FFF: Fantastic French Films!!

Superb Hitchcockian thriller with a fantastic double act in Emmanuelle Devos & Vincent Cassel, who are both excellent. The film is unbearably tense, romantic, sexy, offbeat and finally oddly beautiful. The cinematography is great, the central conceit is used to great effect (sound design is particularly effective) and the direction taught. The director, Jacques Audiard, who has gone on to make the equally impressive The Beat That My Heart Skipped, is fast becoming a personal favorite...

Superb coming of age French film made in the 70's but set in the 50's, which focuses on an adolescent boy coming to terms with his sexuality and his relationships with his mother, father and brothers.

Very tenderly directed, the film features stunning and unforced performances from Benoit Ferreux as lead character Laurent and Lea Massari as his mother. In other hands the subject matter could seem exploitative and unnecessarily controversial, but Louis Malle displays an assured light touch. The period detail is also very impressive and the warm cinematography is another plus.

The Criterion DVD features a pristine transfer that makes the film look brand new, and comes with a very well written and informative essay by film critic Michael Sragow.

A very fine film indeed.

A young girl, Melanie, dreams of becoming a professional musician and finds her hopes shattered in an instant when one of the judges listening to her performance - a famous concert pianist - agrees to sign an autograph, causing her to lose confidence and blow her chance.

Later in life, Melanie (Debroah Francois), now a young woman, exploits an opportunity to exact revenge.

The Page Turner is an icy-cold and expertly mounted tale of revenge, piling on the tension in a lean 85 minutes, mostly eschewing blood in favour of psychological consequences; Melanie slowly builds a relationship and trust with the family she works for before beginning to turn the tables. The finale may lack sensationalism but remains true to the story and the performances from Deborah Francois and Catherine Frot are superb.

Exceptional, impossible to classify thriller/black comedy/supernatural film from the director of Harry, He's Here To Help; it's like a cross between Alfred Hitchcock and David Lynch and is one of the most bizarre and satisfying films I've seen in a long time.

Alain (Laurent Lucas), a designer of home security products (he's working on a "flying webcam") seems to have it all - a beautiful wife, Benedicte (Charlotte Gainsburg), a promising new home in a pretty town and a lucrative job. On the evening his boss, Richard, and his wife, Alice (Charlotte Rampling) come round for dinner, things start to get... weird. The kitchen sink blocks, and later Alice accuses Richard of sleeping with prostitutes and throws her wine at him, before trying to insult Benedicte over her 'model' marriage and what she sees as a superiority complex. That night, unable to sleep, Alain successfully unblocks the sink when he discovers a rodent (the titular lemming) in the s bend. What follows gets increasingly unnerving and surreal as Alice tries to seduce Alain before inviting herself back into his house, creeping out Benedicte and sleeping in the spare room.

Sounds odd? Well, yes it is, but there is a point to the film and although there is some ambiguity it's not Inland Empire either. There are some unexpectedly very funny moments in the film, the atmosphere is expertly built practically from the beginning, Charlotte Rampling gives a frankly terrifying performance and the sound editing and music score is terrific. I'm already in anticipation for Dominik Moll's next film.

Eight years ago, Alex's wife was murdered. Today, she e-mailed him.

The above tag-line is pretty much all you should know regarding the storyline before watching. This French film from director Guillaume Canet, and based on a pulpy thriller by US author Harlan Coben, does everything right with the genre of a thriller, and adds a few wrinkles of its own too. Much like in The Constant Gardener, despite being a thriller at its heart it's also a romance, with the protagonist slowly learning things he never knew about his wife that only deepens his love for her. As a thriller, the film works a great deal better than say, The Fugitive or The Bourne Identity, and there are some standout sequences, such as a thrilling chase across a highway, which are imbued with kinetic energy that give most US blockbusters a run for their money.

Clever and intelligently plotted without becoming convoluted or too complex, well acted by a talented and unshowy cast and with excellent camera work and music score, Tell No One is an ingenious and moving film. Oh and I would just like to add that the uses of the songs Lilac Wine (Jeff Buckley version) and With or Without You (a song I actually can't stand) are perfect (the latter is even relevant to the plot!).

Fabulous experimental homage to French New Wave cinema; it is warm, perceptive, tender and funny without being pretentious - quite a feat for a film that features direct to camera narration, voice-over and one (superb) musical number. It's one of the few films I've seen that effectively portrays what it's like to feel your heart break, how no one can help you through it but yourself, how wallowing in depression can be an addiction, and how the smallest incident can gradually take you out of it.

Romain Duris (The Beat That My Heat Skipped) as the heartbroken Paul, and Louis Garrel (The Dreamers) as womanising Jo, two of France's most talented actors, give effortlessly truthful performances as the brothers. A number of narrative tricks and 'gimmicks' are used but the film never stops flowing - this is what experimental cinema should be about. I loved every minute - more please!

Hell (L'Enfer as it's known in its native France) is the second film in a planned trilogy that began with the underrated Heaven directed by Tom Tykwer and starring Cate Blanchett and Giovanni Ribisi, based upon scripts by the late, great Krzsztof Kieslowksi (the Three Colours trilogy). The two films share little in common aside from their 'unclassifiableness' and their emotional power.

A difficult film to analyse, Hell, directed by Academy Award winner Danis Tanovic (No Man's Land) is overflowing with ideas concerning philosophy, psyche, and emotional detachment and yet is still accessible, unpretentious and, whilst it takes itself necessarily seriously, it is also sometimes blackly funny. There's an exceptional eye for detail that's appropriately worthy of Kieslowski himself; even the opening credits concerning the plight of a bird and the eggs she is watching is gripping and gives the first insight into some of the horror that lies ahead. Although, in all probability, as with Heaven, the title is meant to be ironic, for despite some excellently shot shocks, a pervading sense of dread and a creepily effective final scene, there is some hope to the characters' lives as the film unwinds its secrets.

Stunning cinematography, a thoughtful color scheme (each story thread seems to have its own tone), featuring a nicely dramatic music score and complimented by a trio of leading French actresses giving nuanced performances (Emmanuelle Béart, Karin Viard and Marie Gillain), Hell is very impressive.

An engrossing, cleverly constructed film from Michael Haneke (Hidden, The Piano Teacher). Since Haneke continually refuses to answer any questions regarding his films or the meaning of his themes (a word he hates), I can only offer my own opinion as to what is going on here.

Incomplete scenes showing moments in the lives of a French African teacher in a school for the deaf, a Romanian refugee, a photographer, a teenage runaway and an aspiring actress are cut together, possibly in sequential order, and intersect and connect in various, sometimes subtle ways. The film seems to be about the ways in which these characters feel alienated in society. There are breakdowns in communication because of generational differences, xenophobia, apathy, personal aspirations and more besides.

Each 'moment' finishes with an abrupt blackout, sometimes with characters in mid sentence, and the couple of seconds between two segments often feels likes a chance to absorb what is going on, or allow for a 'breather'. Aside from one ingenious segment where the question of reality comes into focus, each scene is filmed without cuts, either with the camera positioned statically or on tracks, which seems to both heighten realism whilst maintaining an artificial feel, if that's even possible.

I'm not exactly sure if the film is entirely successful and some of the scenes feel superfluous, but there's some gripping and thoughtful stuff here. Juliette Binoche is especially excellent as the actress, with one particularly stand-out scene where she rehearses for a film role direct to camera; her performance (of a performance) had me utterly gripped for the few minutes the section lasted.

Absolutely stunning film, telling the story of Zac and his family of four older brothers, mother and father over 25 years from his birth in 1960. I have so many superlatives for this film I risk spouting hyperbole, but this is truly a terrific piece of work.

Zac, born on Christmas day, grows up in a Catholic family (and his mother is convinced that that his date of birth means he has powers to heal the sick) feeling isolated, an outcast - he feels inexplicably different and longs only to fit in. As a child, Zac seems to be favored by his father but as he enters his teens there's a key shift change in their relationship and things are never the same.

This has to be one of the most successful coming of age films, and more specifically, coming out films I have ever seen. C.R.A.Z.Y. features an exceptional performance from Marc-André Frondin as Zac, who convinces as a 15 year old right up until his mid twenties, inspired direction, with an array of camera and effects techniques that never grow tired and avoid pastiche, a perfect soundtrack (Rolling Stones, David Bowie, Patsy Kline, Pink Floyd) and a resonant, moving story. Gripping from beginning to end credits, the film finishes on a hopeful note that feels genuinely earned. *Love* it.

"...you and I are the same. We're both going to die soon."

In Time to Leave (Le Temps Qui Reste), thirty year-old Romain (Melvil Poupaud), a successful fashion photography, is diagnosed with cancer, and his prognosis is not good. He decides to forego the chemotherapy that would give him a slim chance of prolonged survival, and, unable to tell his boyfriend - who he subsequently breaks up with - or his immediate family, he instead confides only in his grandmother (Jeane Moreau). From there, he tries to find acceptance and meaning in his mortality, and is given an opportunity he never thought he would have after a chance encounter with a waitress.

This is a lyrical, intimate and economical film, without even a hint of artifice in the writing or the performances (Melvil Poupaud is surely an actor to watch). Refreshingly free from sentimentality, with realistic characters - Romain is not exactly a hero and doesn't become one in the course of the film - and a script with few words but which has a lot to say. Writer-director François Ozon filmed Time to Leave in cinemascope, an interesting choice for such a small-scale film, but one that rewards with a staggeringly, beautifully shot denouement. A thoughtful, moving film.

Based on true events (though the opening prologue is surely an invention of the screenwriters), Them (or Ils to give it the correct French title) is a simple, stylish chase story disguised as a horror. French couple Clémentine, a teacher, and Lucas, a novelist, who live in a house in the woods in Romania, find their fairly cushy lives interrupted suddenly when strange clicking noises signal the arrival of 'them' - unseen assailants who take away their car (their only hope of escape since they are so deep in the woods), break in through the doors and windows, trip the fuses and cut the telephone wires. Terrified, Clémentine and Lucas try first to hide and when that fails, to escape, but find themselves consistently surrounded and running out of options.

Short, scary and competently acted, Them doesn't stick around long enough to properly comment on the irony of the assailants identities, but there's some really fantastic camera work, brilliant sound editing and a stunning so-near yet so-far almost escape that will make you sit up in awe.