French

  • Claude Chabrol – La danse de mort (1982)

    1981-1990Claude ChabrolDramaFranceTV

    Quote:
    Alice and Edgar, nicknamed “The Captain”, lead a rather miserable existence. They are embittered by life and reject each other’s failures. As they approach their 25th wedding anniversary, they are tired and weary of their old daily perfidies that have kept away all those who approached them.

    Quote:
    No doubt, other masterpiece of Claude Chabrol. This director can surprise you a million times in a million forms. This film is dark and sad. Don’t let you breath between scenes. The characters lives in a hard atmosphere, like a desert museum. The museum of a lonely life -or lonely death- like ghosts.Read More »

  • Bruno Podalydès – Les 2 Alfred AKA French Tech (2020)

    2011-2020Bruno PodalydèsComedyFrance

    Alexandre is unemployed and his bank account has been frozen. His wife is on a two-month top secret nuclear submarine mission. While she’s away, he has to prove that he can take care of the children and find a job. Following a surreal interview, he is hired at The Box on a trial basis – and thus Alexandre enters the 24-7 world of a greenwashed start-up with a strict no-child policy. He meets Arcimboldo, who juggles different jobs and apps and offers to look after the kids in exchange for accommodation. Between Alexandre’s killer colleague Severine, incessant conference calls and endless team building sessions, keeping his secret is no easy challenge.Read More »

  • Paul Vecchiali – À vot’ bon coeur (2004)

    2001-2010ArthouseFrancePaul Vecchiali

    Plot : French independent director Paul Vecchiali playfully bites the hand that periodically feeds him (and many of the nation’s other creative filmmakers) in this dark comedy. Writer and director Vecchiali stars as a moviemaker named Paul Vecchiali, who is trying to complete his latest project, a dramatic love story about a young couple whose relationship is complicated by the man’s addiction to drugs. Short on funds, Vecchiali approaches the National Cinema Center, who offer loans and grants to independent filmmakers whom they believe are deserving. The NCC is less than impressed with Vecchiali’s latest script, and they turn him down, just as they have done a number of times in the past. Angry and determined that the NCC will never break the spirit of another director, Vecchiali and his crew block out a plan to assassinate the nine members of the funding board, though the press and public seem more bemused than outraged by the sudden rash of killings. Predictably enough, À Vot’ Bon Coeur received no funding from France’s National Cinema Center, though Vecchiali did have the nerve to submit the script. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie GuideRead More »

  • Édouard Molinaro – L’Ironie du sort AKA The Irony of Chance (1974)

    1971-1980DramaÉdouard MolinaroFranceWar

    This quirky French film examines a series of events during the German occupation of France and shows what might have happened if one thing had gone differently in each instance. The first story given this treatment concerns the assassination of a German officer by a young member of the Resistance.Read More »

  • Various – Willy 1er (2016)

    2011-2020ComedyDramaFranceVarious

    When his twin brother dies, Willy, 50, finally decides to leave his parents’ home. He moves to a small nearby town to start afresh. “In Caudebec I’ll live. An apartment, I’ll have one. And friends too. And you can all go to hell!” Though a misfit, Willy tries to find his place in a world unknown.Read More »

  • Aicha Macky – L’Arbre sans fruit AKA The Fruitless Tree (2016)

    2001-2010African CinemaAicha MackyDocumentaryNiger

    The director, a married woman without children, deals with the issue of infertility in the country of Niger, by sharing stories of stigmatized wives, husbands who refuse to be tested (or who abandon the women and take up with other wives.) The project was inspired by the death of the director’s own mother in childbirth.Read More »

  • Raoul Ruiz – Richard III (1986)

    1981-1990DramaFranceRaoul RuizTV

    Raoul Ruiz’s rare version of Shakespeare’s “Richard III”.
    Richard of Gloucester uses murder and manipulation to claim England’s throne.

    “My mise-en-scène focused on the object: it’s about King Richard III and his vertiginous power. More than on a character, I was focusing on a mechanism: the play of power — with a bias, this time approaching caricature — I wanted to develop all of the parodic forms surrounding the representation of power. The result is somewhat akin to Ubu roi.Read More »

  • Patrice Chéreau – Gabrielle (2005)

    2001-2010DramaFrancePatrice ChéreauRomance

    Quote:
    Paris shortly before World War I. Wealthy and self-satisfied, Jean Hervey is returning home from work, describing life with his wife of 10 years, Gabrielle; he values her as impassive and stolid. However, that day she’s gone, leaving a letter that she’s joining a man she loves. Jean is devastated, but within minutes she’s returned, telling him that her resolve has failed. Over the next two days, he questions, demands, begs, and parries with her: why did she leave, why did she return, does she love him, did she ever love him, who is her lover, is she passionate with her lover? She’s calm as alabaster, reserved. Is she in danger? When she makes an offer, how will he respond?Read More »

  • André Forcier – L’eau chaude, l’eau frette AKA A Pacemaker and a Sidecar (1976)

    1971-1980André ForcierArthouseCanadaComedy

    Quote:
    In a working-class neighbourhood, a group of teenagers are plotting a murder while Polo the local loan shark is preparing to celebrate his 43th birthday. L’eau chaude l’eau frette is a poetics of cruelty, a celebration of anarchy in which friend and foe, young and old, come together to party, wash their dirty linen in public, and settle accounts.Read More »

Back to top button