In a kind of philosophical dialogue, Doctor Augustin Masset and renowned writer Fabrice Toussaint discuss life and death… A whirlwind of encounters in which the doctor is the guide and the writer, his passenger, led to confront his own fears and anxieties.Read More »
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When a father gets out of prison, he comes home to his wife and two teen-age kids to pick up where he left off. That is to say, he intends to raise his kids right and continue burglarizing his way into the easy life. He joins up again with his old partner Faucon, but early on Papa’s wily son cons him into making him a partner too. The years go by, and just when the family seems poised for the big time, an obstacle pops up from a totally unexpected sector…Read More »
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“The Sleeping Car Murders is one of those French mystery films that makes you marvel at the flashy versatility of the detectives and the cinematographers of France. It is also a delightful showcase for the family of Simone Signoret. She, her husband and her daughter twinkle beguilingly. It shouldn’t be missed by anyone interested in theatrical genealogy.Read More »
The Little Apocalypse is a 1993 French comedy film, an adaptation of Tadeusz Konwicki’s novel, directed by Costa-Gavras. It was entered into the 43rd Berlin International Film Festival. It follows the trials of a Pole who lives in France who wants his written work published. Unable to get anywhere, he starts to enlist help from others, resorting to some unusual extremes.
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An unknown Polish writer can’t publish his novels, so his ex-wife decides to help him and get some of the profit for herself. She finally finds a publisher, but there’s a strange single condition that could cost the writer his life.Read More »
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With his wife dying a slow and undignified natural death, Michel prepares to leave France and catch a plane to Caracas. At the airport, he has second thoughts. Whilst walking the streets of Paris, he runs into Lydia, a middle-aged woman whose husband is brain damaged after a car accident in which her daughter died. Michel and Lydia find mutual support in each other’s company, but are they destined for one another…?Read More »
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Son of a shoe manufacturer, Georges Méliès decided to devote himself to magic. In 1888, he used his share of the inheritance to buy the Robert-Houdin Theater, Boulevard des Italiens, where his fairy-tale shows drew crowds. Seven years later, dazzled by the animated image of the Lumière brothers, he launches into a new art form, cinema. His thirst for enchantment led him to invent special effects. But the evolution of the public’s taste and the passage of the cinema to the industrial era put away his dream machine. Forgotten, he ends up running a toy store in the Montparnasse train station. In 1923, in a fit of despair, he destroyed the negatives of his films. Since then, film buffs all over the world have found and restored reels.
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Costa-Gavras’s tense political drama opens in an unspecified South American country (though clearly intended to be Chile) in the throes of a military coup. American activist Charles Horman (John Shea), who has been a thorn in the side of the country’s military ever since his arrival, suddenly disappears. In trying to find out what has happened, his wife Beth (Sissy Spacek) is stonewalled, not only by the ruling junta but by the American consulate. His father, staunchly patriotic Ed Horman (Jack Lemmon), joins Beth in her search. Ed and his daughter-in-law have never seen eye to eye politically, and he refuses to entertain the notion that his son’s disappearance might be part of a larger conspiracy or cover-up. Read More »
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Armin Mueller-Stahl plays Hungarian family man Mike Laszlo, whose American citizenship is suddenly threatened when reports unearthed from a UN basement link him to horrific war crimes as part of an SS Death Squad.
He immediately turns to his daughter, defense lawyer Ann Talbot (Jessica Lange) who dismisses the charge, assuming it to be a simple case of mistaken identity. When the case progresses quickly to court, Ann goes against the advice of her peers and represents her father to defend him against the onslaught of allegations thrown at him by the prosecution (Frederic Forrest). Read More »
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This French anthology is a tribute to A Propos de Nice (1930), a classic documentary that took a poetic and sometimes satirical look at life in the French Riviera town. This version blends fact and fiction to chronicle life in modern-day Nice and is comprised of seven vignettes, each directed by an internationally renowned filmmaker. Only one of the episodes, “Reperages,” from Iranian directors Abbas Kiarostami and Parviz Kimiavi, stays close to the style of the original film by Jean Vigo as it chronicles the experiences of a filmmaker who came to Nice to do research on Vigo for his upcoming documentary. Read More »