Tag Archives: France

Julien and Marguerite de Ravalet, son and daughter of the Lord of Tourlaville, have loved each other since childhood. But as they grow up, their affection veers toward voracious passion. Scandalized by their affair, society hounds them until, unable to resist their feelings, they flee. A contemporary fairytale about desire, passion, hope, love and death.
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Le procureur Andreiv requiert sévèrement contre un criminel qui a tué l’amant qui le trompait. Andreiv prétend que dans cette infortune le mari devait disparaître. Or, voici qu’une situation semblable se réalise au foyer du procureur. Il découvre l’amour que se portent mutuellement un jeune avocat, Serge Rastoff, et sa femme, Lisa. Après une discussion, le procureur disparaît au bord de la Neva. On repêche son corps défiguré, et une lettre d’Andreiv indique son intention de disparaître. On conclut au suicide. Mais un jaloux substitut, sur certains indices, accuse Serge et Lisa d’avoir tué le procureur. Ils comparaissent aux Assises et vont être condamnés lorsque Andreiv reparaît. Il s’est engagé dans l’armée. Son témoignage innocente Lisa et Serge, et il repart aux tranchées chercher la mort dans le combat.
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In a sense, Carlos Saura’s first foray into filming classical dance, Blood Wedding, may be seen, not as a stark departure from the immediacy of his narrative films, but rather, as an oblique return to form towards the social interrogations implicit in his earlier work on the fundamental question of Spanish identity – a particularly timely and relevant re-assessment in the aftermath of a contemporary history marked by institutional repression, creative censorship, and historical revisionism. It is within this framework that the selected adaptation of the seminal “rural trilogy” play by Spanish playwright, Federico García Lorca – a writer who was executed by Falangists in the early days of the Civil War and whose work was generally banned throughout Franco’s regime – seems particularly suited to this post Franco-era cultural introspection in its dark and tragic tale of passion, betrayal, and revenge.
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Manu and Nadine lose their last tenuous relationship with main-stream society when Manu gets raped and Nadine sees her only friend being shot. After a chance encounter, they embark on an explosive journey of sex and murder. Perhaps as a revenge against men, perhaps as a revolt against bourgeois society, but certainly in a negation – almost joyful in its senseless violence – of all the codes of a society which has excluded, raped and humiliated them. Controversial for its violence and real sex scenes: a vividly nihilist road movie set in France.
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Visible only to those like them and to human children, Damiel and Cassiel are two angels, who have existed even before humankind. Along with several other angels, they currently wander around West Berlin, generally on their own, observing and preserving life, sometimes trying to provide comfort to the troubled, although those efforts are not always successful. Among those they are currently observing are: the cast and crew of a movie – a detective story set in WWII Nazi Germany – which include a sensitive and perceptive Peter Falk; an elderly man named Homer looking for eternal peace; and the troupe of a financially failing circus, which has closed early for the season because of those financial problems. One day, Damiel tells Cassiel that he wants to become human, to feel not only the sensory aspects of physical beings, but also emotional aspects. He embarks on this thought with the full realization that there is no turning back if he decides to do so. His thoughts are largely …
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All seems lost. And then, in an old, lonely and icy park two shadowy figures meet: those of Deus and a Messenger from God. The Messenger gives the crook (the temporary state of poor João de Deus) a suitcase stuffed with money. His mission accomplished, the Messenger leaves. João counts the bank notes. The silent waters of a nearby lake are disturbed when a heavy object plunges in. João goes to see what is happening. A young girl (Joana) is drowning. João throws himself into the water and carries the unconscious Joana off to a convent (Capucines?). How Responsible! João de Deus returns to the park to recover the case and its precious contents: happily, nothing has been touched…
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Angel Deverell comes of age in Edwardian Cheshire knowing she will be a great writer. Rising above her class (her widowed mother has a grocery shop), Angel finds a publisher and a wide audience for her frothy romances. With royalties, she buys an estate, then she’s smitten by Esme, a rake from local aristocracy and an artist of dark temperament. She hires Esme’s sister Nora, who dotes on her, as a personal assistant, and pursues Esme. Angel is grandly self-centered, coloring her world as if it were one of her novels. When the Great War breaks out and reality begins to trump her will, can Angel hold on to her man and her public?
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Jacques Demy followed up The Umbrellas of Cherbourg with another musical about missed connections and second chances, this one a more effervescent confection. Twins Delphine and Solange, a dance instructor and a music teacher (played by real-life sisters Catherine Deneuve and Françoise Dorléac), long for big-city life; when a fair comes through their quiet port town, so does the possibility of escape. With its jazzy Michel Legrand score, pastel paradise of costumes, and divine supporting cast (George Chakiris, Grover Dale, Danielle Darrieux, Michel Piccoli, and Gene Kelly), The Young Girls of Rochefort is a tribute to Hollywood optimism from sixties French cinema’s preeminent dreamer.
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Étienne Ranson is the black sheep of his family. Having made his fortune in Tunisia, he returns to France and receives a cool reception from his uncle, Achille Guéroy, the owner of a glove factory in Grenoble. Guéroy is astounded when his nephew returns the money he had lent him and immediately looks at Étienne in a new light when it becomes apparent that he is now a very wealthy man. However, when Ranson is arrested for his involvement in a bloody riot in Tunisia, the family is quick to disown him again. When the charges against him are dropped, Ranson returns to Grenoble and intervenes to end a strike at the factory. Ranson then learns that his cousin Jacques has lost the company’s entire cash reserves through high-risk speculation. Aware that the Guéroys face ruin and dishonour, Ranson agrees to bail them out, on one condition: that he can marry his adopted cousin Geneviève. But she is already engaged to another man…
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Sam, cinéaste débutant, veut réaliser un film sur Sylvain Marceau, réalisateur disparu mystérieusement sous l’Occupation. Il retrouve par miracle Lisa Maurin, le grand amour de Sylvain, qui vit toujours et attend son retour. Lisa va partager avec Sam l’histoire initiatique de son incroyable aventure de jeunesse et de cet amour fou…
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