Synopsis:
When her husband returns from his work abroad with a guest, a young girl, his wife suspects a liaison. She leaves her home. Her boss takes her to the Côte d’Azur. They get closer during the long voyage and the man invites her to his marital home.Read More »
Quote: Roman Polanski’s penchant for psychosexual mind games conducted in claustrophobic spaces is deliciously revisited in Venus in Fur (La Venus a la fourrure), adapted in French and yet mostly faithful to American playwright David Ives’ Broadway hit of the same name. A teasing dialectic of subjugation and power, female objectification and emasculating rebuke, the film should titillate European audiences with its mischievous combination of think and kink, while seducing a more limited niche in the U.S. The play premiered Off Broadway in 2010 and transferred uptown the following season, making an overnight New York stage star and eventual Tony Award winner out of Nina Arianda, the female half of Ives’ table-turning cat-and-mousecapade. Read More »
‘Jean, who is the artistic director of a fashion magazine, is married to a very pretty cover girl, Sylvie. They both work for André Reverdy, a very cynical man, who openly covets Sylvie. Jean, awfully jealous, can’t put up with the situation. Persuaded that his young wife has given herself to his rival he goes and waits for Reverdy outside his bachelor flat. When the hated man goes out, he kills him…’
– Guy BellingerRead More »
Synopsis In a routine look at what it means to finally leave adolescence behind — even in one’s mature years — this series of mood swings and sequences focuses on two grown men. Francois (Jean Francois Stevenin, the director) and Leo (Yves Alonso) are old friends, and at one point they decide to go out and search for one of their childhood buddies, the brunt of several of their practical jokes. In true form, the men opt for playing yet another practical joke on their friend, but their plans backfire when his wife Helene (Carole Bouquet) comes into the picture instead. Her presence forces them to reconsider their shenanigans in a new light.Read More »
PLOT DESCRIPTION
This film marks the directorial debut of actor Jean-François Stevenin. Serge (Stevenin) is a dweller in the French provinces who happens upon Georges (Jacques Villeret), a Parisian motorist in distress. Serge arranges for the car to be taken to a nearby garage. Georges’ friends, who were with him in the car, have continued their journeys. Because of that, Serge takes Georges under his wings while he waits for his car to be repaired, and they tour the countryside and party with the local revelers. Nothing much is said between them, but it is clear that they have become friendsRead More »
Synopsis: A historical drama that depicts the relationship between Dietrich von Choltitz, the German military governor of occupied Paris, and Swedish consul-general Raoul Nordling.Read More »
Quote:
Though set in the French colony of St Pierre and Miquelon, the movie was filmed on Cape Breton Island, Nova Scotia. The French title La Veuve de Saint-Pierre contains wordplay. “Veuve” translates to “Widow”. In the 1800s the word was also slang for a guillotine.
The Widow of Saint-Pierre (French: La veuve de Saint-Pierre) is a 2000 film by Patrice Leconte with Juliette Binoche, Daniel Auteuil and Emir Kusturica. The film made its North American debut at the 2000 Toronto Film Festival where it won the Audience Award. It was nominated for a Golden Globe Award in 2001 for Best Foreign Language Film. The film was also nominated in 2001 for two César Awards.Read More »
Review from thefilmdb.co.uk
Q’ opens with a heavy dose of nudity – a shower scene shot from the neck down as multiple naked women engage in conversation. We don’t see their faces, just their bodies. Writer/director Laurent Bouhnik holds the shot long enough for the scene to evolve from titilation into something more, establishing leaders and followers of the group.
As the film progresses, more leaders and followers emerge to whom sex is seen as either a weapon/threat or a comfort/shield. Our throughline is a vivacious young, sexually dominant girl (Deborah Revy as Cecile) whose desire upturns the cast of characters.
Q’ uses unsimulated sex scenes to establish these powerful relationships. The images are both tasteful and resonant. The actors come across as brave and natural, but the script doesn’t offer enough solid material to sustain what we are seeing.
This is a curiously drawn and handsomely staged work, miles away from being another sleazy drama, but it’s a victim of its own fragmented narrative.Read More »
Léa lives in Le Havre, the town where she grew up. She goes to university and alone takes care of her grandmother, who requires constant attention. To make ends meet, she works as a waitress at a nightclub. But Léa dreams of another life. She wants to move to Paris to study political science. When she is accepted at the prestigious Political Studies Institute, she must make decisions. She must part from her grandmother. When Léa finally finds a decent rest home for her, she is faced with a dilemma: the rest home is expensive and she does not have the funds. Léa decides to become a stripper. Read More »