In the fall of 1963, Anne is becoming a teenager. She lives in Paris with her mother and her older sister, Frédérique. They’re just back from summer at the beach with their father. School starts. For Frédérique it’s the year of her first serious love, her first foray into politics (the Algerian question and “ban the bomb”), her first kiss from an older man, her first friend who runs away, and her first loss of friendship over values. For Anne, who watches her sister closely, it’s a year of her first period and of learning to talk to boys, dealing with unfair teachers, and sorting things out with mom after getting in trouble.Read More »
France
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Diane Kurys – Diabolo menthe AKA Peppermint Soda (1977)
1971-1980ComedyDiane KurysDramaFrance -
Jacques Rivette – Le coup du berger AKA Fool’s Mate (1956)
1951-1960DramaFranceJacques RivetteShort Film

Quote:
Claire (Virginie Vitry) is a chic young Parisian woman married to a somewhat older husband, Jean (Jacques Doniol-Valcroze). As this 28-minute trifle opens, she leaves her husband playing baroque music at the piano, telling him she is off to see her sister, Solange. In reality she meets her lover, Claude (Jean-Claude Brialy) at his apartment; after some idle chatter and love-making he tells her a story of the shriveled heads that the Jivaro indians used to give their lovers as tokens of affection but as she shivers in disgust, he gives her a mink instead. How will they hide it from her husband though?Read More » -
Dominique Abel & Fiona Gordon & Bruno Romy – La fée (2011)
2011-2020Bruno RomyComedyDominique AbelDramaFiona GordonFranceQuote:
CANNES — Dishing out another slew of colorfully anarchistic sight gags, Belgium-based trio Dominique Abel, Fiona Gordon and Bruno Romy are back with their latest Keystone-style romp, The Fairy (La Fee). Firmly grounded in the work of Chaplin, Keaton and especially Jacques Tati, to which they add a few welcome socio-political twists, these talented writers-directors-actors should have their wish granted with further arthouse exposure following an opening bow in the Cannes Directors’ Fortnight.
..Set in the gloomy port city of Le Havre, the film kicks off with its most successfully extended number when we’re introduced to a hotel night clerk, Dom (Abel), who’s pleasant soiree in front of the TV is interrupted with the arrival of an English tourist (Philippe Martz), and then of a svelte, shoeless woman (Gordon), who claims she’s a fairy and grants Dom three wishes. Like any self-respecting Frenchman living outside of Paris, Dom asks for a scooter and an endless supply of gas, and though he gets his wish, what he really wants is the love of the fairy herself.Read More »
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Benoît Jacquot – À jamais AKA Never Ever (2016)
2011-2020ArthouseBenoît JacquotDramaFranceQuote:
A girl who is a body artist fall in love with a director. But the man had a traffic accident and dead. This film express the feeling of love and lose.Read More » -
Jacques Doillon – Rodin (2017)
2011-2020DramaFranceJacques DoillonQuote:
On the centenary of Auguste Rodin’s death, Jacques Doillon delivers a useful educational tool for the armchair traveler too lazy to go to a museum. Or read a book. “Rodin” could also be watched as prep work before going to the Musée Rodin, a partner in the film’s production. What it’s not so good for is a cinema audience expecting more than a plodding two-hour lesson in the artist’s life. Given Doillon’s recent films (“Love Battles”), one could have imagined this would have more flesh pounding than clay kneading, but no, his “Rodin” is a meticulously reverential, handsomely lit and very dull biopic about the 19th century’s most revolutionary sculptor. Given the artist’s cachet among culture vultures, it’s likely some art houses will book a limited run, but reviews won’t be positive.Read More » -
Enki Bilal – Tykho Moon (1996)
Drama1991-2000Enki BilalFranceSci-FiThe McBee family has erected a government over a future ‘colony’, that looks like a run-down Paris divided into sectors by the Berlin Wall. All male family members suffer from a mysterious disease and are in urgent need of organ transplants. The perfect donor, Tykho Moon, probably has been killed in a fire, but according to rumours he’s still alive. Although assassins stalk the family members, the McBees start a hunt for Tykho. Trying to escape the dragnet, Alex, a sculptor, meets Lena, a killer posing as a whore. (imdb).Read More »
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Barbet Schroeder – Koko, le gorille qui parle AKA Koko, a Talking Gorilla (1978)
1971-1980Barbet SchroederDocumentaryFrancePenny Patterson, an American psychology student, began an experiment in primate communication in the early 1970s using a young zoo gorilla named Koko, who was loaned to Penny for the experiment. Due to a philosophical predisposition to consider that “humanizing” animals is wrong, and alarmed at the increasing publicity over the experiments, the zoo took back the gorilla, which by then had learned over three hundred signs and showed, to many observers, an almost human comprehension of her condition. This French documentary explores the experiments, the circumstances of Koko’s being withdrawn from them, and the question of the gorilla’s “civil rights,” if any.
– All Movie GuideRead More »
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Benoît Jacquot – Les enfants du placard AKA Closet Children (1977)
1971-1980Benoît JacquotDramaFranceNicola (Lou Castel) bears the psychological scars of unbearable guilt. As a boy, he was given the job of looking after his mentally unstable mother and protecting her from herself. One day, he and his sister went instead into a large closet and enacted a childishly intensive “I dare you” bonding ritual, marking one another with the blade of their father’s sword cane. While he was occupied in this manner, the boy’s mother hung herself and died. Now an adult, he still has an unhealthily strong fixation on his sister. This is so obvious that a girlfriend of his sister’s, with whom he has an affair, breaks it off, complaining that she is not interested in being a stand-in for the sister.Read More »
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Pierre Étaix & Jean-Claude Carrière – Heureux Anniversaire AKA Happy Anniversary (1962)
France1961-1970ComedyJean-Claude CarrièrePierre ÉtaixShort FilmSynopsis
A young woman sets the table for her wedding anniversary celebration. Her husband is stuck in Paris traffic. The few remaining errands he has to make only delay him more and more.Une jeune femme prépare la table pour fêter son anniversaire de mariage. Le mari se trouve coincé dans les encombrements parisiens. Les quelques arrêts pour les derniers achats ne font que le retarder davantage.
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