FRANCE

My first watched was stroked so deaply. Then I never felt same again. Second time is not succesful. It was great film.

We humans supposedly use only five percent of our brainpower. Filmmakers are similarly timid with the possibilities of the medium. Virtually all directors employ the visual vocabulary established 90 years ago by D.W. Griffith, and the presumption of realism: that those actors are these characters. Resnais, in a career spanning a half-century, is not always so constrained. His Last Year at Marienbad had the smart set guessing what was real and what was fantasy?and missing the correct answer that, on screen, everything is a fantasy, literally an optical illusion. Mon oncle d'Amérique, written by Jean Gruault, is a science lesson, given by the biologist Henri Laborit, that is made lucid and entertaining by illustrative skits featuring three characters (Roger-Pierre, Gérard Depardieu, Nicole Garcia) and a lab full of white mice. Laborit's questions about the impact of behavioral codes in inhibiting man?s so-called free will dovetail elegantly with Resnais's and Gruault's mission to overthrow the codes of film behavior. It?s an exemplary experiment, and the highest form of movie fun. by R.C.

There was before Breathless, and there was after Breathless. With its lack of polish, surplus of attitude, crackling personalities of rising stars Jean-Paul Belmondo and Jean Seberg, and anything-goes crime narrative, Jean-Luc Godard's debut fashioned a simultaneous homage to and critique of the American film genres that influenced and rocked him as a film writer for Cahiers du cinema. Jazzy, free-form, and sexy, Breathless (A bout de souffle) helped launch the French new wave and ensured cinema would never be the same.

Alain Corneau's best work.

26th Int. Istanbul Film Festival

Wild Grass was not added yet. I hope , one day, they will do it. Jury at Cannes called AR. He staged to speak. He was really funny with his black suit and tie, but red shirt. 87 years of old guy seemed to me too young.

Alain Resnais , one of the most respectful film Directors in the Cinema of Art.

Nice to hear u William after long pause.

With Masculin féminin, ruthless stylist and iconoclast Jean-Luc Godard introduces the world to ?the children of Marx and Coca-Cola,? through a gang of restless youths engaged in hopeless love affairs with music, revolution, and each other. French new wave icon Jean-Pierre Leaud stars as Paul, an idealistic would-be intellectual struggling to forge a relationship with the adorable pop star Madeleine (real-life yé-yé girl Chantal Goya). Through their tempestuous affair, Godard fashions a candid and wildly funny free-form examination of youth culture in throbbing 1960s Paris, mixing satire and tragedy as only Godard can.

The Last One.

France | 2007 | 156 mins | dir. Alain Corneau, with Daniel Auteuil, Monica Bellucci.

27th Int. Ist. Film Festival 5-20 April 2008 with ALAIN CORNEAU.

Alain Corneau has devised a thrilling white-knuckle adaptation of the José Giovanni story that spawned the classic 1966 film by director Jean-Pierre Melville. As the iconic gangster Gustave 'Gu' Minda, Daniel Auteuil more than fills the considerable shoes of his predecessor, the legendary Lino Ventura. Monica Bellucci, meanwhile, sets the screen on fire as the glamourous and Sphinx-like Manouche the woman who will do anything for the criminal she loves.

3 outstanding performance with DANIEL AUTEUIL. The first one by Claude Sautet-1992.

François Truffaut is drunk on the possibilities of cinema in this, his most playful film. Part thriller, part comedy, part tragedy, Shoot the Piano Player relates the adventures of mild-mannered piano player Charlie (Charles Aznavour, in a triumph of hangdog deadpan) as he stumbles into the criminal underworld and a whirlwind love affair. Loaded with gags, guns, clowns, and thugs, this razor-sharp homage to the American gangster film is pure nouvelle vague.

Indochine is set in Vietnam in the 1920?s and 1930?s when Indochina was under the waning shadow of French colonialism. It is a beautifully photographed epic love story, richly exotic but dramatically flawed, that was nominated for two Academy Awards in 1992 -- in the Best Foreign Film and Best Actress categories. Regis Wargnier directed the film and also co-wrote the script. The film brilliantly contrasts the decadence of French colonial society, thriving off its exploitation of the subjugated Vietnamese people, with the poverty and suffering of the natives. It was an age that finally passed, but not before one trauma gave way to another.

The film concerns itself with television and media sensationalism and eventually becomes a quite haunting meditation on the voyeurism of the medium. It is an all-too-rare example of screen sf as introspective drama rather intergalactic action adventure. There are great images in the film that Tavernier derives from character affect rather than hardware ? like the moment where Keitel damages his camera eyes and goes blind and Romy Schneider realizes the truth of the situation, or her haunting death scenes. And Tavernier crafts some beautifully poetic character touches ? Schneider and her striking little fairy-tales, Keitel who can only see beauty in the things he has photographed, and an appropriately gracious Max Von Sydow sitting in cultured comfort in his garden retreat.

At other times though the film remains frustratingly mundane, dogged as it is simply by its Frenchness. In French cinema there exists an annoying pseudo-intellectualism, of characters as philosophical mouthpieces, a love of junk culture trivia and of casual inconsequential character colloquy ? and Tavernier is as guilty as any of his countrymen. The initial zing of the story tends to peter out amid much in the way of rambling mundanities in the latter half. One sneakingly suspects that had the film had an English-language director much of this would have trimmed and tightened for the better.

The film was shot in Glasgow. The photography has been deliberately washed-out with the intent of achieving the drabbest colour toning possible and nothing has been done to identify the surroundings as anything other contemporary. It?s an interesting example of minimalist sf. Indeed the themes the film raises are ones that have only become more potent since it was released.

Two old friends, Marcel and Pierre, get together one evening for a meal and to reminisce on old times. Marcel is now a world famous virtuoso violinist whilst Pierre has settled down for a quiet life with his wife, Romaine. From this first meeting, Romaine and Marcel fall madly in love and have an affair. Their problem is what to do about Pierre.

61st Cannes Film Festival.

FOR most kids, school is where they go to get bored,? says the charismatic star of The Class, François Bégaudeau. ?And six or seven years of your life is a long time to be bored. We need to change the method a bit. It could be a more fun place, more lively, we could do things better.?

A headmaster?s son, Bégaudeau spent a year teaching French in a difficult neighbourhood of Paris after graduating. In 2006 he wrote about his experiences, and the resulting film, directed by Laurent Cantet, is based largely on that book.

Playing the teacher in the film was ?great fun? - certainly more enjoyable than the real job - and the rowdy pupils, of north African, Caribbean or Chinese descent, seem to have relished playing versions of themselves. They even marched up the red carpet, under camera flashes, to collect the Palme d?Or at the Cannes film festival; and now they are up for an Oscar for best foreign film.

?I said to myself, ?Make the most of these moments, it will probably only happen once in your life?,? recalls 16-year-old Angelica Sancio, who plays one of the pupils. ?It was crazy.?

People used to point at us, call us trash,? says Sancio, whose parents are from Guadeloupe. ?But we won. We beat the greats of cinema.?

Bégaudeau, 37, a wiry figure with stubbly cheeks and a satisfied smile, dreams of a revolution in school where what is taught is more relevant to pupils? lives.

?When I hear teachers say some pupil doesn?t have a good memory, I say, ?Ask him the 22 players selected for the French team in the World Cup. He?ll tell you. It?s not a question of memory. He?ll remember the players because that interests him - because he likes football. So give him pleasure in what you teach and you?ll see.?

?For too long school has been a centre of selection. You do an exercise and you mark it and there are some who pass and some who fail,? he says. ?But school shouldn?t be like that. It is humiliating for them. You can?t guess what it?s like to wake up every morning knowing all day that you?re going to fail.?

New York City, 2095 where a variety of humans and aliens live together. A mysterious pyramid appears over the city and from within various Ancient Egyptian gods emerge out of hibernation. The god Horus takes the form of a falcon and flies down across the city. Elsewhere a mysterious woman with blue hair and white skin turns up. Dr Elma Turner puzzles over the fact that Jill, as the mystery woman is named, has no memory of who she is, appears to only be three months old and that her organs are arranged differently from other humans. Meanwhile Horus takes over the body of Nikopol, a man who has just emerged from thirty years in criminal suspension. Horus provides Nikopol with a cast iron replacement for his severed leg and then takes over his body to set out to find Jill. At the same time, the city authorities are determined to stop what they perceive as the threat of the pyramid.

Enki Bilal's first important futuristic work.

At some time in the future, a crumbling totalitarian state is racked by civil war between the old guard and the insurrectionists. The current leaders take refuge in the Bunker Palace Hotel, a subterranean shelter staffed by run-down androids. A rebel spy, Clara, manages to infiltrate the secret base, but her mission is unclear. Meanwhile, the assembled leaders await with growing impatience the arrival of their president...

Story is set on the moon, in a city that resembles Paris divided by a Berlin Wall and fallen into decorous Havana-like decay. The moon's dictator, Mac Bee (Michel Piccoli), an aging sicko with a Gorbachev-like splotch, fears that his life may be over unless he finds Tykho Moon, the unwilling donor of brain cells to him a generation or so back. Mac Bee's worries are compounded as his grown, splotchy offspring are felled by an assassin (Richard Bohringer) during their Gestapo-like searches for Tykho.

At the final, we see the world, we realise that we were definetly in the moon.

Remarkable historic French film about love. Simple and poetic, but also deep.

I prefer her to Rodin.

Bible of New Wave.

http://archive.sensesofcinema.com/contents/00/11/eustache.html

220 minutes, but one of the key films of the French Cinema.

A college student with tuberculosis (Jean-Claude Brialy) returns to his hometown to get some rest, and discovers that his childhood friend, Serge (Gerard Blain), has become an alcoholic.

François Truffaut?s first feature, The 400 Blows (Les quatre cents coups), is also his most personal. Told through the eyes of Truffaut?s life-long cinematic counterpart, Antoine Doinel (Jean-Pierre Léaud), The 400 Blows sensitively re-creates the trials of Truffaut?s own difficult childhood, unsentimentally portraying aloof parents, oppressive teachers, petty crime, and a friendship that would last a lifetime. The film marks Truffaut?s passage from leading critic of the French New Wave to his emergence as one of Europe?s most brilliant auteurs.

A French Masterpiece.

Catherine Deneuve is extraordinary.

At the beginning, film is too cheap, nihilistic and meaningless. Tempting and promoting dark side of life. In my oppinion, self judgement and finding own solution are not acceptable, BUT Gaspar Noe creates a serious discussion point. I am very much interested in this side. Acceptable or not; thinking is too crucial. .

While Irréversible in essence recapitulates the rape revenge scenario of Carne and is similar in tone to Seul contre tous, the film is largely quite different from both. Whereas Seul contre tous depends primarily on the torrent of rage delivered through the butcher's internal monologue, Irréversible is an almost wholly visual experience. In accordance with its improvised nature, there are only a few lines in the film of any importance to understanding the events of the film. The visual experience, with all of its dazzling technical proficiency, ability to shock, and storytelling qualities, is the film. Although one can hardly imagine Irréversible as a silent film, it could very well be one with almost no loss of narrative information or, indeed, propensity to stun, so strong is Noé's command of visual communication. Despite the faintings and hyperbolic critical reactions (positive or negative), there is more to Noé's project than just shock.

Noé has described Seul contre tous as ?the tragedy of a jobless butcher (Philippe Nahon) struggling to survive in the bowels of the country?, but it is quite a bit more than that (3). Noé's goal in making the film was to create a film so confrontational and so in opposition with contemporary French cinema that it would be universally despised ? a film to ?dishonor France? (4). Noé has been asked if his film, in which the butcher expounds on the evils of women, homosexuals, blacks, Arabs, and the French with equal venom, is racist. His reply was in the affirmative: ?Yes, it's an anti-French movie? (5). Noé's film is not just in opposition to mainstream French cinema, but to all French cinema, even the festival-oriented cinema of which he is a part. It is Noé's opinion that the ?French film industry is very conservative, like the 19th century salons, a private club where six people decide which movies should and shouldn't be made? (6).

This film focuses on ex-Foreign Legion officer, Galoup, as he recalls his once glorious life, leading troops in the Gulf of Djibouti. His existence there was happy, strict and regimented, but the arrival of a promising young recruit, Sentain, plants the seeds of jealousy in Galoup's mind. He feels compelled to stop him from coming to the attention of the commandant who he admires, but who ignores him. Ultimately, his jealousy leads to the destruction of both Sentain and himself.

It?s a beautifully framed film ? look out for the long tracking shot at the party ? wonderfully acted, and daring in its subject matter; one usually avoided, or played for melodrama or laughs.

In ARMY OF SHADOWS, we learn that a group of French Resistance fighters, in Lyons, were just ordinary men and women who had to learn the details, as we do in the audience along with them, of resisting the Nazi occupation. They weren't born killers. But, they were born to resist the oppressive ideology of a despicable enemy and not simply ignore it, or join the Vichy, like many of their countrymen did.

2 important French works about happiness. Will u see in it ?

Summer confessions on the hard pillow. 2005 by Laurent Cantet , one of the leading new generation French film directors after New Wave.

A school teacher becomes obssessed with a woman half his age.