Jean Penzer
A well-bred young woman who prizes the virtue of fidelity remains faithful to the doctor who deflowers her, even after he marries her invalid sister.
French filmmaker Jean Delannoy directs this inspiring sequel to his biopic about Marie-Bernarde Soubirous (portrayed by Sydney Penny), a young shepherdess who claimed to have seen numerous apparitions of the Lady in White at Lourdes in 1858. Chronicling Bernadette's years with the Sisters of Charity of Nevers convent, the film traces her life from age 22 until her untimely death from tuberculosis at age 35.
Evocation of the life of Bernadette Soubirous, the eldest of four children, who, at the age of fifteen, experiences a religious vision at the Massabielle grotto near Lourdes.
In a charming mixture of fantasy and reality, this film recalls the great musicals of Hollywood's Golden Age. Yves Montand, playing himself, returns to his hometown of Marseilles to appear in an autobiographical musical. Once there, he searches for the barmaid he once loved and also encounters young hopeful Marion, giving her the chance of a lifetime
Paris, 1938. In a lavishly decorated nightclub, couples dance the syncopated rhythms of Latin America: Rumba, Cucaracha, Tango, and also the Charleston, Foxtrot and Boston. Among beautiful women, local pimps and Mussolini's spies brush each other on the dance floor, and in the streets. A police inspector is charged with a difficult task, to clean-up the city streets - just when bodies start falling around, as the Mafia and the spies tend each other deadly traps.
Menage begins as a comedy of sorts, but be warned: it develops into a very dark, very confusing probe into the seamier aspects of Parisian life. Gerard Depardieu plays a crude but charismatic thief, whose own gayness does not prevent his commiserating with those of the opposite sex. Miou-Miou and Michel Blanc are young, impoverished lovers who fall under Depardieu's influence. He gains their confidence by introducing them to kinky sex, then sucks them into a vortex of crime. Director Bertrand Blier, who in most of his films has explored the awesome power (rather than pleasure) of sex, nearly outdoes himself in Menage (aka Tenue de Soiree).
On Ne Meurt Que Deux Fois, a French murder mystery based upon a novel of the same name, is an unusual, involving film with excellent performances by its entire cast. Police Inspector Staniland (Michel Serrault) is investigating the death of a pianist. While conducting his investigation and looking through the victim's apartment, he meets Barbara (Charlotte Rampling), the mistress of the murder victim. Barbara confesses to the crime, but Staniland, based on his observations and experience, does not believe her. He then sets out to find the truth, with surprising results. Both Serrault and Rampling are outstanding in this well-directed, well-paced film. On Ne Meurt Que Deux Fois was also released as He Died With His Eyes Open and won the Jury Prize at the 1985 Montreal World Film Festival.
Robert Avranche, a middle-aged, alcoholic garage owner, is sitting on a train, reflecting on the emptiness of his life. An attractive young woman, Donatienne, suddenly enters the compartment and offers to make love to him. Robert accepts but, when the woman leaves the train afterwards, he decides to follow her...
Charlotte (Catherine Deneuve) flies to East-Africa in order to build a touristic center near the Lake Williams where the pygmys live. Here she meets her husband Victor (Philippe Noiret), a devoted conservationist who left her three years ago to live in the jungle. Can you imagine his enthusiasm when she arrives at the conclusion that the ideal place to built this holiday resort is his kitchen garden?
During an interview, Max Baumstein (Piccoli), respected chairman of a humanitarian organisation, shoots the Paraguayan ambassador dead, in cold blood. Tried for first-degree murder, he explains himself: the ambassador was a former Nazi official, responsible for the extermination of his family.
Set against the backdrop of an increasingly violent strike, a worker falls in love with the middle-class daughter of his landlady.
Oscar François de Jarjayes was born female, but her father insisted she be raised as a boy as he had no sons. She becomes the captain of the guards at Versailles under King Louis XVI and Marie Antonette. Her privileged, noble life comes under fire as she discovers the hard life of the poor people of France. She is caught up in the French Revolution, and must choose between her loyalty and love.
An absurd black comedy that cunningly reverses the conventions of the crime thriller to comment on the alienating and dehumanizing effects of contemporary urban life. Alphonse Tram is unwittingly involved in several murders despite having no memory of committing the crimes. His confusion lead him to confess to his neighbour, Inspector Morvandieu. Alphonse and Morvandieu become the axis around which murders occur.
Solange is depressed: she's stopped smiling, she eats little, she says less. She has fainting fits. Her husband Raoul seeks to save her by enlisting Stephane, a stranger, to be her lover. Although he listens to Mozart and has every Pocket Book arranged in alphabetical order, Stephane fails to cheer Solange. She knits. She does housework. Everyone, including their neighbor a vegetable vendor, agrees that she needs a child, yet she fails to get pregnant by either lover. The three take a job running a kids' summer camp where they meet Christian, the precocious 13-year-old son of the local factory manager. It is Christian who restores Solange to laughter
Anna is a film director whose job takes her all over western Europe. In each place she either already has some intimate connection, or readily makes one. People seem drawn to her, but inevitably insist on sharing their inmost secrets and discontents with her, despite her obvious and profound lack of interest in these revelations. This does not deter Anna from continuing to meet people, and she genuinely connects with them occasionally, as when she sees her mother briefly in Brussels.
L'Alpagueur is a free-lance spy from the French secret agency. He's put on the investigation about L'epervier, a serial-killer who employs young boys to help him robbing banks before killing them.
Francois always despised the textile barons who ruled his local town. But he fell in love with the family heiress Gilberte. Ten years ago, he would have married her. Now only hatred holds them together. Francois is accused of murder. A hooker and a football star lie slaughtered. He thinks he has been framed by the mob. Going underground, he finds that the trail leads all the way to the top - to Gilberte's family. He needs friends. And friends are hard to come by in his town.
A serial-killer frightens Paris by phoning young ladies at night, telling them insults about their lives. Minos, as he calls himself, wants to prevent the world from free women and he targets at first these ones. Commissaire Letellier is given the investigation and he has hard work with the maniac.
After his father is killed in a plane crash, Bart Cordell returns back home to France to claim his inheritance: to lead the industrial empire his father built. But when a prostitute tries to set him up for a drug smuggling charge, he is forced to accept that his father may have been assassinated and that the killers are out to get him as well...
Four friends from Paris are living misadventures of all sorts in Spain when their group of travelers is forced to split due to a travel scam.
A serie of murders is comitted in Nice on the French riviera. The commissaire Carella is in charge and tries to find a missing link between all these murders.
In a secluded hotel circumscribed by a dense forest Max and Alissa Thor meet Stein and Elisabeth. Max, a professor of future history and an aspiring author, is immediately attracted to the brooding wife of industrialist Bernard Alione, Elisabeth, who is recovering from a miscarriage. Stein, a German Jew and potential writer, is infatuated by Alissa, Max's young wife and former student. During their sojourn the guests' identities gradually meld. While playing cards, for example, each guest anticipates the others' observations. Although her friends remain at the resort, the insecure Elisabeth leaves upon the arrival of her worldly husband. (TCM.com)
Documentary about young actress Romy Schneider, capturing just the right moment between her first career as a young actress in mainstream "Unterhaltungskino" ("entertainment cinema") and her second one as acknowledged European arthouse actress.
Barcelona, 1967. Hans Fromm, a German-born architect, lives an well-ordered everyday life. He has become the target of an antifascist death squad though. Indeed their leader, Julius, whose brother was killed by Schmidt, a merciless S.S., believes, without being absolutely certain, that Fromm and Schmidt are the same man. The team, whose other members are Georges, the son of a deportee liquidated by Schmidt craving for action, Raphaël, a mercenary type, Nils, the photographer and Romain, watch Fromm's every move until Julius, convinced at last that the quiet German is their man, gives the green light for the operation. They manage to lure the former Nazi to an old house but Schmidt/Fromm won't let himself be captured so easily...
Drama of an unmarried mother who regrets having had her child fostered and fights its foster parents to have it restored to her.
A little girl named Alice dreams about going through the looking-glass and becoming a queen in the mirror reality.
Valentin travels to the burial of his father who died of indigestion, but stopping to eat on the way causes him to be late for the meal which follows the funeral.
Alain is a young man who has just left his parents and finds himself lost in Saint-Nazaire, a French coastal town whose main industry is shipbuilding. Alain arrives just as the liner SS France is under construction and he soon strikes up lasting friendships with dockyard workers. It is here that he also gets to meet the love of his life...
Victor (Jean-Pierre Cassel) and Suzanne (Genevieve Cluny) are a couple at odds about commitment in this light, fast-paced comedy-drama by Philippe de Broca. Suzanne needs more reassurance from Victor about the future of their relationship. He is a painter with an inspired creative side who finds it difficult to understand Suzanne's point of view. They are happy together; what is the problem? So when a friend comes into the picture and proposes to Suzanne, Victor suddenly realizes that Suzanne was right. Without a formal commitment, the suddenly insecure man does not like the view from the opposite shore.
