Tag Archives: French film review

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 →

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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 Jalousie (Jealousy)

Posted on June 2, 2015 by Helen Van Kruyssen

Jealousy and infidelity stand close and intimate in Philippe Garrel’s slender, simple tale of an actor who moves out of the apartment he shares with his young daughter and girlfriend, and goes to live with his new love. So personal, … Continue reading →

Posted in French Cinema, French Film, La Jalousie, Melancholy, romance, Sexuality | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | 5 Comments