France

  • François Reichenbach – Le Paris des mannequins (1962)

    1961-1970DocumentaryFranceFrançois ReichenbachShort Film

    Céline G. Arzatian wrote:
    A photo shoot on the roofs and in the streets of Paris, under the astonished eyes of the inhabitants.

    “The gaze is the way to be amazed again,” says François Reichenbach. A filmmaker of the moment, this intuitive, sometimes instinctive, explains that when you have to prepare a scene to film it, it is already too late. What happens will never happen again, you have to seize the moment. It is spontaneity that interests him: “I only like things that are not prepared, that are done, just like that, in the rush”, he says.Read More »

  • Marguerite Duras – Le navire Night (1979) (HD)

    1971-1980ArthouseDramaFranceMarguerite Duras

    Each night in Paris, hundreds of men and women anonymously use telephone lines that date from the German Occupation and are no longer listed to talk to each other, to love each other.

    The plot of Le Navire Night concerns a love affair between a young man and a woman, F., who first make contact by telephone one night, quite by chance. They have never seen each other or met before, but a relationship begins as a result of the conversation; F. continues telephoning. He, however, never learns F.’ s full name, telephone number or address, and all initiative for the relationship falls to her. The affair unfolds purely as an affair of the human voice, but this adds to the sexual intensity of the relationship rather than detracting from it: ‘C’est un orgasme noir,’ one hears the voice of Bulle Ogier saying. ‘Sans toucher réciproque. Read More »

  • Hubert Viel – Louloute (2020)

    2011-2020ComedyDramaFranceHubert Viel

    A teacher’s chance meeting with her boyfriend when she was 10 triggers memories of past life on her family’s dairy farm, feeling economic pressure in the 1980s.Read More »

  • André Téchiné – Ma saison préférée AKA My Favorite Season (1993)

    1991-2000André TéchinéDramaFranceRomance

    Berthe, an elderly widow, is forced by her declining health to close the French farmhouse where she has spent much of her life. She moves in with her daughter Émilie and son-in-law Bruno, who share a legal practice and have two grown children: Anne, a law student, and Lucien, who was adopted. In spite of Émilie’s efforts, Berthe is not happy in her daughter’s bourgeois home in Blagnac. She sits by the swimming pool in the middle of the night talking to herself and finds the house pretentious. Worried about her mother’s physical and mental health, Émilie pays a visit to her unmarried younger brother, Antoine, a neurosurgeon. They have not seen each other for three years, since they quarreled at their father’s funeral. Émilie informs Antoine of their mother’s condition and invites him to Christmas dinner with the family.Read More »

  • Patrick Bokanowski – Le canard à l’orange (2002)

    2001-2010ExperimentalFrancePatrick BokanowskiShort Film

    PLOT:
    A housewife is preparing a duck à l’orange in her kitchen. But the reluctant bird tries to escape from her but the woman manages to recaptures it and plucks it savagely. Once the duck is put in the oven, an alligator unexpectedly appears in the kitchen, threatening the cook. She tries to escape from it first, then pursues it and finally sits down at the table with it. Meanwhile, the duck succeeds in opening the the door of the oven and flies away through the open window.Read More »

  • Benoït Philippon – Lullaby for Pi (2010)

    France2001-2010Benoït PhilipponComedyRomance

    A washed-up musician befriends a reclusive artist with an unusual name.

    Quote:
    I guess I’m a snob when it comes to Canadian movies – I just assume they will be kinda crappy and low budget and disappointing.

    I really enjoyed this movie. It didn’t give me any of that ‘Canadian’ vibe. It was really well written and not like so many movies that are just like everything else you’ve seen.

    The characters are real and you care about them. I was pleasantly pulled into this movie and got lost in the story, unlike many of your more shallow Hollywood fare.

    This movie is worth your time.

    If you’re looking for a creative artistic movie that isn’t your standard stupid mainstream junk, then this is for you.Read More »

  • Maria Klonaris & Katerina Thomadaki – Double Labyrinthe (1976)

    1971-1980ExperimentalFranceKaterina ThomadakiMaria Klonaris

    Quote:
    “A quest for identity through a series of disguises that do not involve costumes but gestures, materials and objects. The theorem of cross-dressing: by superimposing a different behavior, one that is socially defined, in the middle of everyday life, subjects search for the most intimate layers of their identity. In this sense, their relationships with materials, gestures and objects function as instances of exploratory “acting out”.Read More »

  • Yves Mirande & Georges Lacombe – Derrière la Façade AKA Behind the Facade (1939)

    1931-1940CrimeFranceGeorges LacombeMysteryYves Mirande

    Synopsis
    Two rival police inspectors, Boucheron and Baumer, investigate the murder of the owner of a well-to-do apartment block. Madame Mathieu has been found stabbed to death in the lift, and there is no shortage of suspects. The murder weapon is a knife which belongs to a resident knife thrower, Picking, and which is found in the room of a kleptomaniac, Corbeau. No sooner have these two suspects been arrested than a young bank clerk, André, confesses – not to the murder but to defrauding his employer. Could the murderer be the sinister Eric, who is revealing his nasty character during a game of cards? Could it be the unscrupulous Alfredo, a classy crook who abuses women? Or could it be the son of the respectable Président Bernier, eager to repay his father for having a mistress? As they delve deeper into the private lives of the dead woman’s tenants, Boucheron and Baumer make more than a few surprising discoveries. But will they solve the crime..?Read More »

  • Abel Ferry – Putain, la Vieille Faut Pas l’Enerver! (2001)

    2001-2010Abel FerryCampFranceShort Film

    quick plot from gabbyheinze.com:
    a dwarf & an “older woman” have just robbed a bank (it was a blood bath) and now they are hiding at the sordid Mucus Hotel.
    as a tradition, the older woman always likes to have sex after robbing a bank…but the dwarf is not too hot about it…Read More »

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