French

Al and Elsa have been a couple for some time, but the chances that their relationship will be long-lived are few. For one thing, Al is appallingly dependent on Elsa for his every emotional need. For another, Elsa is an incredibly elusive person, extremely difficult to pin down about anything – especially whatever is bothering her. How they have managed to survive this long is a cause for wonder. When Al gets an opportunity to be cast in a movie role, complete with no-cost occupancy in the casting agent’s ugly but fashionable apartment, he jumps at the chance to provide a little material satisfaction for his beloved Elsa. But what exactly does she want?Read More »

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We are on the continent of Robert Kramer’s essay-films. What country is this, what year, what time? There are no establishing shots, no introductions to ease us in. Everything is in medias res. Kramer never gives us a superimposed title telling us we are watching ‘Vietnam’ or ‘Paris’ or ‘USA’; he never includes the identifying names of people, typewritten on screen, the first time we see them (and indeed, if we ever do learn this, it is often indirectly, by accident); he rarely introduces a radically different piece of footage into the montage with a reassuring title saying ‘ten years ago’, or a voice-off saying ‘I remember …’.Read More »

Until the beginning of the 20th century in France, the game of hide and seek was called “cligne-musette”. In a winter landscape, the film follows five kids and a young man who wanders alone between the desolate buildings of the Valibout neighbourhood, located in the province town of Plaisir. They will not cross paths but seem destined to meet the same fate, that of being abandoned to themselves; to hide and not to be found.Read More »

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In France in the near future, revolt and chaos erupt. A right-wing politician, Philippe Muphand, is set to take control when his lady friend Caroline walks out, announcing she will take up with the first fool she sees. The fool is Serge Laine, a professor and author of the prize-winning “Le voyage qui ne finit pas,” headed to the train station for tickets to Barcelona where he and his wife will enjoy a second honeymoon and he will lecture at the university. Caroline seduces Serge, and he soon abandons wife, family, job, and honesty to embrace Caroline, the romanticism of Jack London, and murder.Read More »

Lili, a woman-child alone in this tough port city, tries to restore order to her life after the death of her lover, a computer “composer.” She has to deal with four local dockworkers — symbolizing fire, water, earth, and wind — struggling between destruction and the path to self-discovery.Read More »

Pierre Collier is dead…
He was murdered at the home of senator Henri Pagès and his wife Eliane, where he was spending the weekend with friends. His wife Claire is the number one suspect. She was arrested when found standing next to the victim’s corpse, a gun in her hand. She no doubt had reasons for seeking revenge on her fickle husband. But appearances may be misleading. The weapon is not the one used to commit the crime, and each guest becomes a potential suspect. Pierre’s mistress Esther, Léa his humiliated former girlfriend, Philippe his rival… they all have a motive. And then there’s the senator himself, who is crazy about guns. Captain Grange finds himself confronted by this complex affair – which then becomes even murkier when another murder takes place.Read More »

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Bouka is a gifted young teenager. He lives with his parents in a village and forms with them a solid family. His father gives him a traditional education close to the nature. Unfortunately this happiness will be troubled by the brutal death of the father…
Remained widow Bouka’s mother will suffer the consequences of a relentless traditional principle. She becomes the new wife of the nephew of her late husband, Bouka doesn’t accepts this new condition of her mother. He suspects his stepfather to be involved in his father’s death. He stops to go to school and organizes a gang in the forest.
In this tormented atmosphere, he develops a mortal hate towards its new “father”…Read More »

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That the critics baptized the wave which emerged at this time as the “new Swiss cinema” simply reflects the fact that the “old” Swiss cinema was unknown to the cinema-going public. Today, the appeal and energy of this first film remain undiminished, magnified by the exceptional stature and presence of François Simon and the sublimely uncluttered camera work of Renato Berta. Tanner drew his subject matter from what he saw of the events of May ’68 in Paris, which he covered for Swiss television. Unimpressed by the ideological pronouncements of the young demonstrators (Tanner was nearly 40 and mistrustful of the siren songs of militancy), he was more struck by the elderly people marching alongside them.Read More »

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A young opera-loving mailman, Jules, becomes inadvertently entangled in murder, when a young woman fleeing two mob hit men drops an incriminating cassette into his mailbag. Jules has just recently recorded opera star Cynthia Hawkins’ latest concert, something of a coup as Hawkins refuses to make recordings of any kind. Soon Jules finds himself the target of the hit men, who want the voice recording, and also of another couple of ominous and mysterious agents.Read More »