Patrice Leconte

Satire on family life made in somehow documentary style.Read More »

To get royal backing on a needed drainage project, a poor French lord must learn to play the delicate games of wit at court at Versailles.Read More »

A man steps off a train into a French village awaiting the day when he will rob the town bank. He meets a retired poetry teacher striking up a strange friendship and explore the road not taken, each wanting to live the other’s life.Read More »

It is the summer of 1958 in wealthy Lake Geneva, where an enigmatic young Frenchman begins an affair with a beautiful starlet under the watchful eye of her flamboyant elderly mentor. But in a season full of secrets, is truth the most elusive passion of all?Read More »

Synopsis (possible spoilers):
‘Vincent, a stunt pilot, is acquitted of murdering his wife and her lover. However, a few years later, L’Elegant, the Judge in the case, comes to blackmail him. The Judge’s nephew, Paul, is having trouble with his wife and they demand that Vincent kill her. The Judge, a confirmed bachelor, takes Paul and Vincent on the road to search for Paul’s wife Marie. The three men get on well together, and spend their time discussing their relationship with women.’
– Will Gilbert (IMDb)Read More »

Synopsis:
One night, a fading entertainer intervenes when a woman contemplates suicide, beginning a strange, unpredictable relationship.Read More »

Michel Mortez is going to and fro France to compere a radio game he created 25 years ago. He is famous among the average Frenchmen. But he is also a poker. Rivetot, his assistant and technician, always goes with him. He is the only one to know what really lies under Mortez’s appearance of playful don Juan. When the programme is condemned by the managers, Rivetot delays as long as possible the moment he will have to announce it to Mortez… Both malicious and tender, this bitter comedy also shows nostalgia.Read More »

Erotic Suspense After Mistaken Identity

In Patrice Leconte’s sardonic psychological thriller, ”Intimate Strangers,” Sandrine Bonnaire portrays a Gallic answer to one of Alfred Hitchcock’s sleek blond women of mystery. Imagine the Grace Kelly of ”Rear Window” or the Kim Novak of ”Vertigo” sprawled seductively on an analyst’s couch, smoking cigarettes and confiding her sexual frustration to a repressed, wide-eyed shrink who is obsessed with her.Read More »

Though set in the French colony of St Pierre and Miquelon, the movie was filmed on Cape Breton Island, Nova Scotia. The French title La Veuve de Saint-Pierre contains wordplay. “Veuve” translates to “Widow”. In the 1800s the word was also slang for a guillotine.

The Widow of Saint-Pierre (French: La veuve de Saint-Pierre) is a 2000 film by Patrice Leconte with Juliette Binoche, Daniel Auteuil and Emir Kusturica. The film made its North American debut at the 2000 Toronto Film Festival where it won the Audience Award. It was nominated for a Golden Globe Award in 2001 for Best Foreign Language Film. The film was also nominated in 2001 for two César Awards.

Quote:
In 1879, on the small French island of Saint-Pierre off the coast of Newfoundland, Neel Auguste (Emir Kusturica) and his friend carry a joke too far while they are drunk and murder a man. The friend dies in an accident on the way to prison. Neel is put into the custody of the Captain (Daniel Auteuil), a military officer whose wife Madame La (Juliette Binoche) is the most beautiful woman on the island. Kind-hearted and compassionate, she takes Neel on as her protégé, teaching him to read, work in the garden with her, and perform odd jobs for widows in the community.Read More »