World Cinema Film Reviews - France

Amelie (Jean-Pierre Jeunet - 2001)

This is one of a handful of world cinema films to break through to the mainstream. People who normally shun subtitled films seem happy to watch Amelie, so it's a good introduction to the joys of watching films from other countries. Directed by Jean Pierre Jeunet - of 'Delicatessen' fame, it's about a young woman who retreats into dreams when life gets her down. Audrey Tautou, who plays the titular character, gives a performance which can only be described as winsome. The rest of the cast is good too, and the director pulls everything off with a large dollop of panache. It's been a long time since I've seen an English language film as confidently directed as this. Jeunet is one of these directors who has obviously seen a lot of movies in his time. This film has that passion about the filmmaking process plastered all over it.

A Prophet (Jacques Audiard - 2009)

This is the official selection from France for the best foreign language film Oscar this year and a very strong contender it is. In fact it looks like it's a two horse race between this and Germany's entry. While I reckon The White Ribbon should and will win come Oscar night this film is an impressive entry and one of the very best prison movies you'll see. We follow Malik, a young arab thrust into the harsh and unforgiving environment of a Paris prison where most of what goes on is controlled by a connected mafia man serving time and ruling the roost with an iron fist. Very early on in his incarceration Malik is faced with killing a key witness in a mafia trial or being killed himself. The rest of the film details the tightrope walk that is Malik's life and how he slowly gains the upper hand by manipulating situations to his own ends. The film has a raw, unpolished look and feel to it, much like the best films to come out of Hollywood in the seventies - the golden age for gritty crime dramas. The tension is maintained throughout the almost two and a half hours running time and the whole production speaks of an authenticity which is harder and harder to come by these days. The performances are all good, especially Tahar Rahim as Malik and Niels Arestrup as the slug-like César Luciani whose steady decline is beautifully mirrored by Malik's rise.

Cyrano De Bergerac (Jean-Paul Rappeneau - 1990)

Edmund Rostand's heartbraking tale of unrequited love still stands head and shoulders above anything being produced today. Gerard Depardieu gives a barnstorming performance as a man who'll take on any amount of adversaries with a swagger and a grin, but who crumbles in the face of revealing his desire for the woman he loves due to having an unfortunately massive nose, about which he's very sensitive. When a new recruit in his regiment who's short on brains and long on libido falls for the same girl and asks his help to seduce her he agrees as he'll be able to say all the things he's wanted to say to her through someone else. But unlike all the modern sitcoms and movies using variations on this theme this film's ending is genuinely moving.

The Hairdresser's Husband (Patrice Leconte - 1990)

This is a wonderfully engaging film featuring an affecting performance by Jean Rochefort as a man who's had a fascination for haircuts and hairdressers since childhood, and who has lusted after the local hairdresser and asks her to marry him on impulse one day without ever even having met her before. Surprisingly she accepts and they settle into a pictaresque life of contentment and happiness. The scenes of the couple's happily married contentment in their hairdressing salon make you yearn for a simpler life where money doesn't matter and there's no rat-race to win. These scenes also lull you into thinking the film's just be a quirky little off-the-wall romance but then it pulls the rug out from under you near the end when things take a very dark turn. This is one of the more enjoyable of Patrice Leconte's films. It's charming, funny, wistful and in the end rather mournful.

L'Homme Du Train (Patrice Leconte - 2002)

This is an interesting one. It's the new Patrice Leconte film - my favourite French director. It stars the delightful Jean Rocheforte as a lonely old retired teacher looking for a bit of intrigue and excitement in his twilight years by befriending the young gangster he bumps into who's in town to rob the local bank. Or is he? On the surface of it, this film seems like a straightforward tale about the meeting of two men and the relationship that developes between them. However there is, I believe, a whole other explanation for all the events that take place, and the more I think about it the more sense it makes: I think a good case could be made for the two men actually being Jean Rocheforte, and when you realise this the film can be seen in a whole new light. The old man is looking back at his past and imagining himself as a dangerous and interesting gangster, rather than the boring, staid French teacher he was. He sits in his old house talking to himself as that young man and imagining a whole scenario of heists and a criminal career that never was. He has an old-fashioned romantic notion of being a daring strong-but-silent man of action which comes from watching too many old thrillers, as he admits to himself one evening, and the events that take place in the film are shown as they are happening to Jean Rocheforte the teacher then again re-interpreted as Jean Rocheforte the gangster in his mind. Even if you disagree with this interpretation it's food for thought, and that's always a good thing in a film.

Irreversible (Gaspar Noe - 2002)

Gaspar Noe's brutal movie about the rape and battery of a woman and it's consequences, told in a non-chronological manner and featuring some unconventional (to say the least) camerawork which may make you seasick at the beginning. But this is as nothing compared to how sick you'll be at the sheer brutality of the central rape scene. Monica Bellucci deserves a medal for her performance in this scene - it must have been really traumatising even though it was only actors doing their thing. This is the single most disturbing film I've ever seen and it stayed with me long after the end credits rolled. In fact it still pops unbidden into my head at random times years after I first saw it. The mysoginistic fervour displayed by Le Tenier (played by Jo Prestia) in the rape scene is absolutely monstrous, and all the more disturbing when you realise that there are prisons around the world full of men like this and thousands more roaming free.

I Stand Alone (Gaspar Noe - 1998)

Gaspar Noe's first full length feature film gives the viewer a long look into the mind of a sociopathic butcher (played with a charged intensity by Philippe Nahon), during a period of psychic upheaval thrust on him by the mundane brutalities of an uncaring society. The reason this film is so disturbing is the way Noe realistically sets up a world so seedy and bleak that it's depressing enough in itself, then introduces a character who leads such a grim and humourless existence that it can't fail to send the viewer into a deep funk. And just when you're at your lowest ebb The Butcher - he has no name - snaps in such a visceral way that it almost takes your breath away. The problem for the viewer is that the majority of the film is seen from the point of view of a protagonist that despises the whole human race and we're forced to see the world through his eyes, and that's a really scary position to be in.

Jean De Florette (Claude Berri - 1986)

Gerard Depardieu plays a kind and generous hunchback filled with a joi de vivre who dreams of making his fortune breeding rabbits. So he buys some land and sets about growing vegetables to feed his rabbits. Unbeknownst to him though the old man who owns the field next to him has diverted the natural spring that supplies depardieu's field with precious water so that his own crops will grow. Years pass and depardieu can't understand why he's so unlucky, when all the time he's being plotted against by the twisted old man and his sidekick. The terrible truth of the situation is never revealed to depardieu but we the audience are aware of the origins of his misfortunes. Alas we can do nothing to alert him and things go from bad to worse. This is one of the best films for anyone unfamiliar with world cinema to start off with. Hard not to like.