Category Archives: French Movie Review
Les Biches (The Does)
Claude Chabrol’s take on sexual ambiguity in 1968 is mischievous. Stéphane Audran plays the resplendent Frédérique, nouvelle vague’s colonialist of female lust and control. She’s the wealthy dominatrix who wants power over those she desires, and she pursues them with … Continue reading
Après Vous
One simple act of kindness and the hilarious complications that follow form the heart-stone of Pierre Salvadori’s romantic-comedy, one that rolls out bad luck and angst-ridden romance with gags and some very pretty flower arrangements. Daniel Auteuil, French-cinema’s Prince-of-buried-emotion, plays … Continue reading
Les Témoins (The Witnesses)
Love is a crashing symbol (and fidelity a distant drum-roll) in André Téchiné’s film about desire, control and the outbreak of the AIDS epidemic in mid-eighties Paris. Sarah (Emmanuelle Béart) finds motherhood difficult: it’s hard to write with a young … Continue reading
Un Plus Une
Claude Lelouch flings opens the doors, shows us heightened-colours of India, and lets love happen Continue reading
37°2 le Matin (Betty Blue)
“… a travelling circus of events, holding the trauma of romance, and the joys of desire as something more vital to life than work.” Continue reading
La Vie en Grand (Learn by Heart)
Drug-dealing and reciting poetry in the Paris-projects are unlikely companions in a story about two teenage boys who find themselves selling hashish to make cash for their families. Mamadou (Ali Bidanessy) the achingly cute younger side-kick to 14 year-old protagonist … Continue reading
Les Biches (The Does)
Claude Chabrol’s take on sexual ambiguity in 1968 is mischievous. Stéphane Audran plays the resplendent Frédérique, nouvelle vague’s colonialist of female lust and control. She’s the wealthy dominatrix who wants power over those she desires, and she pursues them with … Continue reading
Je suis Un Soldat (I Am A Soldier)
Being good at a job that shatters morale is the belly-ache that groans deep in Sandrine (Louise Bourgoin), the steely-spirited thirty year-old who returns home from Paris and finds work at the dog kennels belonging to her uncle, Henri (Jean-Hugues … Continue reading
Les Amants (The Lovers)
Louis Malle turns the table on femininity and ennui by placing Jeanne (Jeanne Moreau), a bourgeois late-fifties housewife, at the centre of a masterful triad of Polo, the driving car and a soundtrack by Brahms. They narrate her journey from … Continue reading
