French

  • André Cayatte – L’amour en question AKA Question of Love (1978)

    1971-1980André CayatteCrimeDramaFrance

    PLOT: In the French legal system, a judge-magistrate conducts criminal investigations. In this story, Suzanne Corbier (Annie Girardot) is one such magistrate who is called upon to determine whether Catherine, who has been having an affair with an Englishman, conspired with him to murder her impotent husband, who condoned the affair. When Suzanne comes to a conclusion, she still must deal with the political demands of her office and her superiors.Read More »

  • Julien Duvivier – La fin du jour (1939)

    Julien Duvivier1931-1940DramaFrance

    Synopsis wrote:
    Aged penniless actors are living in a old people’s home. They always talk about their past glory or failures. One day Raphael Saint-Clair comes; he has been a famous actor and had a lot of love affairs. Passions come back, and jealousies… A bitter film about aging, failure and the entertainment.Read More »

  • Michel Deville – Nuit d’été en ville aka Summer Night in Town (1990)

    Drama1981-1990FranceMichel DevilleRomance

    A naked man and woman, post-coitus, talk about their love lives, their romantic ideals and the past darknesses they have grappled with. As dawn approaches, they begin to get dressed again, and the moment of separation draws nearer.Read More »

  • Bruno Dumont – L’humanité AKA Humanity (1999)

    1991-2000Bruno DumontDramaFranceMystery

    Quote:
    When an 11-year-old girl is brutally raped and murdered in a quiet French village, a police detective who has forgotten how to feel emotions–because of the death of his own family in some kind of accident–investigates the crime, which turns out to ask more questions than it answers.Read More »

  • Henri Verneuil – I… comme Icare AKA I as in Icarus (1979)

    1971-1980CrimeDramaFranceHenri Verneuil

    Quote:
    Conspiracy thriller inspired by the conspiracy theories surrounding the assassination of JFK. After a fictional president is assassinated, a determined, tough prosecutor investigates the emerging conspiracy behind it.Read More »

  • Robert Guédiguian – À la place du coeur AKA Where the Heart Is (1998)

    1991-2000DramaFranceRobert Guédiguian

    Based on James Baldwin’s novel “If Beale Street Could Talk” (1974), the action is transferred from Harlem to present day working class districts around Marseilles harbour. The movie chronicles the inter-racial love story between white Clem and black Bebe, who was adopted by a white family, along with his sister. They plan to marry but Bebe is in prison accused of raping a Bosnian refugee who, manipulated by a racist white policeman, has disappeared after denouncing him.Read More »

  • Quentin Dupieux – Fumer fait tousser AKA Smoking Causes Coughing (2022)

    2021-2030ComedyFranceQuentin DupieuxSci-Fi

    PLOT: A group of vigilantes called the “tobacco-forces” is falling apart. To rebuild team spirit, their leader suggests that they meet for a week-long retreat, before returning to save the world.Read More »

  • Nacer Khemir – Sheherazade: Words Against Death (2011)

    Nacer Khemir2011-2020African CinemaArthouseFantasyTunisia

    The collected work known as “One Thousand and One Nights” survived for centuries through generations of Arab storytellers, and is now recognized as an integral part of world literature. In this filmed performance, storyteller/filmmaker Nacer Khemir sits on chair in the middle of a dimly lit stage and deploys the magic of words to take us on a journey of the imagination. This simple set-up may not seem like much, but it offers the listener an extraordinarily colorful experience and brilliantly emphasizes the oral nature of the work. As we listen to the expertly told stories, we are equally charmed by their intricacies and entranced by their interconnectedness. Even though Khemir illustrates some of the stories with beautifully filmed sequences, the audience’s ability to listen is paramount here. Sheherazade used words to avoid impending death, Khemir uses the art of storytelling to breathe a new life into this ancient masterwork.Read More »

  • Agnès Varda – Documenteur (1981)

    1981-1990Agnès VardaDocumentaryFrance

    Quote:
    Documenteur, Agnès Varda’s companion piece and follow-up to her documentary Mur murs, shares with it a filming location and a similarly punning title (a menteur is a liar, in French). But the similarities end there: while Mur murs is a more or less straightforward film that purports to document the murals, the artists who created them, and the effect the pictures have on the neighborhoods surrounding them, Documenteur, which includes shots of some of those same murals and has scenes set in those same neighborhoods, is, by its own admission, “an emotion picture.” Neither pure fictional feature film nor documentary, it’s perhaps best described as a documentary with a fictionalized main character.Read More »

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