French Film Search and Destroy

La Regle Du Jeu
Three Colours Blue
L'Apartement

Destroy:

Last Year at Marienbad

destroy: films in which people sit around and smoke gitanes self-importantly (apart from A Bout De Souffle), lush historical dramas with no plot (e.g. that one about the Sun King's composer), etc.

Which of the several thousand do you mean?

Search

Les Enfants du Paradis
Delicatessan
Jean de Florettes
Manon des Sources
L'Adolescente
And God Created Woman

Search: Savage Nights, Diva, The Horseman on the Roof
Destroy: The Hairdresser's Husband (or Wife, whatever, it was wretched)

Amateurist, which is your favorite Tati? I like Playtime.

I like everything Tati. I didn't like Traffic as much as the others but then I saw it on an itsy bitsy TV so who knows? Have you seen his last, Parade?

Buñuel is Spanish but his last few films were made in France. Likewise Max Ophüls is Austrian but his last few (brilliant) films were made in France.

gainsburg-je t'aime.
assayas-l'eau froide.
truffaut-400 coups
vigo-zero en conduit.
godard-pierrot le fou

but there's so much stuff....

destroy
amelie.

and, yes, a good commercial release Vidocq. You wouldn't expect your regular XIXth century immortal french alchemist performing matrix style kung fu moves that good...

Parade is a very odd film--the oddest I know. It's charming but very demaning in its own way (not unlike Playtime). You have to see it once, then see it again with suitably revised expectations.

likewise - whats to dislike about La Haine?

Also terrible: Claude Lelouch. He gets a pass for inventing the, er, Lelouch, though.

Those Who Love Me Can Take the Train is pretty good.

as is "The Self Made Hero"

"Amelie" proves you can't base an entire film out of some attractive bird staring doe-eyed at the camera.

No Ally on this thread yet?

Delicatessen
Le Jour Du Fete (My favorite Tati)
La Vaccance de M. Hulot
La Haine
Milou en Mai
Clubbed to Death
Doberman

Destroy
Amelie (or rather just feh)

Can anyone tell me what the film is that features Gerard Depardieu as a gay burglar who mugs a couple and ensnares them into his life of crime and buggery?

And I personally could never stand Jacques Tati.

But that said, search away for Bande apart (Band of OUtsiders), Le Mépris (Contempt), Truffaut's Doinel movies, anything by Renoir (especially Grand Illusion + Rules of the Game), Les Parapluies de Cherbourg, errr. Lots more.

For more recent stuff I highly stuff by Ozon (Gouttes d'eau sur pierres brûlantes, Sous le sable--and 8 femmes is sort of a treat). Also Olivier Assayas' Irma Vep, one of my favourite movies and sadly underseen.

I like 'a woman is a woman' a lot, too.

I like 'amelie'.

'alphaville'!

Destroy
Luc Besson's English Films

Pretty much anything by Jean Renoir, Marcel Carne or written by Jacques Prevert or starring Jean Gabin. Favourite example of these classics: La Grande Illusion. Le Jour Se Leve and Quai Des Brumes and Pepe Le Moko need mentioning too.

Vigo's L'Atalante and Zero de Conduite.

all Godard's early films, especially those with Anna Karina. I even like most of his later ones.

Delicatessen and City Of Lost Children

Most of Truffaut's. Celine And Julie Go Boating, too.

Cyrano de Bergerac was great.

French film is way up its own arse these days, although I loved "La haine" and thought "Amelie" was gneuinely charming.

Special loathing for Eric Rohmer and Last year at Marienbad.

Hiroshima Mon Amour as well, surely. Godard, all the obvious ones. Sadly I haven't yet explored any of his 80's work. Nouvelle Vague was good though. Malle's Ascenseur pour l'échafaud is good. I also really enjoyed Rivette's La Belle Noiseuse, though I can see why others may not.

ahem.

Search : anything by Bertrand Tavernier.

Resnais - now that's pretentious artsy fartsy craft. And I do lurve it so.

Vive la France!

Cocteau - Testament of Orpheus, Beauty & Beast, Blood of Poet, etc.
Renoir - Day in the Country, Grand Illusion, etc.
Resnais - Last Year at Marienbad, Hiroshima Mon Amour
Carne - Children of Paradise
Goddard - Weekend, Alphaville
Jeunet

::shivers, twitches, grinds teeth::

What about the part where the workers eat the sandwich and talk about Marxism? It's gobs of fun!

I guess I could include the Three Colours trilogy even though they were directed by a Pole - Red and White are my favourites. La Double vie de Veronique too.

For more French Polish, Polanski's "The tenant" is an oft forgotten piece of insane genius.

Also search: Subway and the incredibly silly but fun guilty-pleasure Brotherhood Of The Wolf

There's this one called Peppermint Soda that looks very good but I haven't rented it yet.

hstencil: We have never discussed The Hairdresser's Husband, but we can.

slutsky: Hi! I knew someone of that name once, on a faraway island . . .

Other gems I've remembered - I loved "les amants du pont neuf", (although Carax's "Polo X" is in my top ten worst films ever made). "la petite voleuse" (wonderful Charlotte G), "l'appartement"....

I remember "le grand chemin" being a kind of French "My life as a dog" but I was young and rose-tintedly Francophilic when I saw it so I could be wrong.

Oh no! That film is extraordinary.

Ed needs to post more pictures of Jacques Tati.

Did anyone catch this exhibit in Paris or Rotterdam? See here for some nice photos.

yes. esp. que la fête commence

"......oui."

SEARCH:

Political films
La Haine
Ressources humaines
Seul contre tous

Action
Dobermann
Léon

Drama
L'Humanité
http://us.imdb.com/CommentsShow?0197569-12
Ceux qui m'aiment prendront le train
Corto Maltese: La cour secrète des Arcanes http://us.imdb.com/CommentsShow?0259134-1
La Pianiste
L'Appartement
La Classe de neige

Comedy
Drôle de Félix
Delicatessen
Le Fabuleux destin d'Amélie Poulain
Mortel transfert
Du poil sous les roses
Pourquoi pas moi?

Art Stuff
La Belle noiseuse
Clubbed to Death
Beau travail
http://us.imdb.com/CommentsShow?0209933-9

DESTROY:

Art Shit
Sombre
Irréversible
Trouble Every Day

Bad Drama
Post coitum animal triste
Parfait amour!
Rien sur Robert

Stupid Action
Les Mille merveilles de l'univers
Les Rivières pourpres
Le Pacte des loups (the worst French film ever?)
http://us.imdb.com/CommentsShow?0237534-48

Few brief recommendations: Ressources humaines, a leftist film about a factory worker father and a lawyer son, is one of the films of the nineties. Dobermann is probably the most nihilistic and brutal action film ever made this side of The Atlantic. La Pianiste, the story about a sexually frustrated piano teacher, is extremely difficult to watch, but definitely worth the view. Mortel transfert is a Kafkaesque black comedy about a psychoanalyst and his dead patient. La Belle noiseuse, a four-hour story about the making of one painting, is the slowest film ever, but also one of the most hypnotic.

destroy: the UK cut of 'a ma souer', in order to be granted an 18 certificate, loses 1m 30s off the end of the film, somewhat obscuring the power of anais' final claim that he didn't rape her.

'la maman et la putain' is showing in the cinema here today.

oh haha! i loved this movie. it had a hilarious line about abal sex.

D: I dunno, I hate to be the 838253rd person to diss Amelie. But I guess I just did.

Jean-Pierre Melville - Bob le Flameur, Le Samurai, Le Cercle Rouge

Jacques Becker- Touches pas au Grisbi

Jules Dassin - Rififi

destroy: irreversible (piece of trash)

I like Truffaut flicks.
Destroy Goddard.

Destroy:
People walking on the beach in abject silence, then becoming naked and weeping.

http://bedazzled.blogs.com/bedazzled/2005/01/ne_dis_rien.html

http://bedazzled.blogs.com/.shared/image.html?/photos/uncategorized/nedisrien1968.jpg

http://www.gaycitynews.com/gcn220/awoman.jpg

What I find delicious in that scene is that, while Gabin may be able to resist her, I know I would not.

http://www.archivioimmaginicinema.com/mireille_balin.jpg

xpost

http://www.saturn-soft.net/RR/Countries/France/Photos/Gerard.jpg

http://fernandel.online.fr/images/affiches/hercule2.jpg

http://www.themediadrome.com/Images/history/mistinguett_5.jpg

in other news a french film from the last year or two which is really good is l'esquive -- i think games of love and chance (ugh) is what the us distributor is calling it.

i wish i could get into that vein of confrontational, sexually explicit french cinema whose exemplary figure is breillat. there's a new film--forgot the title--w/isild le besco and denis levant which sounds interesting but i'd probably be too squeamish for it. apparently it has some almost-hardcore scenes which freaks me out because last i recall ms. le besco was the 15-yr-old ingenue in sade and well, denis levant is denis levant. ew.

i hope l'esquive is getting a wider release, it's really excellent. among other things it provides a strong sense of youth culture in france including the identity politics of french-arabs, french-africans, etc.

jena: there's a whole big thread about caché... just search "haneke"...

Search: Smoking/No Smoking - where 2 people realistically play about 15 (and the fact it takes place in "Yorkshire". The plummy "English" announcer between scenes is amusing)
Cible emouvante - I like the wit in this movie. Depardieu's son can act.
Les visiteurs - There must be a cut every 2 seconds in this movie. Very fast paced, hundreds of plot threads, high on comedy.

Destroy: Le Ciel, les oiseaux, et ta mere. It's about 4? teenagers making a film on the beach... offensively bad.
Le huitieme jour - Horrific. Making someone with Down's Syndrome the star of an arthouse flick is not a good idea.

Please tell me what you think. :)

i wish i could get into that vein of confrontational, sexually explicit french cinema whose exemplary figure is breillat.

I'd say count your blessings.

Search -->>

Louis de Funes
http://kino.tiscali.cz/apollo/pictures/osobnosti/2004123153136542370.jpg

Bourvil:
http://www.deutsche-synchronsprecher.de/Bilder/bourvil.jpg

Michel Serrault:
http://www.caratteristi.it/foto2/Michel_Serrault.jpg

La Grand Vadrouille
Le Viager
Les Tontons Flingeurs

Yeah, I could barely keep up. And there there's no English translation, as far as I know!

"Are you my friend?"

"No!"

*both grin at camera*

i just got it from hong kong. will update.

Resnais from 8th-10th june at the lumiere. No 'Muriel', it has the a screnning of nu-Resnais. Hoping to catch a cpl of these..

'mon oncle american' ftw

Just saw "Journal d'un cure de campagne." How did Bresson manage to cast Johnny Cash?

-- Frogman Henry, Saturday, 14 April 2007 16:32

Hahaha! I couldn't stop thinking the same thinking first time I watched it. And it was Johnny in his early speed-freak days, too! Spittin' image.

err, "thinking the same thing"...

will anyone ever release Malle's 'The Fire Within' (Feu Follet) on DVD? i consider my favorite movie i've never seen.

wait - it's already on DVD with English subs - part of the Louis Malle collection V.1 put out by Optimum earlier this year...

I just saw Mon Oncle for the first time a few weeks ago. What a treat.

the new Resnais is OK except for the script, ie Alan Ayckbourn.

No way am I seeing the new Bruno Dumont, but love the headline of Nathan Lee's bitchslap...

Just saw Army of Shadows -- the pace dawdles, but the last 30 minutes are pretty devastating.

"My American Uncle" ws one of the most intense cinematic experiences. I quite liked nu-Resnais even though I heard someone at the end hating on it--there is no neat, bright ending to it would you believe--comparing it to Mike Leigh :-(

(To be honest I can't remember what Mike Leigh's films are like)

The Lumiere are running a mini-season from one-time Resnais collaborator (and novelist) Alain Robbe-Grillet:

http://www.institut-francais.org.uk/SFC/index.php

Also really looking forward to Tavernier's "Clean Slate". Been wanting to see that Jim Thomspon adaptation for a while.

I really need to see Indigènes I think. It's on Canal Plus in the next couple of days but I'm back home now :(

Really looking forward to Lions Love next sunday. Always wanted to see one a Varda film.

Has anyone seen Terror's Advocate, the new Barbet Schroeder doc?

I highly recommend In the City of Sylvia, opening today in NYC ... a taste:

http://www.filmbrain.com/filmbrain/2008/12/test.html

I hate how "good looking" the two people at the bar are, but that's an amazing scene

well, the guy esp is a Byronic kinda archetype, but perhaps I was too smitten to mind...

Man, Olivier Assayas should lay off the techno thrillers; Boarding Gate significantly worse than the disposable demonlover.

I was thinking of starting a Philippe Garrel thread just for this (and cuz he deserves one) but for now this will have to do:

Is Garrel the 1st director do to a "radiohead" - ie. he's giving away for download one of his films:

http://www.jeromebonnetto.net/Philippepresentationlettre.htm

Wow! Thanx for this!

Finally saw Honore's Love Songs... just OK, mostly cuz the songs aren't so great. Much lusty footage of Louis Garrel tho.

Anyone seen Wild Grass (by Alain Resnais), which got the Cannes nom last year? Its finally getting a selected release over here.

Don't know if anything written on ILX has been as OTM as much as Ed's first line here.

I think you were just feeling a little hormonal 6 hours ago.

on way to Wild Grass if i can do it on 4 hrs' sleep.

falling asleep half way through wouldn't be the worst thing that could happen.

i have a french film from the new wave era which has been replaying in my head for ages and ages but i still dont know the name of it. i think it might have been a short? its about this guy in a trenchcoat and hat whos standing around in a par with a paper (i think) telling lies to girls to pick them up, which he does succesfully. i think he repeats this twice more throughout the film. can anyone ID it? i saw it so long ago but i frequently think of it. its pretty charming and funny.

Wild Grass was ok, quite funny towards the end, had a couple of the usualy very frenchy-fied tricks up its sleeve.

Looking forward to catching the NFT run of My Night with Maud next week.

I like it! Best Resnais film I've seen in 30 years.

titchy isn't that a Godard short?

Pretty sure it's this: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0051102/

I like it! Best Resnais film I've seen in 30 years.

My American Uncle (1980) is better

that was the one I was thinking of re WG.

Just watched Jessica Hausner's Lourdes, which gets a firm recommendation.

If nothing else, Sylvie Testud is amazing. Great performances throughout in fact, and a really beguiling mix of oddness and o_0 at what Lourdes is like.

yeah, lourdes is great; has anyone seen any other hausner? her characterisation was so delicate and subtle.

new-to-US F. Ozon Le Refuge (Hideaway) is not bad at all, best I've seen from him in 10 years.

I came to thread to rep for Classe tous risques, directed by Claude Sautet, with Lino Ventura as a tough guy on the run with two little kids in tow and a bunch of friends who are vacillating between helping him and crossing him.

which I guess various people have already repped for on other threads.

Destroy: Mathieu Kassovitz's annoying Spike Lee knockoff Cafe au lait.

I think I'm still down on Ozon after 5x2, so I'm not really willing to give the new one a chance.

Watched Rivette's Joan Of Arc biopic yesterday - all 6 hours - and loved it. But I don't need to hear about Joan Of Arc ever again.

Also, "La Nuit de Varennes" is awesome, esp. for Mastroianni as Casanova and the lead guy from Les Enfants Du Paradis (Barrault?) as the old pornographer. Loved their scenes together.

http://www.ica.org.uk/31715/Film/Hadewijch.html

Anyone seen? I know most ppl have problems w/his films, which is one reason why I'm happy to entertain the notion that he's better than Bresson, whom he is compared to.

sacrilege

crucify me :-)

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/google/google-doodle/9063144/Francois-Truffauts-80th-birthday-marked-with-Google-doodle.html

ihttp://frenchfilms.topcities.com/1936_Un_roman_d_un_tricheur.jpg
― Amateur(ist) (Amateur(ist)), Thursday, February 3, 2005 2:33 PM (7 years ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Re. Sacha Guitry: Also search Désiré and Les perles de la couronne. And Eclipse could do worse that to put out another set of Guitry films.

'Hadewijch' ws pretty fkn good. I just loved the actress and her gait is so...Bressonian I guess, weight of the world on her knees and arms.

Not sure where to begin but the story, while boringly pushing the 'provocation' button had the politics-to-religion ratio spot on -- best exemplified by the terrific scene of muslim and christiam prayer in the guy's room.

Destroy: Mathieu Kassovitz's annoying Spike Lee knockoff Cafe au lait.

Haven't seen anything M.K. has directed since La Haine, which I remember liking, but if that was so amazing why has he since made stuff nobody liked? (Halle Berry and Vin Diesel thrillerz, o boy)

see also bob swaim and la balance

i guess some ppl just have one gd film in them - or, only once find themselves in the right circumstances to make a gd film.

should i revisit 'betty blue'? it's been over a decade and i barely remember anything beyond the opening scene and the song they play over the credits.

a lot of directors begin their careers with lean, raw, kinetic thrillers that more or less beat the audience into submission. films with something to prove. few directors, however, keep making those sorts of films. most graduate quickly to more ambitious/mainstream/thoughtful fare, often with disappointing results.

Moreau! Belmondo! Had no idea these two made a Brook/Duras film in 1960.

http://www.filmlinc.com/films/on-sale/moderato-cantabile

David Ehrenstein on Duras:

http://www.filmcomment.com/entry/the-films-of-marguerite-duras

can someone tell me how is Naked Childhood by Maurice Pialat (his debut).

seen lot's of praise , but almost no "official" Reviews

it was produced by truffaut, and has things in common w/ 400 blows. there is some tough to watch animal cruelty, and some nakedly human performances that also might make you want to look away, if you weren't so transfixed by the truth of the acting. it is one of the great directorial debuts, certainly as good as anything else by Pialat (which is high praise imho)

great. i will watch!

thnx

ILX search tells me i put it on my "best rep watches" for 2004, so that's the best i can do.

oh cool Ehrenstein still writes besides trolling comments sections.

Jean Grémillon retro in NYC

http://www.movingimage.us/films/2014/11/21/detail/jean-grmillon/

Since the only ones that seem "available" digitally are Lumiere d'été, Remorques and Le ciel est à vous, another argument for quitting my job to go to rep screenings.

anyone seen anything here? new Techine and Honore....

http://www.filmlinc.com/films/series/rendez-vous-with-french-cinema-2015

well Melvil Poupaud AND Anders Danielsen Lie are in Fidelio, l'odyssée d'Alice, so that's double-stud action...

I really liked Outside Satan. Quiet, contemplative violence, beautifully shot.

i'm going to ask here about the 1951 a/g classic VENOM AND ETERNITY?

http://anthologyfilmarchives.org/film_screenings/calendar?view=list&month=07&year=2015#showing-44511

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t05VTBTAtUQ

so the Pagnol trilogy from the '30s, what of it? Nick Pinkerton:

https://www.artforum.com/film/id=65686

I like. Didn't someone like Orson Welles say Raimu was his favorite actor or the world's best actor or something to that effect?

Wiki sez "was considered the ultimate actor by luminaries such as Alec Guinness, Marlene Dietrich, and Orson Welles."

My partner's french and this x-mas her brother gave me a buncha French popular classics: Yves Robert, "La Traversée De Paris" with Gabin and Bouvril, Coluche, a Lelouche movie with Lino Ventura and Jacques Brel, a buncha Louis de Funès movies that are supposedly much better than the Gendarme stuff. It's interesting how these mainstream things are much more obscure outside France than Rivette or Eustache even (Lelouche exempted - I gather we're not supposed to like him?).

I love some Lelouche and among my film loving friends in France - all in their late 20s-late 30s - his stuff is pretty much embraced. The one your partner got is fun - the pairing of Ventura and Brel never fails (see "L'Emmerdeur").

Actually have "La Traversée De Paris" lined up to watch. I haven't seen Bourvil in anything other than "Le Cercle Rouge" so seeing him do his thing as a comedian will probably be a little jarring at first.

This looks great:

https://www.barbican.org.uk/film/event-detail.asp?ID=20802

just a few days ago I was nearly going to suggest to my gf we watch "Going Places" ('74 Bertrand blier) cuz I knew it was expiring from Netflix and that it was French and she knows a bit of the language -- dodged a bullet there lmao, its not horror but it is like extreme nasty French misogyny/nihilism. its hard to be convincing and be like I swear I had no idea this was the subject matter! even when that is 100% true ~
― johnny crunch, Wednesday, September 30, 2015 12:08 PM

Rewatched this week (remembering hardly anything from decades back) and yeah this would never be distributed today...

But surely it is meant as a commentary on what we now call toxic masculinity? Or was Jeanne Moreau just a witting accomplice to misogyny?

Finally watching the Pagnol Marseille trilogy on CC. Raimu reminds me of Gleason and Zero Mostel; I wonder if they saw his work.

Gigi. No, wait...

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Monday, February 24, 2003 11:35 AM (sixteen years ago) bookmarkflaglink

Search Gigi (Audry, 1949).

Urgent and key: Search Razzia Sur La Chnouf (Decoin, 1955; just released in a Region A Blu-ray by Kino Lorber)

also, the (first) US condensation of the Pagnol trilogy was directed by James Whale and written by Preston Sturges :o

http://mubi.com/notebook/posts/indochina-song

Also, xpost, what?

All seven episodes of Pialat's 1971 TV series The House in the Woods have now been uploaded to YT, with English subs:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q1aHhIVFRt8&list=PLh06URz4IJQ4iUTdz7ECikWiRvfLaeCXc&fbclid=IwAR2JjPTudCJuabeLkOKV5OBjLVoLQKWHC5OIkJzQ890BzUTbQ3aUY4z6COI

👍👍👍