Benoît Jacquot

Quote:
More than 40 years ago, at the outset of his filmmaking career, Benoit Jacquot worked as an assistant director to the great French novelist and helmer Marguerite Duras, and now, with “Three Hearts,” he has made a film that feels more indebted to her romantic values than anything else in his oeuvre. Here, beneath the surface of a cool, contempo love triangle involving a Parisian man (Benoit Poelvoorde) and a pair of provincial French sisters (played by Charlotte Gainsbourg and Chiara Mastroianni), are all the values Duras held dear: love at first sight, spontaneous tears, all-consuming desire and impossible, self-destructive decisions.Read More »

Synopsis:
The story centers on a young gigolo, Bertrand Valade who steals the manuscript of a dying client. After a year, becomes a playwright and is now living in a decked-out Parisian apartment. The only problem is that his producer, Regis Grant has been waiting impatiently for a new play which the imposter Bertrand is somehow supposed to write. When Bertrand shows up for a rehearsal of his hit play, which is now touring the provinces, he crosses paths with a high-class call girl, Eva who quickly becomes an obsession that will ruin his life.Read More »

Synopsis:
In July 1789, the French Revolution is rumbling. Far from the turmoil, at the Château de Versailles, King Louis XVI, Queen Marie-Antoinette and their courtiers keep on living their usual carefree lives. But when the news of the storming of the Bastille reaches them, panic sets in and most of the aristocrats and their servants desert the sinking ship, leaving the Royal Family practically alone. Which is not the case of Sidonie Laborde, the Queen’s reader, a young woman, entirely devoted to her mistress; she will not give her up under any circumstances. What Sidonie does not know yet is that these are the last three days she will spend in the company of her beloved Queen…Read More »

Quote:
It is an odd film: the central relationship between Joseph and Célestine is not entirely plausible, even as a desperate amour fou. But it is well acted and confidently performed. The antisemitism is a key to the film’s oppressive atmosphere. The pale, pinched neatness and pleasantness of this bourgeois household conceal a secret poison sac into which all the evil is drained: Vincent’s horrible leaflets, which express what so many respectable folk are thinking. This is a minor, flawed movie, but watchable in its suppressed, pornographic melodrama. –The GuardianRead More »