French

Sébastien (Jean-Pierre Kalfon, Weekend) is staging an adaptation of Racine’s tragedy, Andromaque while a film crew captures their rehearsals on handheld 16mm. The production’s star and Sebastian’s wife, Claire (Bulle Ogier, Out 1), cannot take the pressure and removes herself. Life imitates art, creating a tragedy for the couple when Sébastien recasts the role with his ex. L’amour fou is a hypnotic study of tempestuous love, told with director Jacques Rivette’s signature reflexivity and containing striking examinations of performance, art, theatre and life. A classic of the French New Wave and one of Rivette’s most radical works, L’amour fou was unavailable for years, with the original elements tragically burned in a fire. Now meticulously restored, Radiance Films is proud to present this masterpiece from a new 4K restoration.Read More »

Synopsis
Once again, Boussard is expected to win the coming mayoral elections with a handsome majority. One man who isn’t pleased by this prospect is Dr Peyrac, who is so disgusted by Boussard and his shady activities that he decides to run against him. For once, Boussard is anxious and sees the impeccable Dr Peyrac as a serious challenger, so he asks his secretary, Morlaix, to come to his aid. The latter discovers that Peyrac’s wife, Sylvie, is on friendly terms with Olga Leroy, a woman who is reputed to organise wild orgies for the well off. This is just the information Boussard needs to destroy his rival…Read More »

Synopsis
A modest shopkeeper, Victor Garnier, hands over his hard-earned savings to the director of the bank opposite his shop, to invest in shares in an oil company. A big mistake. When the shares become worthless, Garnier is determined to have his revenge and get back his money. With the help of his family, he plans to dig a tunnel from the cellar beneath his shop into the bank vault. Needless to say, nothing goes quite as planned…Read More »

Clarke Fountain, Rovi wrote:
Celia, who calls herself Ginevra, is a movie actress who is appearing in an art-film. When she collapses from exhaustion while browsing in a bookstore and subsequently has a car crash, she decides to run away, throwing away her belongings and attempting to live incognito with a bar singer. Eventually she returns to her oh-so-boring life and shuttles between two additional lovers while working on the set of “Tears of an Angel.” Some allusions are made to the Arthurian and Camelot myths, but these are not developed. Reviewers found the main attraction of this “art film” to be the numerous sex scenes between the star (played by Amanda Ooms) and her various lovers.Read More »

Quote:
A chance remark leads three French naval officers to reminisce, together and privately, about the compelling young commander Willsdorf, nicknamed The Drummer Crab, recalling his exploits from the fog-shrouded rivers of Indochina to an attempted military coup in Algeria to his lonely, anonymous vigil in the North Atlantic fishing lanes nearby. Joseph Conrad would have loved this film, arguably the finest modern seafaring adventure ever made: a thoughtful and thrilling study of man versus the elements, where the past itself becomes an elemental force even more unyielding than the vivid Winter seascapes captured by Raoul Coutard’s breathtaking cinematography. In metaphor, Willsdorf’s fate is the fate of French colonialism, and only by pursuing his memory, through crashing waves and hissing spindrift, can his three erstwhile companions (a dying captain, a middle-aged medical officer, and a robust, veteran Chief Engineer) confront and endure their collective loss. This is a spellbinding film, rich in history and detail.Read More »

Philippe, a photography enthusiast, is attracted to his young aunt so he makes a plan to get his uncle involved with their maid in order to get the chance to have sex with his aunt.Read More »

Quote:
A beautiful 18-year-old orphan escapes from a reformatory and hooks up wth a gang of jewel smugglers, and decides on a life of crime. However, she falls for and marries a policeman, putting a crimp in her criminal career.Read More »

The Son of Gascogne (1995)
October 9, 1995
FILM FESTIVAL REVIEW;Maybe He’s The Son Of a Film Legend
By STEPHEN HOLDEN
Published: October 9, 1995

There really isn’t much difference between a favorite screen image and a personal memory of youthful passion, except that one exists on film and the other only in our private mental movies. That insight lies at the heart of Pascal Aubier’s delicious comic bouillabaisse of a film, “The Son of Gascogne.” The film, which the New York Film Festival is showing tonight at 9 and tomorrow night at 6 at Alice Tully Hall, is a fable about an innocent young man who inherits a mystique that has everything to do with old movies and old loves and our eagerness to confuse the two.Read More »

In a dying French mining town near the German border, the last miners are preparing to strike. Marek and Mimmo, two young miners and friends, have different views on the impending strike.Read More »