Reviews

Jacques Hansen, 55 years, had a life with woman and child. Today tramp, it wanders in Paris...Rough, intense, the drama of the exclusion shown of the interior, film to the snatch by a man of convictions. This indictment against exclusion is sought then disappoints when the theatrical fiction takes the step on documentary sobriety.

Enclosure at 15 years, Mariel Hemingway chooses to leave a possessive mother and an irritable father-in-law to raise only his child. In the same small city, a young couple hopelessly seeks to adopt a child. An edifying drama, but sometimes a little too naive.

A novelist upsets the calm life of her cousin... A limpid history with the taste of romantic picture story. The realizer carried out a film which is really very flat, that does not even give desire for looking at it, on the other hand Susanne Uhlen, Eva Kryll, Bernd Herzsprung saves film.

Conspirators try to replace Louis XIV, king de France, by a double. This page of the French history, re-examined by our American friends has only little interest. The actors Richard Chamberlain, Patrick McGoohan, Louis Jourdan, Ian Holm and Ralph Richardson save film.

The tragic destiny of a famous courtesan of the XIXe century. Masterpiece of max Ophuls, a fresco baroque and cruel which offers to Martine Carol one her more beautiful roles. On the other hand for Peter Ustinov I would say that it is not its best film, it plays better in "Appointment with Death".

In the heart of the Ardennes, a family saga where history of a dynasty of beer, beginning of the second empire the shortly after the First World War. A romantic fresco with the height of its ambitions. The realization, perfect, gives breath and rhythm to this saga which sounds just. When with the actors, they embody with flame of the characters who captivate us.

Jean-Pierre Marielle, Andre Dussolier and Jacques Villeret are dining in a restaurant where the first is surprised when the waiter does not bring him the bowl of hot water he had ordered. His friends start to go on about his lack of conviction when makes an order. Jean-Pierre Marielle soon exits, replaced by Claude Rich, whom Andre Dussolier and Jacques Villeret interrogate about his eternal smile... Bertrand Blier scrutinises the existential disarray of his actors through a long succession of crazy sketches, impregnated with cruelty and self-derision. But all this ends up as nothing.

The death of one of his patients drives an anaesthetist to exhume the terrible secret of a clinic. A medical thriller which is well-worked in its form and remarkable effectiveness. The tension rises to a crescendo and the original direction, inspired by the great masters of suspense, brings an appropriately harrowing atmosphere.

Suffering from a bronchial infection, Jean-Claude Brialy, a young Parisian, seeks convalescence in his home village in the Creuse, where he hasn't set foot for 10 years. There he meets up with his former friend, Gerard Blain, who, despite a brilliant adolescence and a bright future, has ended up in a drunken stupor after his marriage. The first film by Claude Chabrol, who launched the New Wave with this bitter account of rural life, perfectly constructed, and served with the talent of Jean-Claude Brialy and Bernadette Laffont.

Two opposite men of character quarrel the love of a woman, who doe not manage to choose among both. A harmless intrigue, transcent by Claude Sautet's stage setting, which brews humor and emotion, the dialogues chiselled by Jean-Loup Dabadie and a magnificent trio of actors.

First part: The dialogue is effective, if not powerful, the sets show an exceptional attention to detail, the images possess a great beauty, the actors are talented. A work of really great quality.

Second part: This part offers an accurate portrait of the psychology of fishermen and clearly shows the antagonism which drives the two brothers apart.

Third part: Astonishingly, this part, much more sombre than the previous parts, is less convincing. The avalanche of bad luck which tumbles onto the Levasseur family weighs down the intrigue. This is a shame, because the actors' performances remains one of a rare quality.

Fourth part: This epilogue sometimes appears theatrical but maintains the (remarkable) quality of the acting, direction and cinematography which make this a choice piece of television.

On the point of getting married, Jean-Claude Brialy, a seductive diplomat in his thirties, spends his final holiday as a bachelor by the lake at Annecy. There he meets one of his friends, Aurora Cornu, a Rumanian novelist. Summertime sensuality, luminous images and subtle dialogue for a melancholic study of love, beautifully portrayed by Jean-Claude Brialy, perfect as the mature seducer.

In 1942, Colonel Alec Guinness and his men are captured by Japanese troops in Singapore. They are taken through the Burmese jungle to the camp run by Colonel Sessue Hayakawa, where they find an American prisoner, William Holden. Sessue Hayakawa, charged with erected as far as possible a bridge over the river Kwai, orders his prisoners to set about the task… The first superproduction taken on by David Lean, who directs this take of absurdity with as much scale as intelligence, without any over-simplification. A genuine monument of the cinematic art, this film was rewarded with seven Oscars.

In writing this bawdy comedy about four friends who will do anything to lose their virginity before going to college, screenwriter Adam Herz set out to overturn the conventions concerning films about adolescents. This is why the script he submitted to the film production studios in 1998 was entitled "A sex comedy for teenagers which could be made for less than 10 million dollars, which most readers are no doubt going to hate but which you will adore". After many rejections, the script won some admirers at Universal Studios. There, it was firmly believed in, but no one was going to take the gamble of casting star names. The actors would be unknown, the director likewise. Chris Weitz, one of the producers, convinced his brother Paul to make his debut as a film director with this film, renamed "American Pie". Paul and Chris co-authored the script de "Antz". Having a controversial sense of humour, they knew that the film they were going to make would create a few sparks. And that is what happened. First with the censor, who banned the film for under non-accompanied 17 year olds, and then with the public, who raced to the cinema, howled with laughter and made this small summer film into one of the blockbusters of the year.

A night watchman tells three extraordinary stories to a journalist and a producer, trapped with him in a lift. Embedded in a single story, three tales develop some interesting themes, notably that of a double persecutor. Some good actors for some harrowing moments.

In 1962, the life of a railway employee, husband and father, is upset by the electrification of the railway and the arrival of an Algerian-born French schoolteacher. After a slow and austere start, the film is lifted by a dramatic and tragic turn of events, which offers its characters, honestly portrayed, a much needed strength and subtlety.

Inside an ambulance, Gunter Lamprecht, twelve-year-old condemned person of prison for a stickup of bank. Suddenly, the man feigns a heart attack and takes advantage of the inattention of his guards to clear off. Then, he steals a car, without noticing that a passenger is there. Raphael Ghobadloo, nicknamed Balou by his friends, has just escaped from his grandmother. Everything separates these two beings, and nevertheless... A quite simple history, quite in sharpness and sensibility.

The inquiry of a journalist to reconstitute the puzzle of the mysterious life of a baron of American press. The Orson Welles's first film which signed at once, a revolutionary work, years of which alternated neither the boldness nor the dramatic power.

To unmask a killer with multiple identities, American and Russian agents call upon the services of an IRA terrorist who is known to them. The viewer has to wait until the final confrontation between the "good" terrorist and the bad one to draw any excitement from this limp political thriller, which has an unlikely plot. Bruce Willis should win an award in the ridiculous for his false moustaches.

December 1999. A former cop tries to lay his hands on the murderers of a prostitute. Between anticipation and techno-thriller, a captivating reflection on the by-products of the industry of images, set aside a disturbing portrait of America in the near future. It is a shame that the result is marred by some far-fetched ideas.

The nightmare of an amnesiac who, little by little, rediscovers his wife's terrifying secret. This crime thriller, which makes too many references to Hitchcock, is not very original. Still, it is sufficiently well constructed and charged with developments to maintain the viewer's interest right up until the final denouement. Tom Berenger and Greta Scacchi are perfect.

A millionaire asks a private detective to investigate his past. A treasure hunt across a dream-like world, distorted by perspective-altering camera work. One of Orson Welles' most disturbing films.

Twenty years after "The blow of sirocco", Alexandre Arcady retraces his childhood footsteps in Algiers, where he could film, for the first time since the Independence. Combining past and present, covering history on both large and small scales, he films this painful account of his return to the country from which he was exiled for 30 years. Antoine de Caunes experiences the torments of this journalist torn between his teenage nostalgia for the sun-drenched paradise and the tragedy of a country ravaged by religious extremism.

A mysterious prisoner goes on the run, claiming to hold a State secret putting his life in dangers. An innocent couple get caught up in his flight, and the series of adventures which follows. The tension builds to a crescendo and the sense of mystery prevails throughout this paranoiac thriller, in which the reason of State takes an implacable turn.

In an isolated farm in the desert of the West, a woman is the victim of an obnoxious aggressor, whom she is forced to kill. One of the most beautiful silent films made in the United States by the Swedish director Victor Sjöström. The oppressive climate creates an enduring memory, as does the restless composition of Lilian Gish.