sparse on dialogue and the film’s dramatic moments are heavily downplayed. Chabrol’s intention is not to create a suspense thriller – that much is evident. Instead, what he offers is a palpably chilling study of a man who is driven – perhaps by the noblest of motives – to murder his crippled wife and who – alone, afraid and guilt-stricken – is drawn further and further into insanity. By keeping the traditional thriller elements to the minimum and by leaving it to the camera and setting to say far more than his actors, Chabrol manages to construct one of his most tragically poignant portraits of human fallibility.

踏上难能可贵的探索之旅，了解拥有两千年历史的绚烂艺术文化，及其铸就的世界上最古老的帝国。 　　故事中的这片土地拥有两个名字：波斯——古老而神秘，充满冒险气息，强大的国王建造了大批雄伟的寺庙和宫殿，美景超乎想象；伊朗——骄傲、孤立，对外界的干扰不屑一顾。 　　BBC Studios获得了前所未有的特许，得以深入伊朗进行拍摄，展现这座古国非凡的历史与文明。从迷宫式的集市到波斯古代君主的都城波斯波利斯，再到圣火燃烧逾千年的火神庙，主播兼记者萨米拉·艾哈迈德（Samira Ahmed）带领观众一同踏上这段独一无二的难忘旅程。 　　在三集的内容中，萨米拉将揭示波斯文明在历史中的重要地位；在跌宕起伏的演变过程中，进一步了解其一次次的辉煌与陷落。在这趟旅程中，萨米拉还有一个重大发现：波斯人曾有一度几乎迷失了自我，直到一本书的出现，才使他们得以重新认识自身，继而实现波斯文化的复兴——《列王纪》（Shahnameh）。菲尔多西凝聚毕生精力的史诗巨著，没能在他生前为他赢得期望中的赞许与财富，却在他死后长久流传——《列王纪》不仅掀起了波斯语言与文化的复兴大潮，更在后世绵延千年的数度王朝更迭与社会变迁中，成为了维系波斯传统的重要纽带，为伊朗人民的文化认同提供了坚定的基石。

踏上难能可贵的探索之旅，了解拥有两千年历史的绚烂艺术文化，及其铸就的世界上最古老的帝国。 　　故事中的这片土地拥有两个名字：波斯——古老而神秘，充满冒险气息，强大的国王建造了大批雄伟的寺庙和宫殿，美景超乎想象；伊朗——骄傲、孤立，对外界的干扰不屑一顾。 　　BBC Studios获得了前所未有的特许，得以深入伊朗进行拍摄，展现这座古国非凡的历史与文明。从迷宫式的集市到波斯古代君主的都城波斯波利斯，再到圣火燃烧逾千年的火神庙，主播兼记者萨米拉·艾哈迈德（Samira Ahmed）带领观众一同踏上这段独一无二的难忘旅程。 　　在三集的内容中，萨米拉将揭示波斯文明在历史中的重要地位；在跌宕起伏的演变过程中，进一步了解其一次次的辉煌与陷落。在这趟旅程中，萨米拉还有一个重大发现：波斯人曾有一度几乎迷失了自我，直到一本书的出现，才使他们得以重新认识自身，继而实现波斯文化的复兴——《列王纪》（Shahnameh）。菲尔多西凝聚毕生精力的史诗巨著，没能在他生前为他赢得期望中的赞许与财富，却在他死后长久流传——《列王纪》不仅掀起了波斯语言与文化的复兴大潮，更在后世绵延千年的数度王朝更迭与社会变迁中，成为了维系波斯传统的重要纽带，为伊朗人民的文化认同提供了坚定的基石。

这是一部自然主题的乌托邦式的纪录片电影。本片中的护林人在伊拉克北部库尔德人山区已经找了25年波斯豹，之所以要找，是因为如果能找到这种珍惜动物，林区就能被宣布为国家公园，而敌人就不能再轰炸，库尔德人也就能获得珍贵的和平。本片寻豹不仅是主题，更上升为一种政治隐喻，表达作品批判性和人文关怀，作品制作精良，娓娓道来的叙事中透着淡淡的忧伤。结构处理上，一条是守林人寻找波斯豹，一条是他在山里遇到的各种人，形成历史和当下、战争与和平的隐喻。荣获2019年阿姆斯特丹国际纪录片电影节最佳荷兰纪录片奖。

这是一部自然主题的乌托邦式的纪录片电影。本片中的护林人在伊拉克北部库尔德人山区已经找了25年波斯豹，之所以要找，是因为如果能找到这种珍惜动物，林区就能被宣布为国家公园，而敌人就不能再轰炸，库尔德人也就能获得珍贵的和平。本片寻豹不仅是主题，更上升为一种政治隐喻，表达作品批判性和人文关怀，作品制作精良，娓娓道来的叙事中透着淡淡的忧伤。结构处理上，一条是守林人寻找波斯豹，一条是他在山里遇到的各种人，形成历史和当下、战争与和平的隐喻。荣获2019年阿姆斯特丹国际纪录片电影节最佳荷兰纪录片奖。