Tag: FRANCE

October 15, 2019 / Comedy

The Club de Femmes (Girl’s Club) of the title refers to a Parisian boarding house, populated in its entirety by beautiful, unwed damsels. The rules of the club are quite strict, with chaperones making certain that the ladies keep a safe and respectable distance between themselves and their gentleman callers. But the mischievous Claire is determined to enjoy a rendezvous with her sweetheart Robert, and to that end she talks him into disguising himself as a woman. 

October 9, 2019 / Drama

Seven Women, Seven Sins represents a quintessential moment in film history. The women filmmakers invited to direct for the seven sins were amongst the world’s most renown: Helke Sander (Gluttony), Bette Gordon (Greed), Maxi Cohen (Anger), Chantal Akerman (Sloth), Valie Export (Lust), Laurence Gavron (Envy), and Ulrike Ottinger (Pride). Each filmmaker had the liberty of choosing a sin to interpret as they wished. The final film reflected this diversity, including traditional narrative fiction, experimental video, a musical, a radical documentary, and was delivered in multiple formats from 16, super 16, video and 35mm.

September 14, 2019 / Arthouse
September 12, 2019 / Fantasy

Parking is director Jacques Demy’s homage to Jean Cocteau’s 1948 masterwork Orpheus. As in the Cocteau film, Demy relates the Orpheus and Euridyce legend in a contemporary setting. Now a rock ‘n’ roll sensation (instead of the poet of the Cocteau film) Orpheus falls in love with Eurydice, who in this version is a sculptress rather than a princess. The rest of the film adheres to the familiar story. Euridyce, who is death personified, beckons Orpheus into Hell, ostensibly to revive his dead lover. A shade brighter and more buoyant than its source material, Parking is the usual Jacques Demy brew of beautiful imagery and hokey dialogue.

September 8, 2019 / Drama
September 8, 2019 / Fantasy

——UPGRADED——

A million miles away from ‘Camelot’ or ‘Excalibur’, this film ruthlessly strips the Arthurian legend down to its barest essentials. Arthur’s knights, far from being heroic, are conniving and greedy men who, just before the film starts, have failed miserably to find the Holy Grail. Aimlessly resentful at first, the developing relationship between Lancelot and Queen Guinevere focuses their rage, leading to inevitable tragedy…

September 5, 2019 / Comedy

When the men of a Sicilian village start obsessing over ravishing blonde midwife Jessica , angry females revolt by refusing to have sex with their husbands. As the local priest tries to encourage procreation, Jessica falls for a tricky recluse. An adaptation of a Flora Sandstrom novel, this charming comedy also features Noel-Noel as a matchmaking old-timer.

September 4, 2019 / Arthouse

Elle steps off the balcony of her Parisian apartment, plunging to her death. Why has she done it? As her pawnbroker husband, Luc, looks over her dead body, director Robert Bresson’s eerie, elegant picture traces their lives together in flashback. Elle is the “Gentle Creature” — meek, dreamy and thoughtful. She entrances Luc, who pursues her passionately. They marry, but the match never seems right, and things turn sour, grimly heading toward an inevitable end.