Tag Archives: French Cinema

Le Souffle au Coeur (Murmur of the Heart)

Posted on December 22, 2015 by Helen Van Kruyssen

If you’re a teenage boy in a post-war bourgeois family, struggling with a cold father, a Catholic education and two mischievous older brothers, there are three pleasures in life: a mother’s love, Jazz music, and the slow, self-conscious introduction to … Continue reading →

Posted in Comedy, Film Review, French Cinema | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment

Charlotte et Son Steak

Posted on December 11, 2015 by Helen Van Kruyssen

The simple preparation of a steak by a woman intellectually resistant to the dry charm of an intense man (played by Jean-Luc Godard) comprises this neat 10-minute short, directed and written by Eric Rohmer at the very beginning of his … Continue reading →

Posted in Auteur, Eric Rohmer, Eric Rohmer short film, Film Review, French Cinema, French Film, French film Review, French Movie, French Movie Reveiw, French Movie Reviews, French Movies, French short film reviews, French short films, romance | Tagged , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Grenouille d’Hiver (Winter Frog)

Posted on November 8, 2015 by Helen Van Kruyssen

Gérard Depardieu is a grey, sad viticulturist, and Eriko Takeda disturbs the tombs in his eyes … Continue reading →

Posted in French Cinema, French Film, Grenouille d’Hiver, Japanese culture in France, Winter Frog | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments

21 Nuits avec Pattie (21 Nights with Pattie)

Posted on October 17, 2015 by Helen Van Kruyssen

Like a grown-up Alice stepping into Wonderland, Parisian fortysomething (‘Caroline’ played by Isabelle Carré) arrives at her recently deceased mother’s country house in southern France to organise her funeral. She finds her mother’s corpse, resembling a man in drag, in … Continue reading →

Posted in French Cinema, French Film, French film Review, French Movie, French Movie Reviews | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 4 Comments

Les Amants (The Lovers)

Posted on August 9, 2015 by Helen Van Kruyssen

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 →

Posted in Film Review, French Cinema, French film Review, French Movie, French Movie Review, Louis Malle, Nouvelle Vague, The New Wave | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 5 Comments

Les Choristes (The Chorus)

Posted on July 15, 2015 by Helen Van Kruyssen

Music, patience and compassion are a far cry from the discipline-maxim ‘Action-Reaction,’ barked by the headmaster of Fond de l’Etang (Rock Bottom), the boarding school for ‘difficult boys.’ It’s 1948, and punishment is administered with a steady, consistent hand: lashings … Continue reading →

Posted in French Cinema, French Film | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments

Merci Pour Le Chocolat

Posted on July 3, 2015 by Helen Van Kruyssen

‘I have a knack for doing wrong,’ confesses Swiss-Chocolate factory owner Mika Muller (Isabelle Huppert), the praline beauty in Claude Chabrol’s detective-style thriller. Chabrol wanted to make a film about ‘Evil’, chose Huppert as its purveyor, and from the opening … Continue reading →

Posted in Claude Chabrol, French Cinema, French Film, Merci Pour le Chocolat, Thriller | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment

La French (The Connection)

Posted on June 23, 2015 by Helen Van Kruyssen

Jean Dujardin and Gilles Lellouche latest on-screen collaboration places them on the opposite sides of a heady 70s Marseille landscape. Based on real-events at the time, La French sees magistrate Pierre Michel’s (Dujardin) attempts to break-up Marseille’s roaring heroin trade and … Continue reading →

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Timbuktu

Posted on June 13, 2015 by Helen Van Kruyssen

An elegiac, much-lauded film, in which love, family, music, faith and football (plus a little eccentricity) bind the town of Timbuktu, despite the controlling, uncompromising presence of the Jihadists. Abderrahmane Sissako directs and writes with a poet’s sensibility, seeking emotional … Continue reading →

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Elle L’Adore (She Worships Him)

Posted on June 8, 2015 by Helen Van Kruyssen

An obsessive fertile imagination is vital to securing freedom for divorced Parisian beautician, Muriel (Sandrine Kiberlain) in this Claude Chabrol-style thriller. When rock star Vincent Lacroix (Laurent Lafitte) accidentally kills his girlfriend during a lover’s tiff, he approaches Muriel, his … Continue reading →

Posted in French Cinema French Film, French Film, Murder-mystery, romance, Thriller | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | 4 Comments