A review by chasehorizon
Alice Guy by José-Louis Bocquet

3.0

Alice Guy-Blaché was perhaps the first director of a narrative fiction film, and most certainly the first female director. Her place in the film canon has largely been snubbed by film historians, but works like this fictionalized tale of her life, as well as documentaries and scholarly research, renew her legacy with the flowers she deserves. I enjoyed how popular figures of the time interacted with her, like Gustave Eiffel and Georges Méliès, and how they wrote the dialogue with more modern liberties to get thematic truths across. The art-style was pretty too; the recreations of her films as sketches were especially cool. I found the biographies of each of the characters at the end to be very informative, and I was interested to read the authors discuss how they got involved in Alice's life and legacy. Although it leaves me wanting to read Guy's memoirs to see her point of view of things, this retelling serves as a great gateway to bring awareness to her work and get people interested in it!