Tag Archives: France

Un singe en hiver (1962) Henri Verneuil, Jean Gabin, Jean-Paul Belmondo, Suzanne Flon, Comedy, Drama

Un singe en hiver (1962)
A young man, Gabriel Fouquet, arrives in a coastal town in Normandy to visit his daughter, who is staying in a boarding school. He ends up lodging in a guesthouse run by the aged Albert Quentin and his wife Suzanne. To forget his troubles, Gabriel hits the bottle, not realising that the teetotal Albert was once a heavy drinker. Twenty years ago, the latter pledged never to touch alcohol again if he and his wife survived the war. Through his friendship with Gabriel, Albert becomes nostalgic about his past, recalling his time as a sailor on an expedition to China. To drown their sorrows, the two men embark on a drinking binge which quickly gets out of hand…
Read More »

Era notte a Roma / It Was Night in Rome (1960) Roberto Rossellini, Leo Genn, Giovanna Ralli, Sergey Bondarchuk, Drama, War

Era notte a roma (1960)
During WW2, in Rome , a trio of escaped Allied POWs find themselves in limbo as they try to avoid re-capture and reach their dispersed units. Michael Pemberton is a British Major, Fyodor Aleksandrovic Nazukov is a Soviet Sergeant and Peter Bradley is an American Lieutenant. A beautiful young Italian woman, Esperia Belli, agrees to give them shelter. She knows that despite Italy’s efforts to break with Nazi Germany and join the Allies there are some Italians who are Fascist sympathizers and would gladly denounce Esperia to the German authorities. Hiding enemy soldiers or escaped POWs is punishable by death. Esperia hopes to get in contact with the Italian anti-Fascist resistance which could help the three escaped Allied POWs rejoin their respective armies. Until then, the fugitives are stuck in Esperia’s attic.
Read More »

L’Enfant Sauvage (1970) François Truffaut, Jean-Pierre Cargol, Françoise Seigner, Drama

l'enfant sauvage
France, 1798. In a forest, hunters discover and capture a 12 year old boy who appears to have spent his life living like a wild animal. He is taken to a school for deaf and dumb children in Paris, where is maltreated and used as an object of scientific curiosity. An eminent doctor, Jean Itard, takes an interest in the strange child and resolves to educate him. Little by little, the feral child, whom Itard christens Victor, responds to his benefactor’s patient attempts to civilise him.
Read More »

Pas douce (2007) Jeanne Waltz, Isild Le Besco, Lio, Steven de Almeida, Drama

Pas douce (2007)
A young woman, Frédérique, finds herself alone in a deserted forest. It is the perfect place to commit suicide. But she is disturbed by two teeange boys and instinctively pulls her rifle on them. The bullet intended for herself ends up seriously wounding one of the boys. As she flees the scene of the shooting, Frédérique’s first thought is to give herself up. But then she changes her mind. No one saw her fire the gun. And who would suspect her, a 24-year-old nurse? But fate takes a cruel twist when the boy she shot, Marco, is taken to the hospital where she works. It is she who has to treat him and ensure that he recovers from his near-fatal injuries. How will Marco react when he discovers that she is the one who almost killed him?
Read More »

Il conformista / The Conformist (1970) Bernardo Bertolucci, Jean-Louis Trintignant, Stefania Sandrelli, Gastone Moschin, Drama

Il conformista (1970)
This story opens in 1938 in Rome, where Marcello has just taken a job working for Mussollini and is courting a beautiful young woman who will make him even more of a conformist. Marcello is going to Paris on his honeymoon and his bosses have an assignment for him there. Look up an old professor who fled Italy when the fascists came into power. At the border of Italy and France, where Marcello and his bride have to change trains, his bosses give him a gun with a silencer. In a flashback to 1917, we learn why sex and violence are linked in Marcello’s mind.
Read More »

The Nude Vampire / La vampire nue (1970) Jean Rollin, Caroline Cartier, Olivier Rollin, Maurice Lemaître, Art-house, Horror, Erotic

The Nude Vampire (1970)
French director Jean Rollin’s erotic and surreal vampire yarn stars Olivier Martin as Pierre Radamante, a wealthy hedonist who learns that his scientist father, Georges (Maurice Lemaître), is carrying out experiments to unlock the secret of immortality. And that’s not all: It seems that Georges is in league with a ritualistic society involving vampires and evil alien mutants! Caroline Cartier and Catherine Castel also star.
Read More »