France

  • Claude Lelouch – L’Aventure, c’est l’Aventure AKA Money Money Money (1972)

    1971-1980Claude LelouchComedyCrimeFrance

    Realising that times have changed, five unscrupulous crooks decide it is time for a reappraisal of their line of business. Prostitutes are demanding the right to strike, workers now dismiss their bosses rather than the other way round, and the world is being refashioned by political and social revolutions. For Lino, Jacques, Simon, Charlot and Aldo, the days of robbing banks are a thing of the past. Now they decide to make an active participation in this brave new world, by hijacking aeroplanes and kidnapping high-profile public figures, starting with the rock singer Johnny Halliday. It proves to be a very lucrative enterprise, until one of their victims turns the tables on them…Read More »

  • Dominik Moll – Le moine AKA The Monk (2011)

    2011-2020Dominik MollDramaFranceThriller

    Synopsis:
    Madrid, in the seventeenth century. Abandoned at the doorstep of a monastery, Ambrosio has been brought up by the Capucin Friars. After becoming a friar himself, he becomes an unrivaled preacher whose sermons draw crowds and earn him the admiration of all. Admired for his extreme rigor and absolute virtue, Ambrosio is certain he is safe from any temptation. But Satan has not said his final word…Read More »

  • Marcel L’Herbier – L’Inhumaine aka The Inhuman Woman (1924)

    1921-1930AdventureDramaFranceMarcel L'Herbier

    Quote:
    Claire Lescot is a famous first lady. All men want to be loved by her and among them is the young scientist Einar Norsen. When she mocks at him, he leaves her house with the declared intention to kill himself.Read More »

  • Didier Philippe-Gérard – Stéphanie recto-verso (1978)

    1971-1980Didier Philippe-GérardEroticaFrance

    Quote:
    Stephanie (Jacqueline) (Cathy Stewart) and Mark (Guy Royer) are having dinner when their friend Luke (Alban Ceray) arrives. He has a problem and must take Mark away to help solve it. At first reluctant, Mark goes off with Luke. But it is just an excuse for them to visit two of their mistresses, Diane Dubois and Marion Schultz. Mark arrives home exhausted and Jacqueline serves him a coffee, with a blowjob to provide the cream.Read More »

  • Jacques Rivette – Merry-Go-Round (1981)

    1981-1990ArthouseDramaFranceJacques Rivette

    Quote:
    So the story goes: Having completed only two (Duelle and Noroît) of the proposed four films in his quick-succession series Scenes from a Parallel Life, Jacques Rivette found himself hounded by investors and teetering on the edge of sanity. The result: Merry-Go-Round—a fascinatingly nonsensical ramble through the director’s own inland empire, featuring a scruffy Joe Dallesandro, as American abroad Ben Phillipps, and a sleepy-eyed Maria Schneider, as mystery woman Léo Hoffmann, wandering the French countryside in search of the elusive Elisabeth (Danièle Gegauff), the former’s girlfriend and the latter’s sister. Read More »

  • Ariane Mnouchkine – Le Dernier caravansérail (Odissées) (2006)

    Ariane Mnouchkine2001-2010ExperimentalFrancePerformance

    Plot Synopsis
    With characteristic invention, Ariane Mnouchkine, one of Europe’s most visionary stage directors, had the actors of Le Théâtre du Soleil improvise refugee stories based on what they’d gathered in a lifetime of newspaper reading before showing them the extraordinary letters on which THE LAST CARAVANSERAIL is based. Selected letters – written by Iranian, and Kurdish refugees held in France, Australia, Indonesia, New Zealand – were then organized into an episodic, non-linear, structure that honors and recalls Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey, manifold tales of war, no matter its cause, and its consequences. The 6-hour play, presented in two parts, neither points its finger at the West nor portrays the refugees as saintly; what it does is give dimension to withering statistics.Read More »

  • Humberto Solás – Le siècle des lumières AKA El siglo de las luces (1993)

    1991-2000DramaFranceHumberto Solás

    Synopsis:
    Three young aristocratic cousins in 18th-century Havana befriend a French merchant who protects them from various intrigues and introduces them to the ideas of the French Enlightenment and Revolution. An epic adventure ensues, connecting their lives through the Haitian revolution, populist revolts in Paris, Freemason plots and peasant uprisings in Spain.Read More »

  • Marcel Pagnol – Les lettres de mon moulin AKA Letters from My Windmill (1954)

    1951-1960ClassicsComedyFranceMarcel Pagnol

    It was to be Marcel Pagnol’s last film; like Mankiewicz, he did not make any movies (apart from a short) in the last twenty years of his life; probably busy writing his memoirs (“le Château De Ma Mère,La Gloire de Mon Père ” which were successfully tranfered to the screen by Yves Robert in the late eighties.).

    Alphonse Daudet’s short stories were tailor made for a Provençal director such as Pagnol;if you go to Provence,you can visit the windmill where Daudet was supposed to write his “letters” ;actually he never lived in this place,but in the castle of some of his friends near the legendary mill.But it’s true that most of the stories which were included in “LETTRES DE MON MOULIN” are true stories: Daudet was told about Maitre Cornille ,MR Seguin’s goat and others by peasants and shepherds he used to meet when he walked across the hills.Read More »

  • Joseph Morder – Les nuages américains (1984)

    France1981-1990DocumentaryExperimentalJoseph Morder

    On retrouve dans ce film le va-et-vient entre l’intime et le monde, entre le vrai et le faux dans ces passionnants Nuages américains, journal de Morder qui couvre la période de l’été 1982 au 1er janvier 1983. Le film se divise en deux parties : la première retrace son voyage aux Etats-Unis où le cinéaste est censé retrouver un ami avec qui il va rompre et une seconde, française, où il évoque une rencontre avec un autre garçon.Read More »

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