Archive for the ‘France’ Category
Author: Otilia
Become who you are
Director Yann Samuell’s L’âge de raison (2010) is characteristic of his sweet-yet-tearful Love Me If You Dare (2003), namely French cinema at its best.
With a splendid cast, led by Sophie Marceau, the movie goes deep into your soul, searching for your inner child. That’s right, the one who reminds you of your childhood dreams.
Author: Otilia
Just a tree?
Written and directed by Julie Bertuccelli – Since Otar Left (2003) – The Tree (2010) is an adaptation of the novel Our Father Who Art in the Tree by Judy Pascoe, and had the honour of closing the 2010 Cannes Film Festival.
It’s a family drama set in Boonah in Queensland, Australia, where there is a huge Morten Bay fig tree that ‘whispers’.
Author: Otilia
Just adorable
Bébé(s) (Babies) (2010) is a lot more than an anthropological documentary on babies around the world. It is a delight.
French director Thomas Balmès – Waiting for Jesus (2000) – chooses four different locations around the globe and introduces us to the first year in four babies’ lives.
Author: Otilia
A spiritual journey
Argentinian-born French director Gaspar Noé – I Stand Alone (1998), Irreversible (2002) – challenges the impossible once again with Enter the Void (2009).
Author: James
Playing for his life
One that I have been meaning to do for some time – without doubt, one of the finest films ever made about the Holocaust and one that, in differing its approach from the similarly superb Schindler’s List (1993), manages to convey the unique horrors of those anti-human times in a way that is peculiarly intimate and personal.
Author: James
A world underwater
Jacques Perrin’s new film Océans (2009) deserves wide-screen viewing, and I now regret that I never saw his 2001 Peuple Migrateur (Winged Migration) in the cinema, writes Gerald Loftus.
For viewers requiring documentary purity, Roger Ebert’s comment on Perrin’s previous film still holds, this time for Océans: “Facts are not the purpose of Winged Migration. It wants to allow us to look, simply look, at birds–and that goal it achieves magnificently. There are sights here I will not easily forget.”
Author: James
Gods and monsters
Picturenose had the pleasure of meeting renowned Antwerp-born director Harry Kümel during BIFFF 2010 - a little background then on Malpertuis (The Legend of Doom House) (1971), a film which, along with Kümel’s Les lèvres rouges (Daughters of Darkness) (1971), resulted in the director quickly being labelled a master of fantasy and horror.
Author: Gerald
Eloquent on incarceration
Qu’un seul tienne et les autres suivront…is the original enigmatic title that young French director Léa Fehner has given this “prison” drama, though it may not meet the exacting demands of genre classification set by PrisonMovies.net. No matter. The film kept the audience in utter silence for two hours, as we followed the trajectories of several of society’s silent and invisible people, whose lives intersect with the prison system.
Author: Colin
Follow this car
As James started the ball rolling with ‘films we really should have reviewed’, I thought I’d have a stab at a French classic, Taxi (1998). Even before I knew any French, this was a favourite. A note to students of French: if you’re only intermediate, I’d still opt for the subtitles. Maybe it’s my dodgy grasp of the language, but the dialogue whizzes along like Joan Rivers on speed. In French. Also avoid this movie if you have no discernable sense of humour, or want something profound and meaningful. Taxi sets out to be an action comedy, and it makes an exceedingly good job of it. Jean de Florette (1986) it ain’t.
Author: James
Rings a Belle?
So, it was 39 years on, and someone decided to provide a follow-up to the classic cult film from Luis Buñuel, Belle de Jour (1967), without Catherine Deneuve returning to the role of Séverine that she made legendary.
Instead of Bunuel’s surrealism, we are shown how people change. Henri Husson (Michel Piccoli, who was in the original) spots Séverine (played now by Bulle Ogier) at an elegant opera house, and his curiosity is sparked. How has her life moved on after the torturous events of four decades ago when she was secretly a prostitute at a high-class brothel?
- Colin: Mike: the Matrix was utter toss. Don’t go there. Anyhow, I’m right with you on Aliens –...
- Colin: James: Why not do ten more and see if you can avoid putting the god-awful travesty that is Independence Day in...
- CD: The Day the Earth Stood Still (it’s about an alien who is Jesus…but better than ET) Soylent Green...
- James: Hello Chris, and welcome to Picturenose!
Many thanks for your comment – I thought, in fact, that... - James: Colin, good points, both on Westworld (which should really have been included, I know, I know) and otters.