French

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Inviting favorable comparison to the overtly political, social realist films of Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne, The Wound is an understatedly affecting, acutely observed, and profoundly sobering portrait of oppression, dehumanization, and exclusion. By incorporating organic, extended plan-sequences and using repeated images of interminable waiting – from Blandine’s detention, to her self-confinement at a derelict tenement, to Papi’s real-time ride through the countryside in the back of day laborer truck – Nicolas Klotz reflects the inherent inadequacy (if not outright failure) of immigration and asylum laws, lax procedural structure, and government-tolerated, often racially motivated policies (and undocumented, obstructive common practices) that willfully hinder or impede the integration and assimilation of immigrants into their adoptive countries. Using the treatment of Blandine’s wound while in French custody as a metaphor for the authorities’ repeated turning of a blind eye to the obvious, visible social problem, the film serves as a harrowing and trenchant exposition on intolerance and systematic marginalization.Read More »

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On her latest assignment, a journalist for Elle immerses herself in a prostitution ring run by university students.Read More »

Synopsis:
Of the hallowed group of Cahiers du cinéma critics turned filmmakers who transformed French film history, Claude Chabrol was the first to direct his own feature. His absorbing landmark debut, Le beau Serge, follows a successful yet sickly young man (Jean-Claude Brialy) who returns home to the small village where he grew up. There, he finds himself at odds with his former close friend (Gerard Blain)—now unhappily married and a wretched alcoholic—and the provincial life he represents. The remarkable and stark Le beau Serge heralded the arrival of a cinematic titan who would go on to craft provocative, entertaining films for five more decades.Read More »

VADİM MİSTER COOL
With his most recent documentary, Vadim Mister Cool (2016), Parisian writer/director Olivier Nicklaus examines the life and career of another Parisian writer/director, the notorious Roger Vadim. His films were groundbreaking for their depiction of sensuality on the screen, eventually making him a pioneer of the French New Wave. However, Vadim’s work was often held back by his personal life. In his lifetime, Vadim was involved with some of the most beautiful and glamorous women in movie history. This reputation as a ladies’ man, combined with his films, made Vadim the male embodiment of the hedonism of 1960s Europe.Read More »

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A parody of anthropology, linguistics, and cultural imperialism. The film follows an unlikely team of linguists into the wilds of an ersatz Patagonia to study the last speakers of a dying language. That language apparently consists of a single word, which therefore means everything.Read More »

In a vast windswept landscape, Cochise and Gilou, two inseparable bounty hunters, are on the search for a stolen phone containing some sensitive information. On the way, they cross paths with Esther and Willy, a couple on the run. They arrive in a small isolated town inhabited by deadbeats and failures. Is it possible that, in this godforsaken place, that they will discover the best in human nature?Read More »

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A propaganda film produced by the French Communist Party (PCF) for the campaign for the May 1936 elections – which brought the Popular Front to power – “La vie est à nous”, by Jean Renoir, was shot by a team of militant filmmakers and technicians.Read More »

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A drifter in his 20s, having just walked 10 miles through the desert, comes upon a diner/filling station and helps himself to the water pump; the diner’s proprietress, an older woman–possibly mad–welcomes the young man in believing him to be her long-lost son Rocky, a volatile kid who apparently left his mother and sister four years ago after a family row. Unpredictable bughouse melodrama, a French-Italian co-production shot in the Canary Islands, which lends to the story’s netherworld atmosphere. Well-directed by Georges Lautner, who also co-adapted the screenplay with Jack Miller and Pascal Jardin, from the novel “Sur la Route de Salina” by Maurice Cury. Read More »

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From a plastic bowl to petroleum, we trace back through the complete industrial process that leads to the manufacture of plastic objects. The force of the commentary composed in alexandrine verse by Raymond Queneau matches the wide screen of CinemaScope proportions.Read More »