Essential French Films - Page 2

Truffaut's Shoot The Piano Player

Just got Une femme est une femme from Netflix. Looking forward to it.

Seconding the love on Shoot The Piano Player for sure. Great little underappreciated Truffaut movie.

It's easily his most Godardesque film, too.

Haha, I saw this thread and was curious if anyone was gonna mention Shoot the Piano Player, as I just finished writing a paper for it last night.

I love the dead mom joke in Shoot the Piano Player. It really is a great film.

I wasn't sold on Truffaut until I swa 'Jules et Jim', what a beautiful film that was.

This list needs some Rohmer. My Night at Maud's and Pauline at the Beach are good starters but my favorite is Summer, aka Le Rayon Vert.

Also, never too late to second Children of Paradise. Just an outstanding accomplishment.

Claude Lelouche's Les Miserables. It's the one set in WWII with Jean-Paul Belmondo playing 3 different incarnations of the same character, and I think there is still no region 1 dvd of it, thus it is vastly underseen. However, it was on Netflix Instant Watch for like a month, so it might pop back up again, I think I gorged on it like 3 or 4 times that month. It is really worth any price or shitty format you have to watch it on, please someone back me up on this.

Also, Kate, that movie is Le Placard, pretty light fare, an entertaining comedy in the movie-of-the-week sort of way.

Big ol' french cinema retrospective at Fantasporto this year.

Boudou Sauvé Des Éaux by Jean Renoir- Henpecked man of a bourgeios family rescues a tramp from drowning, adopts said tramp, hilarity ensues. This has a sort of gentle, slightly creaky humor that I don't think I've ever seen in an american movie, but you can find it all the time in old school european comedies, though it is quite daring at times, too, especially on the subject of marital infedelity. Boudou's absolutley unapologetically sociopathic behaviour is a hoot.

La Belle Et La Bête by Jean Cocteau - One of the first movies made after WWII; I'd seen this before, but the darkness of a cinema really helps bring out the (predominantly visual) appeal of the film. Disney took a hell of a lot from this for their Beauty & The Beast. The special effects still dazzle.

Les Visiteurs Du Soir by Marcel Carné - Based on a french folk tale, this occupation era movie is about two of the devil's envoys coming to seduce the inhabitants of a castle to their evil ways (it's not half as kinky as I've made it sound, tho.) Starts off really strong, with some trippy special effects, but it sort of meanders and you can tell the source material didn't demand a two hour long movie. Jules Berry delightful as Satan, though. Not to be confused with HI-larious early 90's time travel comedy Les Visiteurs.

Pierrot Le Fou by Jean Luc Godard - Seen this one, too, but it's one of my all time favourite movies. I could go on about this thing for paragraphs so I'll just mention that Anna Karina in a red dress = the ne plus ultra of french cinema hottness, and that's saying quite a lot.

Amelie, probably is the most essential one from the past 10 years, IMHO.

God, I really fucking hate Amelie. I'd even say A Very Long Engagement is a better film.

La Homme Du Train, Cache, The Beat That My Heart Skipped, The Triplets of Bellville, Meserine, Brotherhood of the Wolf, My New Best Friend, Persepolis, Martyrs and Days of Glory are all fantastic films from France that really give a nice cross reference of the various stylisations of Modern French Cinema.

Really? I saw AMELIE 3 times in theaters. AVLE is one of my mom's favorite books, but she doesn't care for the movie. I'm not sure I do either. It's weirdly cold and sterile.

EDIT: The WW1 stuff worked but the rest didnt

Seeing something multiple times isn't a good argument for a films quality. I find Amelie to be frustrating because there's a really interesting film buried away under there, but Jeunet is scared to embrace it and so the film becomes all facade.

Jeunet wasn't embracing anything interesting in A VERY LONG ENGAGEMENT. That movie is as dull as dishwater.

Well, it was interesting for me. I identified with her and I think that helped me emotionally connect with the film. She is a very relatable and realistic character. Otherwise the whimsy would be overpoweringly high fructose, IMHO

PS By the end of the movie, when they are on the bike and the pressure is being measured in milibars with the main theme coming in (played in double time, it seems) , it's impossible for me to not break out in an ear to ear grin like a big idiot. It's one of the happiest endings of any movie ever

Well considering that I think she has some mental health issues I find that kind of hilarious. She's utterly damaged person and the film even suggests at times that the weird fantastical version of Paris is something that she's actually creating in her own mind rather than being an actual place. That she's not perceiving the truth of a place.

Well whatever, I stand my by comment

And

I think it's not about blinding yourself to the truth of a place, as you say, so much as allowing yourself to look at everything in life that is wonderful and worth while. The mashmallow spinners, ETC

EDIT: And aren't we all damaged in our own way?

Let's have the "is Amelie racist?" debate, that is always fun.

Yeah, but Amelie displays a lot of overt autistic traits and we all know how you feel about people who are Autistic. Hence why I found that amusing.

I don't think Amelie as a movie is designed to be racist, but Amelie herself may be unconsciously racist. It's the problem with films shot in multicultural locations, do you pay lip service to an ethnic population or 'whitewash' the issue to streamline a story.

I am not certain what is or is not an autistic trait ( Putting raspberries on your fingers? Collecting torn up photo booth photos? ) , so I can't comment on that.

As for the rest of what you said, I don't feel one way or the other about autistics, I just said that I don't enjoy being called one or being told that I am on the "autism spectrum" or whatever.


PS Why would Amelie the character (or the film) be racist?

The argument is that Paris has a massive Arab populace and Amelie sort of white washes that with it's one ethnic character being a subservient, friendly, retard.

Though arguably the film qualifies as essential, no one needs to be told about that movie. It's like talking up KISS OF THE DRAGON or LA FEMME NIKITA.

Band Of Outsiders isn't really something to be blown away by - it's a breezy, fun movie, but go to A Bout De Suffle and Pierrot Le Fou for where the real action is.

I'm more into Swedish and Italian cinema, but I definetly need to see more French film.

Some go without saying, i.e.:The 400 Blows, Jules et Jim, Rules of the Game; however, one of my favorite's is Au hasard Balthazar.

Jean De Florette/Manon Des Sources didn't strike me as either of those things. They're quite melancholic, tragic tales, and masterfully done ones I thought. This is literally the first time I've come across the idea that they should be treated as guilty pleasures or something.

Indeed, Manon Des Sources is a film where a man sews a ribbon to his own nipple. It's sort of the archetype of quinessential modern, very straight-laced, arthouse cinema; but it's neither a light, fluffy or guilty pleasure and remains rather great.

Just got AHB from Netflix on Saturday. I just started catching up with Bresson, watching Pickpocket several days ago. (Thanks, Criterion/Netflix partnership!)

Bresson's style is so spare that the film seems almost slight, but I find myself still thinking about it days later.

Balthazar is no different. Bresson's an extremely visual filmmaker, but you'd be hard-pressed to find a more moving final moment than the one in Balthazar.

Just saw Godard's Weekend. I thought the first half is amazing, but it really loses itself up it's own ass during the second. That's a weird complaint to make, I know, considering it's wearing it's meta-ness and post-modernism and politics on it's sleeves throughout it's entire run, but the first half is so darkly funny and twisted, that it really drags once every character they come across in the second half gives those endless monologues about revolution.

There's still greatness throughout though, and man, I really love the first half. There's a long shot in this that's absolutely insane: it's brilliant and infuriating at the same time, which kind of encapsulates the whole film. Definitely worth checking out.

Thank you so much. I always figured this was 'culture' for people who'd never seen a foreign film before (anyone we might know?), but it really is an insipid piece of treacle.

Big fan of 'The 400 Blows', but after recent viewings of 'Bed and Breakfast' and 'Jules et Jim' I wonder if Truffaut isn't overdue for a critical re-evaluation. I couldn't help thinking they were pretty trite, simplistic and overly sentimental.

It just occurred to me that Diva seems to have drifted towards obscurity in the last ten years or so. It can perhaps be credited (or blamed) with influencing the rise of French crime thrillers like Nikita and Leon, but I still like it best.

Watched it last night, and it left me torn. I liked Pickpocket more, although admittedly it's much more conventional than AHB. I get what Bresson is going for, but it's not connecting for me. Frankly, if I were more spiritual, I'd appreciate his work more than I do. Still, I'm glad to finally be seeing his work. Mouchette is on the way.

Diva's awesome. Love the James Bond by way of Godard character who just casually saves the day for the main protagonist.

Is Diva the film which has a pair of henchmen, one of whom proclaims his hatred for just about everything? Because I remember loving that movie when I was teenager.

Yes. That was Dominique Pinon, better known now for Delicatessen.

The French always had such a great style with 'action' movies. I was actually quite disappointed that 36, despite its pedigree, turned out to be such a chore to watch.

Finally caught up with Henri Colpi's The Long Absence, excellent film. Valli in particular is wonderful in it. Still feel like I need to see a few more of Colpi's films before I can contextualize him in the Left Bank canon, though.

I dunno man, seems to me Truffaut gets plenty of haters. Jules Et Jim is, in the end, a pretty faithful adaptation of its source material, and I have to say the whole thing feels a lot less charming on the written page, so I'm guessing Truffaut did something right there. Is Bed & Breakfast the one with the japanese girl? I liked that, but my fave Doinel is the second. They're basically comedies.

Diva I don't really get. Not too keen on cinemá du look. It just felt like a mediocre french comic to me.

and it steals Danny Elfman's Batman theme. The ending to the film is so delicately done and poetic like Bergerac himself. (It also put me in the mood to watch Roxanne)

Maurice Pialat's work sounds interesting. His Police has certainly caught my eye.

I just saw the Mesrine films, and all I can say is thank you netflix instant watch.

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Watched Ophuls' The Earrings of Madame De... over the weekend. Magnificent. Ophuls' use of the camera is extraordinary, turning a contrived story into a work of art. Here's another example of Ophuls' awesome style, from La Plaisir:

 

 

Thread Bump! At the fluffier end of the scale: The Horseman on the Roof; La Reine Margot; The Girl on the Bridge; and Nathalie.

Holy shit. I was shown this in elementary school and it has haunted me ever since. I never knew what the movie was called. I don't know why the hell they showed it to us and more importantly, how they got away with it. One of the most gross, disgusting things I've ever seen in a movie, and I still feel that way as an adult who has seen tons of movies one would expect to find more disturbing (exploitation, gore, etc.).

All I remember about Jean de Florette and Manon de Sources is that they were both depressing as hell (being morality tales, that's kind of a given, I guess). However, given that I was but an ignorant teenager at the time, I dare say I'd get a bit more out of them now. But still feel wary.

I don't think anyone mentioned Forbidden Games. See it.

 

Also, has anyone seen Le Grand Chemin, My Father's Glory, or Olivier, Olivier? The French seem to have a knack for telling stories through the eyes of children.