France

Synopsis:
Like his fiery study of a popular milieu in Fièvre, Louis Delluc’s early masterpiece of impressionist cinema, La Femme de Nulle Part, is almost impossible to see outside of rare archival projections in Paris. Shot in natural settings, and stripped of all that is not cinema, Delluc’s psychological drama featuring symbolist muse Eve Francis is an experiment in ‘direct style.’ A fascinating study in the relationship between past and present, memory, dream and reality, this revolutionary film would be a source of inspiration for successive filmmakers, from Francois Truffaut to Alain Resnais.Read More »

One of Rohmer’s most obscure works (the IMDB’s is the only filmography which lists it), a black-and-white short film, “Changing Landscapes” (“Metamorphoses du paysage”), made for TV in 1964. It appears to be part of a series with the overall title Vers l’unité du monde: L’ère industrielle. It’s a series of shots of the countryside and its transformation into an urban landscape, with a voiceover (in French, subtitled into English). The end credits call it “Une émission de Maurice Schérer” (i.e. Rohmer, using a variation of his real name). The cinematography is credited to Pierre Lhomme, a DP of some distinction but one who never worked on any of Rohmer’s features. “Changing Landscapes” is full-frame, running 22:20. It’s in remarkably good condition, with only a few scratches here and there. This tele-essay will no doubt be much too dry for a general audience, but Rohmer fans and completists will be glad to have it. (DVDTimes)Read More »

2011 restoration by La Cinémathèque Française of the re-edited sound version of Abel Gance’s 1927 epic silent film “Napoleon”.

French language only, no english subtitles.
One of the most high-profile casualties of the transition from silent to sound cinema was the French filmmaker Abel Gance. In the silent era, Gance had proven himself to be as great a cineaste as the other legendary pioneers of cinema, D.W. Griffith and Sergei Eisenstein, through a series of groundbreaking masterpieces that included J’accuse! (1919), La Roue (1923) and Napoléon (1927). It was the latter film that was to earn Gance particular acclaim and lasting recognition as one of the architects of cinema art, a five hour visionary epic that presented the early career of Napoléon Bonaparte with a visual artistry and panache that is, to this day, virtually unrivalled.Read More »

Comments
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A long time ago, I went to see Michel Deville’s Le Dossier 51 knowing absolutely nothing about it. About 5 minutes in, I realized I had made a terrible mistake, and I started to plan my exit from the middle seat where I was trapped. 5 minutes later, I had become intrigued enough by the weird experiment I was watching to be distracted from that plan. About 100 minutes after that, as the lights came up, I was convinced I had just seen a masterpiece, a film that should be mentioned in the same breath as The Conversation and Blow Out.Read More »

From IMDB
This original sexual comedy by the director Joël Séria, who also made the popular TV-series “Nestor Burma”, is full of unexpected situations between a man and women. A salesman of umbrellas, Henri Serin (a magnificent Jean-Pierre Marielle), is having sex with all the women of which he paints a portrait and which he encounters during his travels. While one is cooking in her kitchen, he is painting. Once he is invited but immediately expelled when he wants to unfold her traditional ribbon. Henri Serin falls for a very young woman which he can seduce while making a portrait of her. His only friend is a modernist priest (Romain Bouteille) who likes to talk with him in the local bar. Henri Serin does not think of tomorrow and lives “la vie d’artiste”. Life is beautiful and sex is life.Read More »

Synopsis
Ni Vu, Ni Connu (Neither Seen Nor Recognized) is built around the talents of rubber-faced Gallic comedian Louis De Funes. Our hero is a poacher in a small provincial village, who always manages to stay one step ahead of the Law. Through a fluke, De Funes finds himself the town’s Leading Citizen when he is falsely arrested on another charge, forcing the village elders to bend over backwards making amends.

Blaireau, un braconnier très adroit, ravitaille tout le pays en gibier. Un soir, son ennemi de toujours, le garde champêtre Parju, se fait rosser. Ce dernier, persuadé, à tort, d’être la victime de Blaireau, le fait arrêter. Néanmoins, grâce à un directeur de prison compréhensif et aux attentions de la belle Arabella, son séjour en cellule ne sera pas trop rude. D’autant plus que « l’erreur judiciaire » sera découverte, Parju ridiculisé et le retour de Blaireau au village sera triomphal.Read More »

In Jacques Tati’s charming – and essentially plotless – pre-Hulot first feature, Tati is Francois, a contented and happy postman in a small, unhurried French village. Francois is at ease with his job and leisurely performs his duties, peddling away on his rounds upon his beloved bicycle. Things perk up when a traveling carnival arrives in town. One of the attractions at the carnival is a film depicting the United States Postal Service’s fast and efficient postal delivery system. The narrator in the film exhorts, “Rapidite, rapidite.” Francois takes up the call, and attempts to Americanize his work style.Read More »

Francis Veber directs this hilarious comedy about François (Pierre Richard), a desperate, novice, bumbling bank robber who takes an ex-con hostage during his attempted hold-up. They are both chased by the police. Jean (Gérard Depardieu) plays the convicted bank robber just released from jail and forced to escape with François. Anaïs Bret portrays François’ 6-year-old autistic daughter, and is the reason why he needed money so badly that he would steal for it. An inventive series of farcical situations and witty dialogue keeps the two men moving one step and several missteps ahead of the police. This comedy was so successful that Veber repeated it in 1989 for English-speaking audiences as Three Fugitives, starring Nick Nolte and Martin Short.

— Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie GuideRead More »

Le Démon du passage (The Demon of Passage)
35 mm – 14’ – 1995
“Fictional” reconstruction of the chain of mental images that make the visions of the photographer Jean-Luc Moulène appear.Read More »