The Agitator: Three Provocations from the Wild World of Jean-Pierre Mocky
Jean-Pierre Mocky was a prolific icon in French cinema. Actor, director, novelist, and in-demand raconteur, Mocky made mainstream films with an independent spirit, even owning a cinema to help the distribution of his films. Yet those films had a specific style, unmistakably his, often with controversial and outlandish themes, and he came to be known as a wild and untameable force, acting as an uncompromising agitator within the French film industry for over six decades. Three of his wild cinematic adventures from the 1980s are collected in this new boxset. Cult horror sensation Litan, hooligan horror Kill the Referee and Hitchcockian mystery Agent Trouble are presented from new 4K restorations on Blu-ray for the first time outside of France.
Worried by a disturbing dream, Nora wakes to find her husband missing during a trip to Litan. She goes out to find him but encounters one bizarre event after another taking place at the village festival, including uncanny acts and a masked marching band. As Nora and Jock attempt to escape the village, a series of strange murders take place against the backdrop of a mad doctor performing experiments on the recently deceased. Jean-Pierre Mocky’s Litan is a classic cult Euro-horror and a Kafkaesque fever dream of surrealist imagery, arrestingly shot by Edmond Richard (The Trial, The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie).
When a referee calls a penalty that causes a French football team to crash out of the championship, their ultra-dedicated hooligan fans vow to track him down and murder him by the end of the evening, as Inspector Granowski (played by director Jean-Pierre Mocky) attempts to stem the carnage. With an unrelenting one-night narrative recalling After Hours and Green Room, Kill the Referee mixes black humour with horror as its escalating sense of dread builds toward a shattering climax.
A bus of fifty French tourists lay dead. While the driver makes a call, a wanderer, Victorien (Tom Novembre, Denti), boards the bus and robs all the passengers. Returning home he visits his aunt Amanda (Catherine Deneuve, The Hunger), and lets her in on his secret, unwittingly bringing her to the attention of icy hitman Alex (Richard Bohringer, The Cook, the Thief, His Wife & Her Lover). A conspiracy thriller reminiscent of Hitchcock, Jean-Pierre Mocky’s wonderfully eccentric mystery has a light comic touch that carefully balances its grotesque flourishes. Featuring a wonderful cast including César-nominated Dominique Lavant, Pierre Arditi and Kristin Scott Thomas in only her second screen appearance.
LIMITED EDITION BOX SET SPECIAL FEATURES:
- New 4K restorations of each film presented on three discs, made available on Blu-ray (1080p) for the first time outside of France
- Uncompressed mono PCM audio
- Archival interview with Jean-Pierre Mocky about his relationship to the fantastic (1982, 12 mins)
- Archival ‘Making of Litan’ documentary from French television (1982, 26 mins)
- Newly filmed interview with journalist and broadcaster Philippe Auclair on Kill the Referee (2024)
- Interview with Mocky’s assistant Eric Leroy on Kill the Referee (2022, 13 mins)
- Television reportage from the set of Kill the Referee (1983, 5 mins)
- Archival French TV interview with Jean-Pierre Mocky (1987, 18 mins)
- Archival interview with Catherine Deneuve on Agent Trouble (1987, 5 mins)
- Archival interview with Richard Bohringer on Agent Trouble (1987, 5 mins)
- Interview with Eric Leroy on Agent Trouble (2022, 13 mins)
- Interview with Olivia Mokiejewski on Agent Trouble (2022, 4 mins)
- New and improved optional English subtitles
- Reversible sleeves featuring original and newly commissioned artwork by Time Tomorrow
- Limited edition 80-page book featuring new writing by Roberto Curti, Nathaniel Thompson and Alexandra Heller-Nicholas, and newly translated archival interviews including Serge Toubiana on Jean-Pierre Mocky, and Oliver Assayas on Michel Serrault, as well as an on-set report of Kill the Referee
- Limited Edition of 3000 copies, presented in a rigid box with full-height Scanavo cases and removable OBI strip leaving packaging free of certificates and markings
More to be confirmed and extras subject to change
