The Umbrellas of Cherbourg (1964)

Highly Recommended

France/West Germany

Feature Film

Original Title: Les parapluies de Cherbourg

Writer/Director: Jacques Demy

Cinematographer: Jean Rabier

Composer: Michel Legrand

Cast: Catherine Deneuve, Nino Castelnuovo, Anne Vernon, Marc Michel, Ellen Farner, Mireille Perrey

Demy’s majestically gaudily coloured musical, in which all of the dialogue is sung by its beautiful young cast – producing a portrait of a 16-year-old girl, who falls pregnant to her petrol-pumping boyfriend just as he is called up for two year’s national service – is a very entertaining and exceedingly poignant illustration of the elasticity of the human heart. Iain.Stott

Read More

Les Temps Morts (1964)

Recommended

France

Animated Short Film

Original Title: Les temps morts

Director: René Laloux

Writers: René Laloux, Roland Topor, Jacques Sternberg

Composer: Alain Goraguer

Narrator: Roland Dubillard

Laloux’s blackly comic short film – mixing animated footage with moving and still archive materials, showing images of war, murder, and execution – is presented, from an alien perspective, as an anthropological study of the peculiar behaviour of the residents of planet Earth. Iain.Stott

Read More

Les Jeux des Anges (1964)

Recommended

France

Animated Short Film

Original Title: Les jeux des anges

Writer/Director: Walerian Borowczyk

This unsettling animated short film from (a pre-porn) Borowczyk, full of ominous train journeys, labyrinthine buildings, and macabre machinery, all in a dirty blood red hue, is an enigmatically powerful and rather disturbing piece of work. Iain.Stott

Read More

The Gospel According to St. Matthew (1964)

Recommended

Italy/France

Feature Film

Original Title: Il vangelo secondo Matteo

Writer/Director: Pier Paolo Pasolini

Cinematographer: Tonino Delli Colli

Cast: Enrique Irazoqui, Margherita Caruso, Susanna Pasolini, Marcello Morante, Ferruccio Nuzzo, Otello Sestili, Rossana Di Rocco, Paola Tedesco

Although it feels a little rushed at times and could be somewhat confusing for those with merely a passing knowledge of the New Testament, Pasolini’s dexterous adaptation of the eponymous book – a retelling of the life of Jesus Christ, the son of God, from immaculate conception to ascension to heaven – is never less than compelling. Iain.Stott

Read More

The PianoTuner of EarthQuakes (2005)

Not Recommended

UK/France/Germany

Feature Film

Directors: Quay Brothers

Writers: Alan Passes, Quay Brothers

Cinematographer: Nic Knowland

Composer: Christopher Slaski

Cast: César Sarachu, Amira Casar, Gottfried John, Assumpta Serna

This bizarre tale of an evil doctor’s obsession for a beautiful opera singer (the second feature film by the Quay brothers) is a work that will prove too obtuse for most; although it does contain numerous pleasures – mostly in the form of its distinctive, painterly visuals – but one must conclude, in the end, that there is little going on beneath its admittedly attractive surface. Iain.Stott

Read More

In the City of Sylvia (2007)

Essential Viewing

Spain/France

Feature Film

Original Title: En la ciudad de Sylvia

Writer/Director: José Luis Guerín

Cinematographer: Natasha Braier

Cast: Xavier Lafitte, Pilar López de Ayala

Plotless and near enough dialogue free, Guerín’s remarkably sensual film – in which a handsome young man returns to Strasbourg in search of a woman, Sylvia, who he had a brief encounter with six years earlier – is a piece that relies more on random faces and the ambient noise of everyday life than on conventional filmic techniques to portray the inner-life of its enigmatic protagonist, and whilst that might scare off most potential viewers, those willing to submit to its gentle rhythms are likely to experience a work of considerable beauty. Iain.Stott

Read More

All or Nothing (2002)

Highly Recommended

UK/France

Feature Film

Writer/Director: Mike Leigh

Cinematographer: Dick Pope

Composer: Andrew Dickson

Cast: Timothy Spall, Lesley Manville, Alison Garland, James Corden, Ruth Sheen, Marion Bailey, Paul Jesson, Sam Kelly, Kathryn Hunter, Sally Hawkins, Helen Coker, Daniel Mays, Ben Crompton

Click for review.

Read More

Céline and Julie Go Boating (1974)

Essential Viewing

France

Feature Film

Original Title: Céline et Julie vont en bateau

Director: Jacques Rivette

Writers: Juliet Berto, Eduardo de Gregorio, Dominique Labourier, Bulle Ogier, Marie-France Pisier, Jacques Rivette

Cinematographer: Jacques Renard

Composer: Jean-Marie Sénia

Cast: Juliet Berto, Dominique Labourier, Bulle Ogier, Marie-France Pisier, Barbet Schroeder, Nathalie Asnar

Silly, enigmatic, and completely irresistible, Céline and Julie Go Boating is a weirdly wonderful and wonderfully weird film; a film about everything and nothing, comprising of several nonsense filled vignettes, in which two attractive, twenty-something, Parisian women – one a librarian, the other a magician – who share a flat, take it in turns visiting a haunted mansion. Iain.Stott

Read More

Léon Morin, Prêtre (1961)

Recommended

France/Italy

Feature Film

Original Title: Léon Morin, prêtre

Director: Jean-Pierre Melville

Writers: Jean-Pierre Melville, Béatrix Beck

Cinematographer: Henri Decaë

Composer: Martial Solal

Cast: Jean-Paul Belmondo, Emmanuelle Riva, Irène Tunc, Nicole Mirel, Gisèle Grimm

Provocative, absorbing, and strangely erotic, Melville’s adaptation of Béatrix Beck’s autobiographical novel, exploring the fascinating relationship between a sceptical, young communist woman and a handsome, young liberal priest in German occupied France, is a work of quiet power and adept artistry. Iain.Stott

Read More

Milou en Mai (1990)

Recommended

France/Italy

Feature Film

Original Title: Milou en mai

Director: Louis Malle

Writers: Jean-Claude Carrière, Louis Malle

Cinematographer: Renato Berta

Composer: Stéphane Grappelli

Cast: Miou-Miou, Michel Piccoli, Michel Duchaussoy, Bruno Carette, Paulette Dubost, Harriet Walter, Martine Gautier, Rozenne Le Tallec, Jeanne Herry-Leclerc, Renaud Danner, François Berléand, Dominique Blanc

Pitched somewhere between Renoir and Buñuel, Milou en Mai, Malle’s satirical, farcical, and very funny final (entirely) French film, sees a wealthy family gathering at their country home in May ’68 for the funeral of their recently deceased matriarch, whilst across France (and on the family’s radio) students and workers strike and riot. Iain.Stott

Read More

La Boulangère de Monceau (1963)

Highly Recommended

France

Short Film

Original Title: La boulangère de Monceau

Writer/Director: Eric Rohmer

Cinematographers: Bruno Barbey, Jean-Michel Meurice

Cast: Barbet Schroeder, Claudine Soubrier, Michèle Girardon, Bertrand Tavernier

A handsome young student and rampant litterbug with an ever-expanding waistline enjoys a brief, flirtatious encounter with an attractive young woman; but when she subsequently disappears he very casually eases his way into the affections of a shy 18-year-old girl who works in a small bakery that he frequents on a daily basis; but when the original object of his desire reappears he is left with a moral quandary, in Rohmer’s entertaining and very perceptive look (with one eye on class relations) at the ethics of human coupling. Iain.Stott

Read More

La Carrière de Suzanne (1963)

Recommended

France

Short Feature Film

Original Title: La carrière de Suzanne

Writer/Director: Eric Rohmer

Cinematographer: Daniel Lacambre

Cast: Philippe Beuzen, Catherine Sée, Christian Charrière, Diane Wilkinson

This excellent early short from Rohmer – the second of six films in his Contes moraux series (Moral Tales) – is a perceptive, nuanced and beautifully drawn portrait of three young students (one female, two male), detailing their socially incestuous romantic entanglements in the cafés and bed-sits of Paris. Iain.Stott

Read More

Dancer in the Dark (2000)

Recommended

Denmark/Finland/France/Germany/Iceland/Italy/The Netherlands/Norway/Sweden/UK/USA

Feature Film

Writer/Director: Lars von Trier

Cinematographer: Robby Müller

Composer: Björk

Cast: Björk, Catherine Deneuve, David Morse, Peter Stormare, Cara Seymour, Jean-Marc Barr, Siobhan Fallon

von Trier’s polarising, excellently acted provocation – a bleak tale of maternal martyrdom with brief, Björky musical interludes, in which the aforementioned mother, a Czech immigrant with rapidly deteriorating eyesight, struggles to cope in small town America, as she strives to save enough money for an operation for her precious son – is a powerful, often painful work, but a rewarding one none the less. Iain.Stott

Read More

Muriel ou Le Temps d'un Retour (1963)

Recommended

France/Italy/West Germany

Feature Film

Original Title: Muriel ou Le temps d'un retour

Director: Alain Resnais

Writer: Jean Cayrol

Cinematographer: Sacha Vierny

Composer: Hans Werner Henze

Cast: Delphine Seyrig, Jean-Pierre Kérien, Nita Klein, Jean-Baptiste Thiérrée

The excellent Seyrig plays a widow, living with her step-son, who invites a former lover, whom she hasn’t seen for twenty-odd years, to visit her in her Boulogne home, but, unexpectedly, he also brings along his “niece” and a whole lot of memories, in Resnais’s third feature, an enigmatic, unsettling, and menacing examination of the organic nature of memory. Iain.Stott

Read More

La Guerre Est Finie (1966)

Recommended

France/Sweden

Feature Film

Original Title: La guerre est finie

Director: Alain Resnais

Writer: Jorge Semprún

Cinematographer: Sacha Vierny

Composer: Giovanni Fusco

Cast: Yves Montand, Ingrid Thulin, Geneviève Bujold, Jean Dasté, Dominique Rozan, Jean-François Rémi

Alain Resnais’s psychological portrait of an ageing revolutionary, suffering from ethical, existential, and ideological crises, depicting his return from Madrid to Paris, where he was part of the Communist underground’s continuing attempts to dislodge Fascist dictator Franco from power, is a more conventional work than his previous efforts, and as a consequence perhaps a little less dazzling, but certainly no less insightful or compelling. Iain.Stott

Read More

Lila Says (2004)

Best Avoided

France/UK

Feature Film

Original Title: Lila dit ça

Director: Ziad Doueiri

Writers: Ziad Doueiri, Mark Lawrence, Joelle Touma, Chimo

Cinematographer: John Daly

Composer: Nitin Sawhney

Cast: Mohammed Khouas, Vahina Giocante, Karim Ben Haddou, Lotfi Chakri, Hamid Dkhissi, Edmonde Franchi, Carmen Lebbos

Vahina Giocante’s sexy, credible performance is the only thing of any real value in Doueiri’s adaptation of Chimo’s “autobiographical” novel - a tale of a cross-cultural romance between a provocative blonde and a shy Muslim - that never really convinces, and, with its constant promise of sex, which only leads to rape, it also leaves its viewers with something of an unpleasant aftertaste. Iain.Stott

Read More

Paris, Je T'Aime (2006)

Recommended

France/Germany

Short Film Compendium

Original Title: Paris, je t'aime

Directors: Olivier Assayas, Frédéric Auburtin, Emmanuel Benbihy, Gurinder Chadha, Sylvain Chomet, The Coen Brothers, Isabel Coixet, Wes Craven, Alfonso Cuarón, Gérard Depardieu, Christopher Doyle, Richard LaGravenese, Vincenzo Natali, Alexander Payne, Bruno Podalydès, Walter Salles, Oliver Schmitz, Suwa Nobuhiro, Daniela Thomas, Tom Tykwer, Gus Van Sant

A collection of 18 short films, each set in a different area of Paris, on the subject of love, which, unsurprisingly are a mixed bunch, with most being merely diverting and often instantly forgettable, but a few shine above the rest: Van Sant’s understated tale of amour peut être, Walter Salles and Daniela Thomas’s poignant look at maternal love, Suwa Nobuhiro's fantastical look at grief, Olivier Assayas’s wry tale about a drug dealer and an actress, Tom Tykwer’s plot-packed cross-cultural romance, and Alexander Payne’s bitter-sweet look at middle-aged loneliness all manage to stick in the memory. Iain.Stott

Read More

La Ciénaga (2001)

Highly Recommended

Argentina/France/Spain

Feature Film

Original Title: La ciénaga

Writer/Director: Lucrecia Martel

Cinematographer: Hugo Colace

Cast: Mercedes Morán, Graciela Borges, Martín Adjemián, Leonora Balcarce, Silvia Baylé, Sofia Bertolotto, Juan Cruz Bordeu, Noelia Bravo Herrera, Maria Micol Ellero, Andrea López

Martel’s allegorical gem of a feature debut – an unflinchingly brutal yet alluringly sensual portrait of an atrophying bourgeois family, descending into alcoholism, racism, incest, apathy, and arrogance – proves itself to be a work of considerable intelligence, skill, and integrity, and one that marks the birth of a substantial talent. Iain.Stott

Read More

Vendredi Soir (2002)

Essential Viewing

France

Feature Film

Original Title: Vendredi soir

Director: Claire Denis

Writers: Emmanuèle Bernheim, Claire Denis

Cinematographer: Agnès Godard

Composer: Dickon Hinchliffe

Cast: Valérie Lemercier, Vincent Lindon

Denis’s gorgeously sensual adaptation of Bernheim’s novel – depicting a brief encounter between an imaginative, sensitive woman, in the process of moving out of her flat and in with her boyfriend, and a handsome enigmatic stranger, whom she meets when a public transport strike brings Paris to a standstill – is a beautiful, sexy, and evocative work, which combines delightfully intimate photography with a sublimely compiled soundtrack to produce a truly erotic film. Iain.Stott

Read More

Les Diaboliques (1955)

Highly Recommended

France

Feature Film

Original Title: Les diaboliques

Director: Henri-Georges Clouzot

Writers: Henri-Georges Clouzot, Jérôme Géronimi, Frédéric Grendel, René Masson, Pierre Boileau, Thomas Narcejac

Cinematographer: Armand Thirard

Composer: Georges Van Parys

Cast: Simone Signoret, Vera Clouzot, Paul Meurisse, Charles Vanel, Jean Brochard, Pierre Larquey, Michel Serrault, Thérèse Dorny, Noël Roquevert, Yves-Marie Maurin

The wife and mistress of an abusive boarding school headmaster conspire to murder him, making it look like an accidental drowning, but when the body disappears its whereabouts causes tensions to rise, in Clouzot’s outstanding suspense thriller; a Hitchcockian gem, filled with thrills, shocks, laughter, and a great deal of humanity (in all its various forms). Iain.Stott

Read More