In 1954, the Indochina War begins to come to a close following France’s defeat by the Viet Minh at the deadly Battle of Dîen Bîen Phû. French forces are in full retreat and risk being overrun at every turn — including the 317th Platoon, a unit of French soldiers and Laotian allies who are led by the idealistic but inexperienced sous-lieutenant Torrens and adjutant Willsdorf, a former soldier in the German Wehrmacht during WWII. Their survival depends on completing a trek through the dense, jungle-laden, expanse of enemy territory that stands between them and the safety of the nearest French outpost.
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Tag Archives: french
L’enfer dans la peau / Sexus (1965) José Bénazéraf, Willy Braque, Yves Duffaut, Annie Josse
A beautiful heiress is kidnapped and held hostage until her wealthy father comes up with a ransom. The heiress develops an attraction to one of her kidnappers, but another member of the gang tries to rape her, leading to a deadly triangle.
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Le milieu du monde / The Middle of the World (1974) Alain Tanner, Olimpia Carlisi, Philippe Léotard, Juliet Berto
Paul is married, a successful engineer, and a conservative candidate in an upcoming local election. He falls in love with Adriana, a café waitress from Italy. Paul’s party is very critical of foreign labour and wants to keep Switzerland to the Swiss. Where Paul falls deeper and deeper into the relationship and is ready to leave his wife, Adriana feels the social pressure growing and has to make her own decision.
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Le trio infernal / The Infernal Trio (1974) Francis Girod, Michel Piccoli, Romy Schneider, Mascha Gonska
Marseilles, 1919. Georges Sarret is a distinguished and respected lawyer, recently honoured for his services in the First World War. He takes as his lover Philomène Schmidt, a young German woman, who has just lost her job and home. To enable Philomène to remain in France, Georges finds her a husband – who dies conveniently of natural causes a month after the wedding. Georges repeats the trick with Philomène’s sister, Catherine – marrying her off to an old man who dies suddenly so that the scheming trio can profit from his life insurance. When an accomplice in the scheme, Marcel Chambon, threatens to blackmail them, Georges and his two lovers have no option but to kill him and his mistress. Having dissolved the bodies in sulphuric acid, Georges hires another man to pose as Chambon so that he can secure his assets. Flush with the success of this venture, Georges proposes his most ambitious scam: he will insure Catherine’s life with five separate insurance companies; a young orphan woman who is dying from tuberculosis will provide Catherine’s death certificate when the moment comes. Unfortunately, the scheme does not go quite as planned…
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Sous les toits de Paris / Under the Roofs of Paris (1930) René Clair, Albert Préjean, Pola Illéry, Edmond T. Gréville
While singing in a lower class quarter in Paris, the street singer Albert falls in love with the Romanian party girl Pola, who is the companion of the gangster Fred. One night, Albert meets with Pola, who has just found that Fred had stolen her key, and his friend Louis proposes to toss to date her. However, Albert brings her to his room and they spend the night together, with Albert sleeping on the floor and Pola on his bed. Early in the morning, the pickpocket Émile brings a bag with stolen pieces and asks Albert to keep the bag for him. When the police busts Albert’s room and finds the stolen goods, he is arrested and sent to jail. Meanwhile Fred travels and Pola seeks comfort with Louis, and they stay together. When Émile is arrested by the police, he confesses that Albert is innocent and he is released and seeks out Pola. Meanwhile Fred returns to Paris and also seeks out Pola that is with Louis.
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Anna (1967) Pierre Koralnik, Anna Karina, Jean-Claude Brialy, Marianne Faithfull
Anna is a bizarre pop art/comedy/musical filled with bright vibrant colors, strange, hallucinatory scenes and some of the best songs Serge ever wrote. The story is about a man obsessively looking for a woman he saw in a photograph. A truly charming and entertaining movie that every Gainsbourg fan should see.
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Sous les bombes / Under the Bombs (2007) Philippe Aractingi, Nada Abou Farhat, Georges Khabbaz, Rawia Elchab
Under the bombs, a woman searches for her son. A man accompanies her. They have nothing in common. Toni is Christian and dreams of leaving the country. Zeina is Shiite, and has emigrated to Dubai. Back in Lebanon to try and save her son, she realizes she doesn’t want to leave anymore. And yet, despite this all, Toni and Zeina will love each other, as a kind of response to the death striking all around them.
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La comtesse perverse / Countess Perverse (1974) Jesús Franco, Alice Arno, Robert Woods, Howard Vernon
Two wealthy aristocrats lure a virginal girl to a Spanish island for a night of sex, death and cannibalism.
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Le roman de Werther (1938) Max Ophüls, Pierre Richard-Willm, Annie Vernay, Jean Galland
Adaptation of “Werther”, a novel by Goethe. A young poet falls passionately in love a girl and when lost, desperately trying to recover.
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Une femme à sa fenêtre (1976) Granier-Deferre, Romy Schneider, Philippe Noiret, Victor Lanoux
On August 4, 1936, General Metaxas declared martial law in Greece. A union leader using the name Boutros is sought in Athens by Primoukis, a ruthless police leader. Boutros narrowly escapes and, early the next morning, jumps through the window of Marchese Margot Santorini, the wealthy Austrian-born wife of Rico, a penniless Italian diplomat and playboy. Margot is bored and without purpose: aiding Boutros’s escape invigorates her, and soon she is in love. The film briefly jumps to 1945 when Rico and Raoul (who assisted her out of love) meet in France to talk about her fate, and then jumps 30 years to Margot’s daughter’s visit to Greece to find out about her father.
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