France

  • Jacques Rozier – Adieu Philippine (1962)

    1961-1970ArthouseDramaFranceJacques Rozier

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    Summary: Michel is a young man who works as a trainee operator in television, a temporary job before his military service. He meets and becomes friendly with two young women, Liliane and Juliette, aspiring actresses who lack the talent to land roles in anything greater than mediocre TV ads. The three friends share a holiday in Corsica, which will be Michel’s last break before being drafted into the French army, most probably to fight in the war in Algeria.Read More »

  • Stéphane Marti – Allegoria (1979)

    1971-1980ExperimentalFranceQueer Cinema(s)Short FilmStéphane Marti

    Quote:
    “A filmmaker and academic, Stephane Marti has pursued cinema as a visual art form, divorced from the codes of the dominant narrative cinema, since 1976. He is a passionate and militant advocate of Super-8, a filmmaking tool which he has used for 30 years.

    His work has been shown in festivals and international presentations and has elicited numerous articles and interviews. His flamboyant, baroque and sensual style focuses principally on the Body and the Sacred.Read More »

  • Pierre Grunstein – Tendre Dracula (1974)

    1971-1980ExploitationFranceHorrorPierre Grunstein

    Quote:
    Two writers and their girlfriends visit the castle of an actor who specializes in playing vampire roles. As the night progresses, they begin to wonder if the man is an actor playing a vampire, or a vampire playing an actor.Read More »

  • Maroun Bagdadi – L’homme voilé AKA The Veiled Man (1987)

    1981-1990DramaFranceMaroun BagdadiThriller

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    Synopsis
    Claire (Laure Marsac) is a 16-year-old young woman who discovers her father Pierre (Bernard Giraudeau) is not a healing physician but a killer with a bloody war record in the Lebanese conflict. She runs away from home and into the arms of Kamal (Michal Albertini). While Pierre stalks two terrorists, Claire and Kamal are violently confronted by Kamal’s abandoned wife and family. The ravages of the conflict extend to those who are never participants in the battle but are among the casualties of war.Read More »

  • Leos Carax – Les amants du Pont-Neuf AKA The Lovers on the Bridge (1991)

    1991-2000ArthouseFranceLeos CaraxRomance

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    “Wiki wrote:
    Set around the Pont Neuf, Paris’s oldest bridge, while it was closed for repairs, Les Amants du Pont-Neuf depicts a love story between two young vagrants. Alex, a street performer addicted to alcohol and sedatives and Michèle, a painter driven to a life on the streets because of a failed relationship and a disease which is slowly destroying her sight. The film portrays their harsh existence living on the bridge with Hans, an older vagrant. As her vision deteriorates Michèle becomes increasingly dependent on Alex. When a possible treatment becomes available, Michèle’s family use street posters and radio appeals to trace her. Fearing that she will leave him if she receives the treatment, Alex tries to keep Michèle from becoming aware of her family’s attempts to find her. The streets, skies and waterways of Paris are used as a backdrop for the story in a series of set-pieces set during the French Bicentennial celebrations in 1989.Read More »

  • Mia Hansen-Løve – Un amour de jeunesse AKA Goodbye First Love (2011)

    2011-2020DramaFranceMia Hansen-Løve

    Synopsis
    A chronicle of the romance between Camille and Sullivan, which begins during their adolescence.

    Fifteen-year-old Camille (Lola Créton) is a serious, intensely focused girl who has fallen in love with cheerful Sullivan (Sebastian Urzendowsky), an older boy who reciprocates her feelings, mostly, but wants to be free to explore the world. When he leaves her to travel through South America, she is devastated. But over the next eight years, she develops into a more fully formed woman, with new interests and a new love-and the possibility that she’ll be less defenseless when Sullivan enters her life again. Filled with scenes that showcase her extraordinary ability to evoke moods and feelings, Hansen-Løve takes the story of a girl’s first romance and makes it into a singular experience, familiar in its broad strokes and yet so specific that it feels uniquely personal.Read More »

  • Claude Lelouch – Les Uns et les autres AKA Bolero: Dance of Life (1981)

    1981-1990Claude LelouchDramaFranceMusical

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    Synopsis :

    Russian ballet dancer Tatiana (Rita Poelvoorde) loses a competition to become her school’s #1 ballerina, but marries Boris Itovich (Jorge Donn). The war blights their lives, but their son Sergei (Donn) eventually becomes a top dancer himself. Parisian music hall musicians Anne and Simon Meyer (Nicole Garcia and Robert Hossein) marry, only to be deported to a concentration camp. They cast their infant out to chance, and he grows up to be a lawyer (Hossein) who wonders where his son Patrick (Manuel Gélin) gets his musical ability. Big band leader Jack Glenn (James Caan) does USO duty while in the Army, but returns to his singer wife Suzan (Geraldine Chaplin). Their children Sara and Jason (Chaplin and Caan) become respectively a big pop singer and a film director. German piano virtuoso Karl Kremer (Daniel Olbrychski) plays for Hitler in 1938, which complicates his career as an orchestra conductor later in life. Evelyne (Evelyn Bouix) comes to a sorry end after taking many lovers in wartime Paris, including German officers; her daughter Edith (Bouix) returns to Paris and eventually tries a career in dancing. Somehow, the multiple threads of so many creative lives converge at a charity dance concert of Ravel’s Bolero at the foot of the Eiffel Tower.Read More »

  • Catherine Breillat – Tapage Nocturne AKA Nocturnal Uproar (1979)

    1971-1980ArthouseCatherine BreillatFranceRomance

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    Synopsis
    A completely routine drama involving sexual situations and rough characters, this story directed and written by Catherine Breillat looks at the liaison between Solange (Dominique Laffin) and Bruno (Bertrand Bonvoisin). Solange is the female version of a womanizing film director who is confident about her conquests and her ability to figure out men. Along comes Bruno, and Solange’s faith in her knowledge of men is put to a test and found wanting. In spite of her better judgment, she is undeniably attracted to Bruno though the man is going to be trouble in a big way. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie GuideRead More »

  • Jean Renoir – La Règle du jeu AKA Rules of the Game [+Extras] (1939)

    1931-1940Amos Vogel: Film as a Subversive ArtClassicsDramaFranceJean Renoir

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    Synopsis
    Widely regarded as one of the greatest films ever made, Jean Renoir’s masterpiece The Rules of the Game is a scathing critique of corrupt French society cloaked in a comedy of manners. At a weekend hunting party, amorous escapades abound among the aristocratic guests and are mirrored by the activities of the servants downstairs. The refusal of one of the guests to play by society’s rules sets off a chain of events that ends in tragedy. Poorly received upon its release in 1939, the film was severely re-edited, and the original negative was destroyed during World War II. Only in 1959 was the film fully reconstructed and embraced by audiences and critics who now see the film as a timeless representation of a vanishing way of life.Read More »

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