French

Joey Wellman, a cantankerous American cartoonist, accepts an invitation to come to an exhibition in Paris, because his estranged daughter Elsie is a student there. He arrives with his girlfriend Lena, and very soon wants to go home as the culture shock is too much for him. Elsie puts off meeting him because she is busy trying to find Professor Christian Gauthier, in order to get him to read her thesis on Flaubert. However Gauthier is enamored with American culture, and invites Joey and some other Americans to his mother’s house for the weekend. Elsie arrives at the gathering in time for the masquerade party and to see her father beginning to appreciate French culture.Read More »

Two crooks with a fondness for old Hollywood B-movies convince a languages student to help them commit a robbery.Read More »

Theo spends his 18th birthday alone, getting drunk at a punk rock show. There, he meets Mag, a teenage girl who invites him to spend the night at her place. A love story starts between them, but Theo has to leave the city at the end of summer.Read More »

A brother and sister are preparing to celebrate their father’s birthday.Read More »

Quote:
“C’est un film simple sur des choses compliquées”, this is how J.L. Godard once described Le mépris : “It’s a simple film about complicated things.”

I. “Totalement, tendrement, tragiquement”
II Cinecittà, “All kinds of real human beings.”
III. Prokosch’s villa in Rome – “About the money and your wife”
IV. In the appartment – “I’m not going, I’m not going”
V. In the theater (where one sells lies)
VI. Capri – “I have to know why you despise me”
VII. “Adieu”
VIII. Ithaque – “Silenzio!”Read More »

The high-profile case of serial killer Ludovic Chevalier has just gone to trial, and Kelly-Anne is obsessed. When reality blurs with her morbid fantasies, she goes down a dark path to seek the final piece of the puzzle: the missing video of a murdered 13-year-old girl, to whom Kelly-Anne bears a disturbing resemblance.
An element of the film I found most intriguing were the various people who were defending Chevalier. Whether it’s the very misguided Clementine, or even his defense lawyer, its uncomfortable to hear people supporting someone who so obviously did the crime. Yet there are people out there like this, so I think its nice to spotlight them. There were a ton of parallels between Clem in particular, as the Manson followers who stood outside his trial. So there’s a bit of catharsis that reveals itself as both Clem and Kelly-Anne are forced to reckon with their feelings as more evidence is unveiled.Read More »

A French diplomat must escape an FSB plot in Siberia.

Based on incredible true events, Jérome Salle’s gripping new espionage thriller depicts the remarkable story of a French public servant who unwittingly finds himself in conflict with one of the modern era’s most powerful and dangerous forces: Russia’s FSB. Gilles Lellouche stars as Mathieu, a gregarious and dedicated diplomat who accepts a posting to Irkutsk as the head of Siberia’s Alliance Francaise. He hopes the change will be good for his family and struggling marriage, but before long Mathieu’s staging of cultural events and support of artistic expression sees him fall afoul of local authorities. Accused of a terrible crime, he soon realises someone has fabricated a case with Russia’s Federal Security Service – he has been framed. Arrested, imprisoned and isolated, Mathieu has nowhere to turn. Defending himself is impossible, the French authorities are helpless – it seems he has no choice: to try and escape.Read More »

Jean-Luc Godard’s first film. After returning to Switzerland, Godard went to work as a manual worker at a dam building site, using the money he earned to buy a camera, and making a short documentary about the building of the Grand Dixence Dam.
(Also known as Operation ”Concrete”.)Read More »

Quote:
Maria Chapdelaine, a young woman of 16, lives with her family on land they are clearing near the Péribonka River in rural Québec in early 1900. True pioneers, the Chapdelaine family struggles to push back the forest. In a home where even physical exhaustion cannot diminish the warmth of family life, Maria finds herself faced with a deep dilemma. François Paradis, a free-spirited fur trapper and logger, promises Maria to return in spring to marry her, while Lorenzo Surprenant arrives at the farm offering a comfortable existence in an American city, and Eutrope Gagnon, a quiet and determined young farmer has staked a claim on the land next to the Chapdelaine’s. Thrust into the adult world, and juggling with thoughts of land, family and love, Maria will suddenly be forced to choose her future as a woman.Read More »