Stanislas Merhar

An adaptation of Proust’s “La Prisoniere” (book five of “Remembrance of Things Past”). Set in Paris, France, it is a serious tale of a tragic and dysfunctional love.Read More »

Fred is a generous guy .He gives all his savings to the needy:but saints are a nuisance to live with at home ,and in the world we live in,it takes a lot of faith and a total commitment to succeed;no compromise is possible:his wife can’t go on living like that and his boss fires him.He could take to the road ,but he does not have faith.So he turns into a modern Robin Hood ,stealing from the rich and giving to the poor ; with his new girlfriend, they become idealized Bonnie and Clyde. Maguette,the mysterious black man they meet along the way, brings his strange wisdom;he tries to deal with the golden rules of society ,just to prove how absurd they may be: a royal heir in his native Africa,he can turn into a lawyer or into a chief inspector of schools.Read More »

From Stephen Holden review: “La Nuit des Temps, a mildly racy nightclub in the center of the sleepy French town of Belfort, is the equivalent of Pandora’s box in Anne Fontaine’s haunting erotic fable “Dry Cleaning.” Here is where Jean-Marie Kunstler (Charles Berling) and his wife, Nicole (Miou-Miou), a proper, buttoned-up French couple who have been married for 15 years, find themselves one evening watching a slithery gold-lamé-clad brother-sister drag act called the Queens of the Night lip-synch to Sylvie Vartan records.Read More »

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“Liberally adapted,” per onscreen credits, from Joseph Conrad’s first, same-named novel, helmer Chantal Akerman’s interpretation of “Almayer’s Folly” is as eccentric as “La Captive,” her take on Proust. Unfortunately, it’s not as disciplined as that earlier work, and this tale of a French colonialist’s fraught relationship with his mixed-race daughter seems thrown together on a low budget with a too-breezy disregard for cultural specifics. After a powerful opening scene and reasonably strong first act, the pic slowly leaks air. Helmer’s rep should ensure polite interest from fests and niche distribs with a track record of releasing Akerman’s work.Read More »

Pierre and Manon are poor. They make documentaries with nothing and they live by doing odd jobs. Pierre meets a young intern, Elisabeth, and she becomes his mistress. But Pierre will not leave Manon for Elisabeth; he wants to keep both.Read More »

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“Three French hipsters and their translator travel through rural Georgia to claim a remote, ruined castle that one of them has inherited. En route, they encounter an old man and his grandchild who are on a journey to carry out a mysterious, morbid ritual designed to end a conflict between warring clans.”Read More »