Quote:
Leos Carax’s story of two homeless bums and their relationship is built around these contradictions and tensions that make the film a struggle to grasp. It’s a warm, beautiful and intimate film, but it’s also filled with harsh, repulsive imagery and a protagonist who is so rampantly selfish he makes spats of the film hard to watch as this almost naïve and childlike relationship is filled with dark, abusive undertones.Read More »
France
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Leos Carax – Les amants du Pont-Neuf AKA The Lovers on the Bridge (1991)
1991-2000DramaFranceLeos CaraxRomance -
Claire Denis – Nénette et Boni AKA Nenette and Boni (1996)
1991-2000ArthouseClaire DenisDramaFranceSynopsis wrote:
Teenage siblings Nenette and Boni were raised apart as a result of their parents’ divorce. Their mother, who doted on her son Boni, has died. He works for an interesting couple as a pizza baker, and is surprised and enraged when his younger sister, having run away from boarding school, suddenly turns up. There’s a problem that they must confront.Read More » -
Gaspar Noé – Sodomites (1998)
1991-2000EroticaFranceGaspar NoéShort FilmIconoclastic indie filmmaker Gaspar Noe is as soft-spoken as his films are abrasive. The force behind the short film “Carne” (1991) and “I Stand Alone” (1998) — two visually explosive and delectably warped odes to the ordinary madness of a misunderstood horse butcher — Noe writes, directs, produces, shoots and edits films so distinctive that his films have already developed cult followings.
As part of a French government initiative to promote the use of condoms through graphic depictions of their proper use, Noe made the short “Sodomites” and handled camera duties on Hadzihalilovic’s “Good Boys Use Condoms.”Read More »
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Henri Decoin – Les Inconnus dans la Maison aka Strangers in the House (1942)
1941-1950ClassicsCrimeFranceHenri DecoinSynopsis:
Since his wife left him, almost twenty years ago, the once brilliant lawyer Loursat has slumped into a life of despondency and drunkenness. He lives in a vast empty house with his teenage daughter, Nicole, with whom he hardly communicates. One fateful day, something happens which pulls Loursat back from the abyss: he discovers a dead body in his house. When his daughter and her group of rebellious young friends are charged with the murder, Loursat decides to take charge of the case.Read More » -
Lucile Hadzihalilovic – Nectar (2014)
2011-2020DramaFranceLucile HadzihalilovicShort FilmQuote:
In a park, a round chamber. Inside, women are taking part in a perfectly runin ritual. The queen hands out her nectar. But a new circuit is already in preparation.Read More » -
Raoul Ruiz – Poetics of Cinema 2 (2007)
2001-2010BooksFranceRaoul RuizQuote:
“Eleven years separate these lines from the first part of my Poetics of Cinema. Meanwhile the world has changed and cinema with it. Poetics of Cinema, 1 had much of a call to arms about it. What I write today is rather more of a consolatio philosophica. However, let no one be mistaken about this, a healthy pessimism may be better than a suicidal optimism.” Following his research in Poetics of Cinema, 1 on new narrative models as tools for apprehending a fast-shifting world, Ruiz makes an appeal for an entirely new way of filming, writing and conceiving the image. “‘Light, more light,’ were Goethe’s last words as he died. ‘Less light, less light,’ Orson Welles cried repeatedly on a set–the one and only time I saw him. In today’s cinema (and in today’s world) there is too much light. It is time to return to the shadows. So, about turn! And back to the caverns!”Read More » -
Henri Desfontaines – Belphégor (1927)
France1921-1930Henri DesfontainesSilentThrillerRestored by “La Cinémathèque Française” in 1988
Plot :
A ghost has been seen during the night in the Louvre Museum (Paris), and a guard is found dying near the statue of Belphégor, a god of Moabites and Ammonites. A young reporter, Jacques Bellegarde, begin to investigate but soon he’s being threatened by some letters sent by … BelphégorIt’s a silent mini-serie in 4 parts, after a popular book of Arthur Bernède, in the style of the 1st Fantômas (in fact, René Navarre was Fantômas in the Louis Feuillade’s movie)
Nearly 40 years later, a remake of this serie was made with Juliette Greco and met a great success in France, and is much better known that this one.Read More »
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Raphaël Siboni – Il n’y a pas de rapport sexuel AKA There is no sexual rapport (2011)
2011-2020DocumentaryEroticaFranceRaphaël SiboniQuote:
A rambling, amusing and occasionally poignant examination of one man’s career as a director/performer of pornography. This behind-the-scenes look at the skin flick trade and its prominent purveyor Hervé P. Gustave, who goes by the moniker HPG, reveals the trials and tribulations that go hand in hand (or shaft in slot, as the case may be) with the creation of said material, such as getting money shots, shooting around anatomy for soft porn gigs, and coaxing reluctant amateurs to perform as the clock is ticking. Culled from 10 years of oh-so-very-unerotic footage, renowned visual artist Siboni shapes an intriguing portrait, one that never glorifies or condemns its subject or his chosen profession.Read More » -
Henri-Georges Clouzot – L’assassin habite… au 21 aka The Murderer Lives at 21 [+extra] (1942)
1941-1950ComedyFranceHenri-Georges ClouzotMysteryEureka, Masters of Cinema wrote:
One of the most revered names in world cinema, Henri – Georges Clouzot, made a remarkably self – assured debut in 1942 with the deliciously droll thriller The Murderer Lives at 21 [L ‘ Assassin habite au 21].A thief and killer stalks the streets of Paris, leaving a calling card from “Monsieur Durand” at the scene of each crime. But after a cache of these macabre identifications is discovered by a burglar in the boarding house at 21 Avenue Junot, Inspector Wenceslas Vorobechik (Pierre Fresnay) takes lodging at the infamous address in an undercover bid to solve the crime, with help from his struggling – actress girlfriend Mila (Suzy Delair).
Featuring audacious directorial touches, brilliant performances, and a daring tone that runs the gamut from light comedy to sinister noir, as well as a subtle portrait of tensions under Nazi occupation, this overlooked gem from the golden age of French cinema is presented in a beautiful new high – definition restoration.Read More »









