Miss is simply glorious. It is a French mainstream comedy-drama about a young person’s quest to win the Miss France beauty pageant. It does everything right. It finds comedy in characters and situations and not in mocking identities. It carries an … Continue reading REVIEW: Miss (2020)
Isabelle Huppert is easily one of the world’s most accomplished and talented actors. She is also one of its most versatile, having spread her long career across films as varied as French prestige dramas, Hollywood westerns, and even the South … Continue reading REVIEW: The Godmother (2020)
A hot Mediterranean sun blazes down on a violent gang of thieves in hiding in Hélène Cattet and Bruno Forzani’s self-consciously stylish crime thriller Let the Corpses Tan. Based on a pulp novel and primarily shot on location in Corsica, it is … Continue reading REVIEW: Let the Corpses Tan (2017)
Political cartoonist Aurel (Aurélien Froment) makes his feature directing debut with this heartfelt and political animation set in a 1939 concentration camp. Not a German one, however: when half a million Spanish refugees fled across the French border to escape … Continue reading REVIEW: Josep (2020)
French cinema’s enfant terrible Gaspar Noé has returned. In typical Noé fashion, he comes on the back of a playful subversion of expectations; not necessarily ours – I suspect all of his fans and foes anticipate the sensory assaults to which … Continue reading REVIEW: Lux Æterna (2019)
Johnnie To’s first – and, to date, only – international co-production does not quite scale the levels of inventiveness found in his Hong Kong-specific works, but Vengeance remains a beautifully staged and operatic action thriller. French chef Francis Costello (Johnny Hallyday) arrives … Continue reading REVIEW: Vengeance (2009)
An unemployed, nameless horse butcher (Philippe Nahon) living in northern France violently assaults his wife, steals a gun, and makes his way home to Paris – where he plans his revenge against a society that has left him feel alone … Continue reading REVIEW: I Stand Alone (1998)
Ben (David Ralwe) lives on a lighthouse with his father Colin (Brendan Gleeson) and little sister Saoirse. His mother vanished the night she gave birth to Saoirse, who is non-verbal. Ben blames his sister for his mother’s disappearance, while Colin … Continue reading REVIEW: Song of the Sea (2014)
On a flight from Tokyo to Paris, one first-class passenger surreptitiously drugs the water of another. When that drugged business executive begins to pass out at the airport, she is picked up by two men who throw her into the … Continue reading REVIEW: Demonlover (2002)
In 1979 Paris, Anne (Vanessa Paradis) runs an independent film studio making gay pornography. When a masked assailant begins stalking the city’s gay community, violently murdering Anne’s actors one by one, she is drawn into tracking the killer down before … Continue reading REVIEW: Knife + Heart (2018)
