Tag Archives: french

La religieuse / The Nun (1966) Jacques Rivette, Anna Karina, Liselotte Pulver, Micheline Presle, Drama

La religieuse AKA The Nun (1966)
In eighteenth-century France a girl (Suzanne Simonin) is forced against her will to take vows as a nun. Three mothers superior (Madame de Moni, Sister Sainte-Christine, and Madame de Chelles) treat her in radically different ways, ranging from maternal concern, to sadistic persecution, to lesbian desire. Suzanne’s virtue brings disaster to everyone in this faithful adaptation of a bitter attack on religious abuses by the Enlightenment philosopher Denis Diderot.
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Wild Side (2004) Sébastien Lifshitz, Stéphanie Michelini, Yasmine Belmadi, Edouard Nikitine, Drama

Wild Side (Sebastien Lifshitz, 2004)
In Paris, the thirty-two years old travesty Stéphanie a.k.a. Pierre is a streetwalker that lives with the Egyptian gay hustler Djamel and the Russian gay Mikhail that works in a restaurant. When the hospital where her mother Liliane is terminal calls her, she travels with her two lovers to the countryside to look after her dying mother. While at home, she recalls her childhood and how she met Djamel and Mikhail.
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Une belle fille comme moi / A Gorgeous Bird Like Me (1972) François Truffaut, Bernadette Lafont, Claude Brasseur, Charles Denner, Comedy, Crime, Drama

Une belle fille comme moi AKA A Gorgeous Bird Like Me (1972)
Stanislas Previne is a young sociologist, preparing a thesis on criminal women. He chooses Camille Bliss as his subject of study and begins to visit her in prison for interviews. Camille became acquainted with trouble at a young age and justifies her actions by “fate-bets.” She is currently in prison for allegedly murdering one of her lovers. As she tells Stanislas of her life and love affairs, his interest in her grows to more than just professional. Can he resist her charm?
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Domicile conjugal / Bed and Board (1970) François Truffaut, Jean-Pierre Léaud, Claude Jade, Hiroko Berghauer, Comedy, Drama

Domicile conjugal AKA Bed and Board (1970)
Some time after “Baisers Volés”, Antoine Doinel (Jean-Pierre Léaud) and Christine Darbon (Claude Jade) are married and Antoine works dying flowers, and Christine is pregnant and gives private classes of violin. When Christine is near to have a baby, Antoine decides to find a new job, and he succeeds due to a misunderstanding of his employer. In a business meeting, he meets the Japanese Kyoko (Mademoiselle Hiroko) and they have an affair. When Christine accidentally discovers that Antoine has a lover, they separate. But later they miss each other and realize that they do love each other.
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Pour une femme / For a Woman (2013) Diane Kurys, Benoît Magimel, Mélanie Thierry, Nicolas Duvauchelle, Drama

Pour une femme AKA For a Woman (2013)
After the death of her mother, Anne makes a shocking discovery: an old photograph casts doubt on her origins and leads her to discover a mysterious uncle who lived with her parents after the war. As she lifts the lid on a long forgotten family secret, the young woman learns that her mother once succumbed to an amorous passion that was as intense as it was short-lived…
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Starbuck (2011) Ken Scott, Patrick Huard, Julie LeBreton, Antoine Bertrand, Comedy, Drama

Starbuck (2011)
At 42, David lives the life of an irresponsible adolescent. He coasts through life with minimal effort and maintains a complicated relationship with Valerie, a young policewoman. Just as she tells him she’s pregnant, David’s past resurfaces. Twenty years earlier, he began providing sperm to a fertility clinic in exchange for money. He discovers he’s the father of 533 children, 142 of whom have filed a class action lawsuit to determine the identity of their biological father, known only by the pseudonym Starbuck.
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Une femme française / A French Woman (1995) Régis Wargnier, Emmanuelle Béart, Daniel Auteuil, Gabriel Barylli, Drama

Une femme francaise AKA A French Woman (1995)
Wed just as war breaks out, Jeanne hardly gets to know her military husband, Louis, before the debacle of 1940. While waiting for his return from a POW camp, Jeanne journeys through countless affairs with Louis’ comrades- in-arms. Hopiing to forget these wartime betrayls, Louis takes his wife and the infant twins he didn’t father to Berlin, where she falls for Matthais, a sensitive German industrialist. When the Indochinese war sends Louis to Vietnam, Matthais follows Jeanne back to France. A subsequent move to Damascus where Louis is posted as military attache, fails to break their bond.
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Je suis le seigneur du château / I’m the King of the Castle (1989) Régis Wargnier, Jean Rochefort, Dominique Blanc, Régis Arpin, Drama, Thriller

Je suis le seigneur du chateau AKA I'm the King of the Castle (1989)
Thomas is the 12-year-old son of a millionaire who lives in a big mansion surrounded by woods in France. When his mother dies, his father hires a widowed maid to take care of everything while he is away. The woman brings her only son, Charles, to live with them and, hopefully, be company to lonesome Thomas. The rich boy and the poor one become enemies from the very first encounter. Moved essentially by jealousy and fear, Thomas decides to turn Charles’ life into a hell on Earth, especially after their parents eventually fall in love. As the title suggests, he wants to make it clear to the invader who is the lord of the castle.
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Le silence de la mer (1949) Jean-Pierre Melville, Howard Vernon, Nicole Stéphane, Jean-Marie Robain, Drama, Romance, War

Le silence de la mer (1949)
1941 in a small town in Nazi occupied France. Against the will of its elderly male and his adult niece residents, the Nazis commandeer a house for one of their officers, Lt. Werner von Ebrennac, to live in for as long as he is in the area on Nazi business. As a figurative and literal silent protest against the Nazis and the officer, the uncle and niece do whatever is required of them while the officer is in their house, however they do not acknowledge his presence, living largely in silence whenever he is around. The officer treats the housing situation with care, like he is a guest. Although not a nightly occurrence, the officer begins an evening routine with his reluctant hosts: in his civilian clothes, he knocks on the door of the room in which they have convened for the evening, walking in shortly thereafter knowing that no acknowledgment will be made for him to enter, he visits with them for no more than five minutes before he bids them a good evening as he exits.
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Cet obscur objet du désir / That Obscure Object of Desire (1977) Luis Buñuel, Fernando Rey, Carole Bouquet, Ángela Molina, Comedy, Drama

Cet obscur objet du desir (1977)
Just after boarding a train, much to the surprise of his fellow passengers, a man pours a bucket of water over a young girl on the platform. Over the next few hours he explains (and we see in flashback) how he became obsessed by her (so much so that he failed to notice that she was played by two different actresses, representing different sides of her personality), and how she tantalised him, but would never allow him to satisfy his desire for her…
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