French Film Search and Destroy

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.

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