A few months after May 68, Robert, a graduate of the Ecole Normale Supérieure and far-left activist, decides to get a job at Citroën as a production line worker. Like other of his comrades, he wanted to infiltrate the factory to rekindle the revolutionary fire, but the majority of workers didn’t want to hear any more about politics. When Citroën decided to pay back the Grenelle agreements by requiring workers to work 3 hours overtime a week for free, Robert and a few others saw the possibility of a social movement.
L’ETABLI is adapted from the famous novel of the same name by Robert Linhart.Read More »
France, 1562. Against a background of the savage Catholic/Protestant wars, Marie de Mézières (Mélanie Thierry), a beautiful young aristocrat, and the rakish Henri de Guise (Gaspard Ulliel), fall in love, but Marie’s father has promised her hand in… France, 1562. Against a background of the savage Catholic/Protestant wars, Marie de Mézières (Mélanie Thierry), a beautiful young aristocrat, and the rakish Henri de Guise (Gaspard Ulliel), fall in love, but Marie’s father has promised her hand in marriage to the Prince of Montpensier (Grégoire Leprince-Ringuet). When he is called away to battle, her husband leaves her in the care of Count Chabannes (Lambert Wilson), an aging nobleman with a disdain for warfare. As he experiences his own forbidden desire for Marie, Chabannes must also protect her from the dangerously corrupt court dominated by Catherine de Medici. Director Bertrand Tavernier translates Madame de Lafayette’s 1622 novella into a bracingly intelligent and moving evocation of the terrible conflict between duty and passion. Though the themes are classic, Tavernier, with the cinematographer Bruno de Keyzer’s vivid landscapes and Philippe Sarde’s pulsing score, makes them feel passionately, urgently contemporary.Read More »
Quote: The Zero Theorem casts Christoph Waltz as Qohen Leth, an egghead data processor who is given a mission to make order out of chaos. This being a production by Terry Gilliam – the rambling mad uncle of British cinema – Qohen Leth is clearly screwed from the outset. The Zero Theorem is a sagging bag of half-cooked ideas, a dystopian thriller with runaway dysentery, a film that wears its metaphorical trousers around its metaphorical ankles. In fits and starts, I quite enjoyed it.Read More »
Quote: Anne has a very active imagination, only natural for a writer. But in her mid-thirties, she still knows practically nothing of her own family’s past. After her mother’s death, Anne discovers old photos and letters that convince her to take a closer look at the life of her parents, Michael and Léna. The young couple met in the concentration camps during World War II, later moving to France to start their new life together. Soon, Anne’s research into their Jewish history and their ties to Lyon’s communist party reveals the existence of a mysterious uncle, Jean, whom everyone seems intent on forgetting entirely. As she gradually closes in on the discovery she didn’t know she was looking for, her father grows ever more ill, and may take the secret that kept them apart for so long to his grave. In a journey that stretches from post-war France to the 1980s, Anne’s destiny intertwines with her father’s past until they form a single, unforgettable story.Read More »
Synopsis: Francis arrives in Venice seeking peace and quiet to write his next novel. Looking to rent a small apartment, he meets Judith a real estate broker. For Francis, it’s love at first sight. Judith insists that he should see a remote house on Sant’ Erasmo island. Taking the plunge, Francis says “if we move in together, I’ll sign right away”. So begins their life as a couple. Totally euphoric, Francis can’t set his mind to writing. But, is his happiness so secure? While he isn’t working, what does Judith do with her day? Francis hires Jeremie, a young offender fresh out of jail, to tail her. What will Jeremie find out?Read More »
Quote: June 1944, France is still under the German occupation. The writer and communist Robert Antelme, major figure of the Resistance, is arrested and deported. His young wife Marguerite Duras, writer and resistant, is torn by the anguish of not having news of her and her secret affair with her comrade Dyonis. She meets a French agent working at the Gestapo, Pierre Rabier, and, ready to do anything to find her husband, puts himself to the test of an ambiguous relationship with this troubled man, only to be able to help him. The end of the war and the return of the camps announce to Marguerite Duras the beginning of an unbearable wait, a slow and silent agony in the midst of the chaos of the Liberation of Paris.Read More »
On the 1st of January in 1900, Danny Boodmann (Bill Nunn), the mechanic of the transatlantic liner Virginian bound for America, finds an abandoned baby on board and decides to keep him. Nicknamed Novecento (1900), the boy grows up on the ship hidden from everyone. His presence is revealed when Danny dies in an accident. The young ‘1900’ manages to hide again despite threats from the captain. Discovering a passion for music, he teaches himself to play the piano without being able to read the notes, and he soon becomes a virtuoso whose reputation spreads beyond the confines of the ship. Even the famous jazz piano player, Jelly Roll Morton (Clarence Williams III), gets on board for a challenge because he has heard rumors about the greatest piano player in the world living on a ship. Read More »
