Tag Archives: french

A young, once-great Hollywood film director refuses to accept changing times during the early 1930s, and confines himself to his decaying mansion to make silent porn flicks.
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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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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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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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When Simon (Jean-Louis Trintignant) is released from prison, he emerges with a bold kidnapping scheme. He enlists the help of an old cohort and his former lover, Martine (Christine Lelouch), to kidnap a young boy. The child’s father is an employee at a bank, and the three criminals blackmail the financial institution, demanding $1 million in ransom. Out of fear, the bank pays the sum, but the kidnappers may have bitten off more than they can chew.
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Lucas has invented a new computer language but at the same time he has been informed about his strange terminal illness during which he has been gradually losing his memory. Shortly after that he meets Blanche who acts as a medium in a bizarre traveling show. Dying Lucas follows her to the sea resort where they spend together several days and nights.
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Take a walk into the weird world of filmmaker Raul Ruiz as he takes us to Paris for a twisted ride. A man which shares four names and four personalities (which is the real one?) is the link between four different, yet similar, stories involving love, lust, crime, and time.
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Like in many other Monicelli movies, the main theme of Amici miei is friendship, seen from a rather bitter point of view. It tells the story of four middle-aged friends in Florence who organize together idle pranks (called zingarate, “gypsy shenanigans”) in a continuous attempt to prolong childhood during their adult life…
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