French Cinema: L-Z

A man who adores women finds it impossible to be faithful to any single one.

A comedy in which the vague and clumsy M. Hulot, in contrast to his more wealthy sister and brother-in-law, is constantly at odds with the modern world.

Presents a series of humorous impressions and incidents at a seaside Brittany resort involving the accident-prone Mr. Hulot. Principally visual humor. There is no story: simply a series of comic mix-ups and casual caricatures. Soundtrack is mostly ambient sound.

Ludovic is waiting for a miracle. With seven-year-old certainty, he believes he was meant to be a little girl and that the mistake will soon be corrected. But where he expects the miraculous, Ludo finds chiefly rejection, isolation and guilt--as the intense reactions of family, friends, and neighbors strip away every innocent lace and bauble in this sensitive comedy/drama.

Faced with a dying mother, an absent, alcoholic father, and a baby brother in need of care, the teenage Mouchette seeks solace in nature and daily routine, a respite from her economic and prepubescent turmoil

A pious Catholic engineer in his early thirties lives by a strict moral code in order to rationalize his world, drowning himself in mathematics and the philosophy of Pascal. After spotting the delicate, blonde Françoise at Mass, he vows to make her his wife, but when he unwittingly spends the night at the apartment of the bold, brunette divorcée Maud, his rigid ethical standards are challenged.

Though happily married to his adoring wife, Hélène, with whom he is expecting a second child, the thoroughly bourgeois business executive Frédéric cannot banish from his mind the multitude of attractive Parisian women who pass him by every day. His flirtations and fantasies remain harmless until Chloe, an audacious, unencumbered old flame, shows up at his office and presents the first genuine threat to his marriage.

The conclusion of the Antoine Doinel series. Antoine is now in his thirties, in the process of divorcing Christine, enjoying moderate success as a novelist, and clinging to his romantic fantasies. The newly single Doinel finds a new object of his affections in Sabine, a record store salesgirl whom he pursues with the belief that without love, one is nothing. Along the way he renews his acquaintance with previous loves and confronts his past.

A 1950 update of the Orphic myth by Jean Cocteau that depicts a famous poet scorned by the Left Bank youth, and his love for both his wife Eurydice and a mysterious princess. Seeking inspiration, the poet follows the princess from the world of the living to the land of the dead through Cocteau's famous mirrored portal. Orpheus represents the legendary Cocteau at the height of his abilities for peerless visual poetry and dreamlike storytelling.

Language Note: Silent film with French intertitles, optional English subtitles and optional oratorio soundtrack sung in Latin and French.

Cloaked in a comedy of manners, this scathing critique of corrupt French society is about a weekend hunting party at which amorous escapades abound among the aristocratic guests, which are also mirrored by the activities of the servants downstairs.

Les Mistons: Depicts a group of pubescent boys whose admiration of a young girl takes on an edge of cruelty, with unforeseen results. Working with François Truffaut: Interview with co-writers Claude de Givray and Bernard Revon.

Videodisc of the 1968 motion picture.
Part of a five disc set: The adventures of Antoine Doinel.

Based on the true story of Adele Hugo's obsessive love affair which led her to run away from home to follow her womanizing lover across an ocean to Halifax, Nova Scotia.

Bertrand bides his time in a casually hostile and envious friendship with college chum Guillaume. But when the ladies' man Guillaume seems to be making a play for the spirited, independent Suzanne, Bertrand watches bitterly with disapproval and jealousy.

A bold trio of stories about love and loss ... [that] was a defining event of the art-house boom of the 90s. The films are named for the colors of the French flag and stand for the tenets of the French Revolution: liberty, equality, and fraternity--but that hardly explains their enigmatic beauty and rich humanity. Set in Paris, Warsaw, and Geneva, and ranging from tragedy to comedy, Blue, White, and Red ... examine a group of ambiguously interconnected people experiencing profound personal disruptions

A bold trio of stories about love and loss ... [that] was a defining event of the art-house boom of the 90s. The films are named for the colors of the French flag and stand for the tenets of the French Revolution: liberty, equality, and fraternity--but that hardly explains their enigmatic beauty and rich humanity. Set in Paris, Warsaw, and Geneva, and ranging from tragedy to comedy, Blue, White, and Red ... examine a group of ambiguously interconnected people experiencing profound personal disruptions

A bold trio of stories about love and loss ... [that] was a defining event of the art-house boom of the 90s. The films are named for the colors of the French flag and stand for the tenets of the French Revolution: liberty, equality, and fraternity--but that hardly explains their enigmatic beauty and rich humanity. Set in Paris, Warsaw, and Geneva, and ranging from tragedy to comedy, Blue, White, and Red ... examine a group of ambiguously interconnected people experiencing profound personal disruptions

Juliette, a bourgeois housewife, is a loving wife and mother whose domestic moments alternate with her days and nights as a call girl.

Geneviève, a shop assistant, falls in love with Guy, a gas station mechanic. But a life with him will not be in her future. A tender, bittersweet love story, sung throughout in French.

Disc 4: feature film Sans toit ni loi = Vagabond (1985) (105 min., col.); Remembrances (2003), a documentary on the making of the film, including interviews with Sandrine Bonnaire and other cast members; The story of an old lady (2003), a short piece in which Varda visits actress Marthe Jarnais, who plays the old aunt in the film; Music and dolly shots (2003), a conversation between Varda and composer Joanna Bruzdowicz; a 1986 radio interview with Varda and writer Nathalie Sarraute, who inspired the film; theatrical trailer.

Whirlpool of fate: after the suspicious death of her father a young girl runs away from her brutal uncle and joins a gypsy camp.
Nana: A women rises from poverty to become a dance hall queen and courtesan in 1860s Paris, destroying the lives of the men who fall in love with her.