Six months before his retirement from the criminal police, inspector Joss finds his colleague Gouvion dead, in a poorly faked suicide attempt. Joss loses his temper, and investigates on his own, which leads him through the bas-fond of Paris…
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Tag Archives: France
Goodbye Again (1961) Anatole Litvak, Anthony Perkins, Ingrid Bergman, Yves Montand
In this adaptation of Françoise Sagan’s best selling novel, Paula is a beautiful and highly successful 40-year-old businesswoman. She is deeply in love with Roger, her mature consort of five years. Roger is a very charming gallant who loves Paula but is too selfish to give up his freedom to be promiscuous. When Paula meets Phillip, the 24-year-old immature lawyer son of one of her rich clients, he falls hopelessly in love with the glamorous, sympathetic older woman and insists that the age difference will be no barrier to a romance. Paula resists the young man’s persistent advances, but she finally succumbs when Roger initiates yet another affair with one of his young Maisies. An affair begins, and society does not approve.
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L’annulaire / The Ring Finger (2005) Diane Bertrand, Olga Kurylenko, Marc Barbé, Stipe Erceg
Iris finds a new job working in a preservation lab where she gradually enters into a troubled relationship with her boss.
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Le serpent / The Snake (2006) Eric Barbier, Yvan Attal, Clovis Cornillac, Pierre Richard
A ruthless gang led by private detective Joseph Plender is extorting rich people and famous fashion photographer Vincent Mandel seems the next victim. He is married to Hélène, daughter of one of the richest people in Europe, but not quite happily. In fact the marriage is on the brink of a divorce and a judge is deciding who will take the two children. Can Hélène take them to Germany or will they stay with Vincent? Vincent has a lot on his mind and he improvises when model Sofia Kippiani comes to his studio, but his makeup crew doesn’t show up. Before he knows it, he is accused of a rape. Things go worse and worse for Vincent, he sees his entire life slipping away and, most importantly, he might lose his children. But why does his former schoolmate Joseph Plender seek contact with Vincent and even solve a nasty problem for him? Does Plender want something more than money?
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Goto, l’île d’amour / Goto, Island of Love (1969) Walerian Borowczyk
Walerian Borowczyk’s second feature was just as original as his first. Almost entirely live action this time, it is situated on the archipelago of Goto, which has been cut off from the rest of human civilisation by a massive earthquake and has consequently developed its own arcane rules. Melancholic dictator Goto III (Pierre Brasseur) is married to the beautiful Glossia (Ligia Branice), who in turn is lusted after by the petty thief Gozo (Guy Saint-Jean) as he works his way up the hierarchy.
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Un bellissimo novembre / That Splendid November (1969) Mauro Bolognini, Gina Lollobrigida, Gabriele Ferzetti, André Lawrence
The erotic exploits of a large Sicilian family in which the father lectures about morality and self-control, but pursues lovemaking with reckless abandon.
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Hélas pour moi / Oh, Woe Is Me (1993) Jean-Luc Godard, Gérard Depardieu, Laurence Masliah, Bernard Verley
Romance about Simon Donnadieu and his decision to leave his ever-loving wife Rachel.
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Tous peuvent me tuer / Everybody Wants to Kill Me (1957) Henri Decoin, François Périer, Peter van Eyck, Anouk Aimée
The holdup of the bank is a success. All happened according to plan. Now, Cyril Gad and his four accomplices must secure an alibi. What better place than a prison cell? As a result the five gangsters have themselves arrested on minor charges and start waiting until they are released. Unfortunately three of them die mysteriously, another one is openly murdered. The only man still alive, Tony, is scared.
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Coup de torchon (1981) Bertrand Tavernier, Philippe Noiret, Isabelle Huppert, Stéphane Audran
1938, in a French african colony. Lucien Cordier is the cop of this village, populated with blacks and a few whites (usually racialist and lustful). He is a washout, everyone (including his wife Huguette) humiliates him. He never arrests anyone and looks at elsewhere when a dirty trick occurs. But one day, he turns into a machiavellian exterminating angel.
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Gli innamorati / Wild Love (1955) Mauro Bolognini, Antonella Lualdi, Franco Interlenghi, Sergio Raimondi
The film is about some youths’ love stories: Franco and his hairdresser girlfriend Adriana, Otello another hairdresser who is hopelessly in love with Adriana. The youths usually meet in a restaurant whose owner, Ines, seduces Franco making Adriana very jealous. In turn the girl decides to accept Otello’s courting.
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Köshpendiler / Nomad: The Warrior (2005) Sergey Bodrov, Ivan Passer, Kuno Becker, Jason Scott Lee, Jay Hernandez
Rebirth of a nation. Not since Genghis Khan has anyone united the Kazakh tribes. Jungar tribesmen of Mongolia rule Kazakh land, but a prophecy has it that a descendant of Genghis will unite his people. Oraz the Wise travels the land looking for the child who will fulfill the prophecy. He finds that infant and protects him from the warriors of Galdan, the Jungar king. Oraz recruits one lad from each Kazakh tribe and teaches them the art of war, loyalty, and camaraderie. Two are the best: Mansur and Erali. They are like brothers. Each must prove himself; both fall in love with the same young woman; both fall into enemy hands. At what cost does a prophecy come to pass?
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Ce jour-là / That Day (2003) Raoul Ruiz, Bernard Giraudeau, Elsa Zylberstein, Jean-Luc Bideau
A father (Michel Piccoli) is scheming to have his slightly mental daughter from an earlier marriage (Elsa Zylberstein) killed by allowing a murderous psychopath (Bernard Giraudeau) to be released from the asylum and led to his house. However, the psychopath and the daughter fall for each other.
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Thérèse Raquin / The Adultress (1953) Marcel Carné, Simone Signoret, Raf Vallone, Jacques Duby
Therese has a boring life. She married Camille, her cousin, a sickly haberdasher, fully dominated by his mother (who lives with them). She dreams about passion. One day comes a truckdriver, Laurent… and of course they fall in love. But they will be pursued by fate.
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Je l’aimais / Someone I Loved (2009) Zabou Breitman, Daniel Auteuil, Marie-Josée Croze, Florence Loiret Caille
One night, Pierre decides to reveal his painful secret to his daughter-in-law, who’s just been abandoned by her husband. Pierre’s secret is about his secret love to Mathilde, the woman he left to instead follow an easier path in life.
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À nous la liberté (1931) René Clair, Raymond Cordy, Henri Marchand, Rolla France
A famous left-wing satirical comedy about two ex-convicts, one of whom escaped jail and then worked his way up from salesman to factory owner, where he oversees a highly mechanized operation where the workers are reduced to mere automatons. Fearful of being exposed over his past, at first by his friend and later by another gangster, the owner chooses to give his factory to the workers, then escapes with his friend to the freedom of the open road. The production company for “A Nous la Liberte” was for more than a decade embroiled in a lawsuit claiming that Charles Chaplin had seen their film and plagiarized many ideas from it as he developed “Modern Times.”
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