France

Variety review :
“Is Gallic helmer Jean-Stephane Sauvaire hooked on violence? Almost everyone appearing in his documentary “Carlitos Medellin” was dead by the time it was edited, while his fictional “Johnny Mad Dog” headlined a murderous child soldier. Next to these earlier offerings, the violence in “Punk” seems relatively mild, though the rage and frustration fueling its teenage protagonist fairly explode off the screen. Released in France as a TV movie under another title, this vibrant evocation of the contemporary European punk scene impresses, but looks oddly, unavowedly time-warped, as if unfolding in punk’s ’70s/’80s heyday, considerably lessening distrib possibilities.Read More »

Situated in the vein of Rimbaud, Lautréamont, Dostoievski and Benjamin and of free jazz and punk, this film bears witness to the iniquitous policies that shape our era, the “infernal” nature of certain political lives or black bodies (those of immigrants, emigrants, workers, the unemployed, students…). It operates, as a minority film, in a critical stasis of mythical and mainstream realities, and deals with the issue of revolt and insurrection: excesses, disidentification, unclear reconfiguration… We are presented, through a dialectical reversal, “non-places” that cannot be assimilated, utopias, corps-impossibles.Read More »

Synopsis:
Rare is the film in movie-history that can announce the entire movement of it’s ‘plot’ with its title alone. But Pialat’s second feature, Nous Ne Viellirons Pas Ensemble does exactly that, encapsulating all the turmoil, and the final end-point, of a couple who among themselves once made a commitment – and living together will come to make another one yet. Jean (Jeane Yanne, of Godard’s Weekend) and Catherine (Marlene Jobert, of Godard’s Masculin Feminin) are the couple whose every move charts an advancement deeper into an emotional warzone. Theirs is the classic and the tragic case of an emotional abuse centered around a perplexing, but powerful, interdependency. Read More »

Synopsis:
At the end of 1972, con artist and thief Simon receives a remission to celebrate the New Year outside La Santé Prison. While heading to his apartment in Paris to meet his mistress Françoise, Simon notices that a car is chasing his cab. In the apartment, Simon leans that Françoise has a lover and he leaves the place without being noticed. Simon recalls the Christmas of 1966, when he travels out-season to Cannes with his partner and friend Charlot to heist the jewellers Van Cleef and Arpels. While plotting a scheme to rob the jewellers, Simon meets the intellectual antique dealer Françoise whose shop is the next-door neighbor of the target and he falls in love with her. But his scheme does not work as planned and Simon is arrested.Read More »

Jean-Paul Belmondo and Ursula Andress star in another adventure comedy from Philippe de Broca (That Man from Rio), that’s roughly based on a Jules Vernes story of the same title. Belmondo plays a rich man tired of his life who arranges for a hitman to take him out so that his fiancee will get the insurance money. Only, wouldn’t you know it, Belmondo changes his mind. Andress is a fan-dancer who gets mixed up, thinking it’s all a gag. There’s a lot of slapstick, chases, fights, balloon rides, mountain climbing and exotic locales. Oh, did I mention that Belmondo attempts a striptease while in drag?Read More »

Synopsis:
Not long after pulling off a spectacular train robbery in Great Britain, the criminal genius The Brain is soon planning his next lucrative enterprise. Joining forces with Mafia boss Scannapieco, he devises a scheme to steal the secret funds of the fourteen member countries of NATO whilst they are being transferred by train between Paris and Brussels. By chance, precisely the same plan has occurred to small-time crooks Arthur and Anatole. By imitating The Brain’s methods, they confidently set about the heist that will make them millionaires. Unfortunately, nothing goes quite as planned…Read More »

M. Septime rules the renowned Paris restaurant “Chez Septime” with an iron fist. Grovelling before his rich and powerful customers, M. Septime feels free to treat his employees like children at best or like slaves at worst. M. Septime would be very happy if things just continued the way they are. But Destiny will have it otherwise. Indeed one day, Novales, a South American president, disappears while dining in his restaurant and it looks as if Septime has something to do with itRead More »

Quote:
A history teacher mets a hippy girl in Paris, he drops his job and starts a relation with her. So they start live together (vivre ensemble). A some point they do a trip to NY. Then they come back… Well this is the first film of Anna Karina as writer and director. Some images of Paris and NY in 72 are nice as an old postcard.Read More »

Synopsis:

Two parallel stories about two identical women; one living in Poland, the other in France. They don’t know each other, but their lives are nevertheless profoundly connected.

Review:

It is important to resist the temptation to figure out every last detail of “The Double Life of Veronique,” the mysterious and poetic new film by Krzysztof Kieslowski. That way lies frustration.Read More »