French

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The most electrifyingly timely movie playing in New York was made in 1965. Gillo Pontecorvo’s The Battle of Algiers is famous, but for some time it’s been available only in washed-out prints with poorly translated, white-on-white subtitles. The newly translated and subtitled 35-millimeter print at Film Forum is presumably the version that was privately screened in August for military personnel by the Pentagon as a field guide to fighting terrorism. Former national-security adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski volunteered this blurb: “If you want to understand what’s happening right now in Iraq, I recommend The Battle of Algiers.” I wonder if these politicos are aware that Pontecorvo’s epic was once used by the Black Panthers as a training film? In fact, not much in the current Iraq situation is historically comparable to the late-fifties Algerian struggle for independence dramatized in The Battle of Algiers, but its anatomy of terror remains unsurpassed—and, woefully, ever fresh.Read More »

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Both detectives on a sickening murder case struggle with being alone and childless in their 40s. As they investigate the young man found beaten and strangled to death, platonic friends Karine and Herve unravel a love story between Vincent, and Rebecca a high school girl. The teenage lovers quickly plunged into the kind of amour fou the flics fear to chance for themselves. Rebecca is missing, and unknown to her, the boy was a homosexual Internet hustler. The ordinarily blasé male investigator is appalled to find that on-line dating is a world the sexy Karine knows well. Is Rebecca the killer, another victim or?Read More »

A beautiful executive lady at an advertising company realizes with horror that her vagina has started to talk and is leading her to indecent sexual acts. This was the first exclusive hardcore feature film produced and released in France to meet international success. It is based on a significant tradition in literature and art of talking vaginas, dating back to the ancient folklore motif of the vagina loquens, and in particular a story by Denis Diderot (1713–1784). Among future film makers involved in this production are Francis Leroi (producer), Didier Philippe-Gérard (script and actor), Gérard Kikoïne (editor) and Pierre B. Reinhard (assistant editor).Read More »

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While there is an element of science fiction to this political satire about Latin American dictatorships, that element is primarily used to promote the storyline and the message, and not as a value in itself. In a make-believe Spanish-speaking country of the Americas, a dictator (Zbigniew Cybulski) rules with the usual degree of corruption but as it turns out, his wife is the one who gives most of the orders. Two story strands are then woven together: a scientist has invented a way to replicate objects and, lo and behold, he discovers he can make a robotic duplicate of the dictator’s wife. Meanwhile, an ardent, left-leaning revolutionary who happens to be a dead ringer for the dictator ends up taking over the tyrant’s role when he is assassinated. So one has a robotic wife and a fake dictator now running a country which is none the wiser…Read More »

The three versions and a film about by JCB.
— Des jeunes femmes disparaissent (1974, 20 minutes, 8 mm, NB) IMDb
— Des jeunes femmes disparaissent (1976, 20 minutes, S8 mm, couleur) IMDb
— Des jeunes femmes disparaissent (2014, 30 minutes, HD, couleur) IMDb
— Des jeunes femmes disparaissent – Origine et fabrication (2018, 30 minutes)

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Je savais depuis un moment que je devais faire quelque chose que je voulais totalement différent. Récemment, je me suis mis à regarder une série de films en relief. J’ai alors eu envie de faire le remake d’un film, Des jeunes femmes disparaissent, que j’ai tourné il y a 40 ans, d’abord en 8 mm puis en Super 8. C’était un film à suspense, en noir et blanc, qui avait foutu la trouille à Eric Rohmer et Maurice Pialat.Read More »

Synopsis:
‘The son of a French industrialist, Clément is a right wing extremist who belongs to a secret militant right wing organization that uses whatever means necessary, including violence, to achieve its goals. His wife Anne, a former German actress who gave up her career to be the doting wife, knows somewhat of his extremist views, and suspects he would indeed kill if need be as witnessed by what she finds hidden in their house. He often treats her poorly, especially out in public as she maintains the façade of her former celebrity, which he believes is her acting like a whore. Regardless, she is compelled to stay in the marriage. After he and a right wing colleague assassinate a Communist figure, that assassination which goes slightly awry, Clément and Anne hide out in the country home of Clément’s childhood friend, Paul, who knows nothing about Cléments extremist views. Paul is a democrat and pacifist. Clément is forced to leave to pursue a mission, leaving Anne behind.’
– HuggoRead More »

An artist grows hateful of commercial demands on his questionable talents when his friend and artist commits suicide. He puts the blame for his friend’s death on an art critic and a shady art dealer. He is able to take out his frustrations on the pretentious critic at a party. When an elderly man moves into the boarding house, he brings a machine he invented that can make people realize their subconscious dreams…Read More »

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Malle later said that the film was his most personal work and the one he was most proud of, it is widely regarded as the crowning achievement of his career. It was initially inspired by a two-month trip to India in late 1967 that Malle made on behalf of the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs to present a selection of “new French cinema” throughout the country. Filming took place between January 5, 1968 and May 1, 1968 with a crew of two, a cameraman and a sound recordist. Malle arrived in India with no particular plans and financed the trip himself. The resulting 30 hours of footage was then edited down to the 363 minutes of Phantom India. The 105-minute long Calcutta used the footage he had recorded over his three-week stay in that city. Phantom India was shown on French television and the BBC in the UK in 1969.[2][3] Many British Indians and the Indian Government felt that Malle had shown a one-sided portrait of India, focussing on the impoverished, rather than the developing, parts of the country. A diplomatic incident occurred when the Indian government asked the BBC to stop broadcasting the programme. The BBC refused and were briefly asked to leave their New Delhi bureau.Read More »

Excellent adventure yarn, great locations, moody music. The last “action-picture” from the late great french director Claude Sautet – from this he went on and did Les choses de la vie, Cesar et Rosalie, Vincent, Francois, Paul et les autres, plus the two masterpieces Un coeur en hiver and Nelly et M.Arnaud, his final movie, from 1994. By the way, he also wrote Borsalino (for Jacques Deray) and Les yeux sans visage (for Georges Franju). L’arme a gauche is not, by all means, a great movie – but compared to the contemporary crap we’re fed every day it’s outstanding. Read More »