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Lost in a maze of his philosophizing while trying to write a book, a retired math teacher is forced to deal with the real world when he must rescue a young woman from the clutches of a thug outside his Paris apartment. What the teacher doesn’t know is that this woman may be his muse, a mystical agent or an angel of death. Stars director Brisseau and Virginie Legeay. Winner of the Golden Leopard, Locarno film festival 2012.Read More »
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Sylvie Rousseau, a scientist working on a cancer vaccine, is informed by her brother Paul of the death of their father, Pierre-André, head of the world-leading armaments company Pax Industries. At first, the cause of death was believed to be an accident, but Sylvie learns that her father was instead pushed off a train by his colleague Walser. Seeking vengeance, she becomes a modern-day Electra, austere and energetic, acting in place of her brother, a weak and unwilling Orestes. But nothing goes according to plan.Read More »
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Writer and pedagogue Fernand Deligny influenced a number of artists and French intellectuals. His work on autism influenced Deleuze and Guattari’s theory of the rhizome. Francois Truffaut turned to his ideas to complete Les 400 Coups. Throughout the film Deligny plays with the possibilities of the camera to live and think closer to the human subject, offering with Le Moindre Geste a unique film to the world, one of most fascinating in French cinema. Situated [visually] between mountain western and integral neorealism, the film tells the story of two teenagers, escaped prisoners of an asylum, running away through the Cevennes.Read More »
Jonathan Rosenbaum wrote this :
In his finest work, including this masterful 1938 noir, the remarkable French filmmaker Jean Gremillon (1901-1959), trained as a composer and musician, used mise en scene, script construction, editing, and dialogue delivery to explore the complex relationship between film and music.
Raimu, one of the greatest French actors, plays the “strange” title hero, a respectable Toulon merchant who secretly operates as a fence for local thieves; after he murders a potential blackmailer, an innocent local shoemaker (Pierre Blanchar) is sent to prison for his crime.
Seven years later the fall guy escapes, returns to Toulon to see his son, and, unaware of Victor’s guilt, persuades the merchant to shelter him, then becomes involved with his wife.
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The adventures of an upper-class suburban family abruptly confronted with the younger brother’s discovery of his homosexuality, the elder sister’s suicide attempt and sado-masochist tendencies, and the intrusion of a very free-spirited maid and her husband… And it all started with the arrival in the family of an innocent looking rat…Read More »
Plot Summary :
This appreciation of Tarkovsky made by his friend Chris Marker for the French television series ‘Cinema du Notre Temps’ is both an illuminating personal portrait and a poetic study of the Russian master’s films. Granted access to the set of ‘The Sacrifice’ Marker captured fascinating and insightful behind-the-scenes footage, including the editing process which the then gravely ill Tarkovsky conducted from his sickbed.Read More »
A delightful and innovative CG-animated fable, Le tableau is set within the world of an unfinished painting whose artist has abandoned his incomplete creations. In his absence, the finished drawings (the “Alldunns”) take over governance of the painting, relegating the partially completed “Halfies” to second-class citizenship and declaring a war of extermination against the thinly outlined “Sketchies.” But when an Alldunn, a Halfie and a Sketchie wind up sharing a journey downriver to parts unknown, they discover other paintings, other beings, and learn that the world beyond their own frame is richer and more diverse than they ever imagined. Returning from their adventure, they must persuade the others to learn acceptance, to see the bigger picture and to realize that everyone is, in their own way, a unique work of art.Read More »
Synopsis
It’s summer and a young foreigner saunters through the streets of this city of street cars and canals.
A lone wanderer, the hypotheses surrounding him will be changing: An artist, at leisure, a simple tourist, a parasite, paranoid, in love…?
Lodged at an old, family-run hotel, he walks through the city, observing, writing and drawing –sketching gestures and expressions caught at random on the street.
In the evenings he haunts a night club called “Les Aviateurs”.
He peers through the open windows of certain façades.
He revisits one of them at different times of day, here and there making out minor domestic contents, more insinuated than seen.
A certain mystery floats over the nature of his intentions, with attitudes reminiscent of those of a voyeur or even a psycho-killer…Read More »
Based on a play by Charles Méré, the 1926 French production Le Vertige was released in the U.S. two years later as “The Living Image”, or “The Lady of Petrograd”. The film opens with the overthrow of the Czar during the 1917 Russian revolution. The family of General Count Svirsky (Roger Karl) cower in their home, certain that the mobs of angry peasants will tear them apart. But even in this moment of crisis, Svirsky can find time to murder the young officer who has been having an affair with Countess Svirska (Emmy Lynn). The Countess knows what has happened, but she loyally remains with her husband as they escape to the safety of the French Riviera. It is here that the Countess meets Henri de Cassel (Jaque Catelain), the “living image” of her dead lover. Once again, the General prepares to shoot the Countess’ paramour in cold blood — but this time, the outcome is quite different.From Hal EricksonRead More »