French

  • Agnès Varda – L’opéra-mouffe AKA Diary of a Pregnant Woman (1958)

    Agnès Varda1951-1960DramaFranceShort Film

    Quote:
    Impressions of the rue Mouffetard, Paris 5, through the eyes of a pregnant woman.

    Quote:
    A pregnant filmmaker takes us to rue Mouffetard, “la Mouffe,” in the Latin Quarter of Paris for a mix of documentary footage and imagined scenes. Vignettes or chapters unfold – on the feeling of nature, on pregnancy, on anxiety, on desire, and so forth. Women shop at a vegetable market, their faces marked by care and poverty. We see young lovers, playful and innocent. Derelicts drink and sleep on sidewalks. A weary pregnant woman carries her shopping bags; later, she eats flowers. There are counterpoints of gritty realism and playful, near-surrealistic images. Political and artistic consciousnesses create a montage.Read More »

  • Various – Série rose (1986-1991)

    VariousComedyEroticaFrance

    An anthology of erotic stories by famous writers like Guy de Maupassant, Nicolas Edme Restif de La Bretonne, Marquis de Sade, Giovanni Boccaccio, Marquis de Foudras, Daniel Defoe, Anton Tchekov, Jin Ping Mei, and Aristophanes.Read More »

  • Bertrand Tavernier – Des enfants gâtés AKA Spoiled Children (1977)

    Bertrand Tavernier1971-1980DramaFrance

    Account of a film director’s brief affair with a young neighbour, and his involvement in the social and political ramifications of a tenancy dispute in an apartment block. Filmmaker Bernard (Michel Piccoli), who is suffering a creative block, enters into an affair with the much-younger Anne (Christine Pascal).Read More »

  • Amos Gitai – Plus tard AKA One Day You’ll Understand (2008)

    Amos Gitai2001-2010DramaFrance

    Quote:
    As the 1987 trial of Nazi war criminal Klaus Barbie unfolds on television, Victor Bastien (Hippolyte Girardot — Lady Chatterley) reviews old family documents and finds a distressing “Aryan declaration” authored by his late father, a discovery that throws Victor’s conception of his family’s history into darkness. His mother, Rivka (legendary actress Jeanne Moreau — Jules and Jim, Eva), keeps a stubborn silence about the past, while Tania (Dominique Blanc), his sister, defends their father’s declaration. At the same time, Victor’s wife (Emmanuelle Devos — Kings and Queen) and children grow concerned about his increasing distraction. Burning with the need to unearth the truth, Victor takes his family to the tiny village where Rivka’s parents were forced to hide during the war.Read More »

  • Jean-François Davy – Traquenards AKA Erotique (1969)

    Jean-François Davy1961-1970CrimeFranceThriller

    Synopsis
    Hans Meyer and Roland Lessafre are a couple of buddies who get mixed up with a white-slave trader. Pursued by a pair of mob-connected brothers, Lessafre is killed. Meyer retaliates by killing one of the brothers, then enlists the aid of his friend Anna Gael in tracking down the remaining sibling. When Meyer himself is killed, Gael is abducted by the slavers…Read More »

  • Julia Ducournau – Grave AKA Raw (2016)

    Julia Ducournau2011-2020DramaFranceHorror

    Quote:
    Raised as a rigorous vegetarian, doe-eyed freshman Justine following in her parents’ footsteps, she is sent off to the reputable Saint-Exupéry Veterinary school where the black sheep of the family, her big sister Alexia, is already studying. There, young virginal Justine, leaving the familial shelter, will abruptly move into a mad new world of school traditions, vicious initiation tests and hard partying, utterly unprepared though for the rough year start only rush week’s mandatory hazing can offer. As a result, with Alexia reluctantly showing her the ropes but only halfway, Justine during the long-established trial of raw offal-eating, she will be forced to chew over her devout herbivorous beliefs and swallow a fresh chunk of bright-red rabbit kidney, unknowingly descending deep into her uncharted animalistic tendencies. Before long, repulsion will be replaced with an unprecedented, equally unquenched and palpable craving for raw meat, transforming Justine into a monstrous carnivore …Read More »

  • Jean-François Davy – L’attentat (1966)

    Jean-François Davy1961-1970Film NoirFrancePolitics

    Jean-François Davy’s first film.

    Summary (from the DVD box): Summer 1966. Paris has been attacked by OAS terrorists. André, a pinball engineer and a writer, spends his spare time on women and political meetings. Frustrated by the useles petitions and strikes he decides to respond to right-wing terror by left-wing terror.Read More »

  • Marcel Hanoun – L’automne (1972)

    Marcel Hanoun1971-1980ArthouseExperimentalFrance

    Synopsis: Julien, a movie director, is on the phase of editing his new film, “Juliette sacrifiée”. Hurried by his producer, he asks for the help of a professional editor. It is Anne, with whom Julien is soon falling in love. During the whole of the movie, both are sitting in front of the editing table, where they listen to music, talk about politics and what movies should and should not be about, make love, and finally end up editing the film as was planned.Read More »

  • Hafsia Herzi – Bonne Mère AKA Good Mother (2021)

    2021-2030DramaFranceHafsia Herzi

    An instantly involving portrait of a fifty-something woman in contemporary Marseille diligently holding together several generations, Good Mother establishes actor turned writer/director Hafsia Herzi as a significant French filmmaker. Nora, a cleaning lady in her fifties, looks after her family in a housing estate in the northern part of Marseille. She is worried about her grandson Ellyes, who has been in prison for several months for robbery and is awaiting his trial with a mixture of hope and anxiety. Nora does everything she can to make this wait as painless as possible.Read More »

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