2010s

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true tale of Bonnie & Clyde, but one that’s much more about Bonnie than her beau, L’Astragale was an immense critical and public success when it was first published in France back in 1965. Written by the young, Algeria-born Albertine Sarrazin – whose autobiographical account of her life as a stick-up girl, prostitute, prisoner and bisexual lover, made her the distaff equivalent of Jean Genet – the novel was first brought to the screen in 1968 by director Guy Casaril, with actress Marlene Jobert (We Won’t Grow Old Together) making a splash in the lead role. (Horst Buchholz, aka Chico from The Magnificent Seven, played her partner-in-crime.)Read More »

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In his fourth film as director and as the only professional actor in a cast of amateurs, Mathieu Amalric stars as Joachim, a washed-up television producer who, after leaving his life in Paris for the United States, returns home for a cross-country tour with a burlesque troupe. Joachim takes the troupe, played by actual burlesque performers with stage names like Kitten on the Keys and Dirty Martini, to show after show in towns along the coast (amusingly, the outline of their travel path resembles a bare breast). Joachim serves only as the ladies’ manager (when he tries to give them performance notes, they reject his advice), but they form a ramshackle surrogate family that – wait for it – comes to stand in for the actual family Joachim left behind. When the venue for the troupe’s planned grand finale in Paris pulls out, he must return to the capital to find another; while there, he reunites with his young children, an ex-lover, and various other people from his past.Read More »

In the trilogy’s second chapter, Jo (Jeanette Hain), a big-city police psychologist, arrives in Dreileben to aid in the ongoing investigation, whereupon she finds herself greeted cooly by the local authorities but welcomed with open arms by Vera (Susanne Wolff), a college friend who lives nearby with her husband, a pretentious author. As the girlfriends reminisce about bygone days and discover they were both once in love with the same man, director Dominik Graf deftly juxtaposes their personal drama against the search for a killer, a police corruption scandal, and a possible case of interspecies transmutation—all underlining the trilogy’s recurring themes of false appearances and deeply hidden truths.Read More »

Devil’s Pie is a psychological drama in the (musical) universe of D’Angelo. The film tells the story of a great musical talent who returns into the public arena after 14 years of absence in destruction. While we discover his musical vision and talents, the documentary tells the story of a man who is stuck between fears and dreams. It’s about the price of fame, the loneliness of an artist and the pressure of the music industry.Read More »

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Castro, once a tv star, is now an animator on the way back. Today his driver, Manu leading him to the housewarming party of his old producer and girlfriend Nathalie, has moved to a beautiful house in the neighborhood of Paris . Hélène, the sister of Nathalie and ex-wife of Castro, is also invited. When they were young, they shared the same ideals, but success did Castro in a pragmatist (or rather cynic) remained faithful to her convictions while Hélène.Read More »

TOP GIRL is the second part of the women and work trilogy by the writer-director Tatjana Turanskyj. Helena, 29, a single mother with an 11-year-old daughter, is a moderately successful actress who earns a living as an escort in the sex industry. Her relationship with her own mother, a singing teacher, is tense, and she is also increasingly annoyed with her job. Snapshots from the brittle contemporary biography of a working woman, part 2: Helena at work, decked out in latex, batting her eyelashes and brandishing sex toys. Helena finally comes up with a new sexual service: when the hunt is over, the women have been brought down and the men crow in triumph, there she stands, beautiful, severe and implacable. Like an absolute ruler.Read More »

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The architect, a contemporary master, Renzo Piano. The filmmaker, another contemporary master, Carlos Saura.Read More »

White Deer Plain is a 2011 Chinese drama film directed by Wang Quan’an and based on the novel of the same name by Chen Zhongshi. In the White Deer Village in Shaanxi Province the two most important families – Bai and Lu – and their sons have always lived together in peace. But the turmoil leads to a fierce struggle for land ownership.Read More »

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Mitsuko is 24, heavily pregnant and estranged from the American father of her child. Her parents believe she is happy and successful in America and are unaware that she has secretly returned to Tokyo. Making the biggest decisions on the slightest whim, she moves back into the tenement street where she lived as a child. The move changes lives, reignites old romances and creates a supportive circle of love that may be exactly what Mitsuko needs.Read More »