Anselm Kiefer Pour Paul Celan, Grand Palais Éphémère, Paris review - an installation of rare profundity

★★★★★ ANSELM KIEFER POUR PAUL CELAN, GRAND PALAIS EPHEMERE, PARIS An installation of rare profundity

Anselm Kiefer's spectacular homage to the poet Paul Celan

The exhibitions of the German artist Anselm Kiefer have always been spectacular: large works with a numinous presence, often breath-taking and always mysterious. His new installation in Paris’s Grand Palais Ephémère, the temporary structure at the end of the Champ de Mars which stretches south from the Eiffel Tower, is perhaps the most ambitious work he has ever presented in a museum space.

Blu-ray: The Love of Jeanne Ney

★★★ BLU-RAY: THE LOVE OF JEANNE NEY The cluttered German silent film is a classic by default

The cluttered German silent film is a classic by default

GW Pabst’s The Love of Jeanne Ney (1927), adapted from the novel by the Russian revolutionary author Ilya Ehrenburg, is a fascinating example of a major movie, vividly rendered by a filmmaker at his peak, that was compromised by its producers’ commercial agenda.

Blu-ray: Le Samouraï

★★★★ BLU-RAY: LE SAMOURAI Trenchcoat, fedora, white gloves and meticulous film-making

Trenchcoat, fedora, white gloves and meticulous film-making from Jean-Pierre Melville

Jef Costello, the lone contract killer in Le Samouraï (Jean-Pierre Melville, 1967), carries out the murder of the boss of a night club. We see how meticulously he has prepared for it, including the construction of an airtight alibi involving precise times  which others will corroborate  for his arrivals and departures at locations other than the scene of the crime.

Paris Photo 2021 review - a moveable feast

★★★★ PARIS PHOTO 2021 The Grand Palais Éphémère hosts a wonderful show

Paris Photo returns, in a new temporary home

Paris Photo 2021 was a wonderful show. Back after the pandemic it was moved to the Grand Palais Éphémère, a temporary structure built to host major art exhibitions while the Grand Palais itself is modernised in preparation for the 2024 Olympics. There were 178 exhibitors at the Grand Palais from 29 countries, 19 solo shows and 8 duo shows. There were thousands of images on display.

DVD/Blu-ray: Maigret - The Complete Series

★★★★ DVD/BLU-RAY: MAIGRET - THE COMPLETE SERIES Entertaining, idiomatic Simenon adaptation, brilliantly cast

Entertaining, idiomatic Simenon adaptation, brilliantly cast

This weighty box set contains all 52 episodes of the BBC’s take on George Simenon's Maigret, four seasons of which were made and broadcast between 1960 and 1963. Given how much vintage BBC material has been wiped, that this series can now be watched on Blu-ray is little short of miraculous.

Isamu Noguchi, Barbican review – the most elegant exhibition in town

★★★ ISAMU NOGUCHI, BARBICAN The most elegant exhibition in town

A restless spirit who infiltrated many of our lives

Isamu Noguchi may not be a household name, yet one strand of his work is incredibly familiar. In 1951 he visited a lamp factory in Gifu, a Japanese city famous for its paper lanterns. This prompted him to design the lampshades that, for decades, have adorned nearly every student’s bedsit.

Gagarine review - hazy cosmic jive in a Paris banlieue

★★★★ GAGARINE Cité of dreams: hazy cosmic jive in a Paris banlieue

Cité of dreams: Fanny Liatard and Jérémy Trouilh's glowing debut feature

This is the story of a boy and a building. Sixteen-year-old Youri (newcomer Alseni Bathily) lives, with his telescope, in Cité Gagarine, a vast red-brick Sixties apartment complex in Ivry-sur-Seine, an eastern suburb of Paris governed by the French Communist party.