I'm Still Here (2024)

 

I'M STILL HERE  (2024)  ¢ ¢ ¢ ¢

    D: Walter Salles

    Fernanda Torres, Luyiza Kosovski, Selton Mello,

    Cora Mora, Augusto Trainotti, Fernanda Montenegro

"I'm Still Here" is about a woman trying to find out what happened to her husband who's disappeared in Brazil during the dictatorship. The husband's a former senator who's been abducted by agents working for the police or the army but who look and act more like regular kidnappers. The woman's forceful in a way that somebody with less affluence and status might not be, but that's not enough to prevent her from being taken into custody and interrogated herself. A harrowing look at a political system where dissent is silenced, resistance is crushed, and the key to power is stoking pervasive fear. Think that can't happen here? We'll see. An Oscar winner for best foreign language film, with a commanding performance by Fernanda Torres in the lead. Fernanda Montenegro (Torres' mother) has a quietly moving cameo late in the film. 

Nouvelle Vague (2025)

 

NOUVELLE VAGUE  (2025)  ¢ ¢ ¢ ¢ 1/2

    D: Richard Linklater 

    Guillaume Marbeck, Zoey Deutch, Aubry Dullin,

    Bruno Dreyfürst, Benjamin Clery, Matthieu Penchinat,

    Thom Novembre, Laurent Mothe, Jodie Ruth Forest

Richard Linklater's funny, affectionate homage to the French New Wave, set in 1959, with Jean-Luc Goddard, Jean Seberg and Jean-Paul Belmondo in the streets making "Breathless", and everybody else who was involved in the French film scene at the time passing through or dropping by. A real movie-lover's movie, in French and black and white, with scenes from Godard's iconic first feature scrupulously recreated. You don't have to be a fan of the New Wave to appreciate what Linklater's up to, but it doesn't hurt. Watching it on a double bill with "Breathless" wouldn't be a bad idea, either. 

Misunderstood (2014)

 

MISUNDERSTOOD  (2014)  ¢ ¢ 1/2

    D: Asia Argento 

    Giulia Salerno, Charlotte Gainsbourg, Gabriel Garko,

    Carolina Poccioni, Anna Lou Castoldi, Alice Pea

The protagonist in this movie is a smart, inquisitive nine-year-old girl named Aria, traipsing around Rome between the two broken poles in an affluent but dysfunctional family. He mom's a concert pianist and borderline out-of-control diva plowing her way through a series of sketchy boyfriends. Her dad's a superstitious movie actor whose tenuous stability is severely tested when the girl brings home her best and newest friend, a black cat. It's a rough, ragged piece of work, reflecting the girl's view of her world, or Argento's approach to filmmaking, and possibly both. Charlotte Gainsbourg disappears into her role as the mother. I kept watching her, thinking, okay , when's Charlotte Gainsbourg going to show up, and then realized, oh, that's her. Giulia Salerno, who plays Aria, is remarkable, and the image of her walking the streets alone with a duffel bag and a cat in a carrier could stay in your head long after the rest of the movie slips away. 

Jacky In the Kingdom of Women (2014)

 

JACKY IN THE KINGDOM OF WOMEN 

    D: Riad Sattouf                        (2014)  ¢ ¢ 1/2

    Vincent Lacoste, Charlotte Gainsbourg, Didier Bourdon,

    Anémone, Michel Hazenavicius, Valérie Bonneton

An upside-down Cinderella story set in a society where women wield absolute power and men are sheep. Charlotte Gainsbourg plays the Prince Charming figure, faced with choosing a mate from thousands of groveling, submissive men. There's a reveal - a literal one - at the end that's both a shock and somehow not much of a surprise. As satire, this is a little too on-the-nose, and as comedy it's a little too silly, but . . . Charlotte Gainsbourg. The odds of it ever playing in Iran or Afghanistan are zero. 

Driving Madeleine (2022)

 

DRIVING MADELEINE  (2022)  ¢ ¢ ¢ ¢

    D: Christian Carion

    Line Renaud, Dany Boon, Alice Isaaz,

    Jérémie Lahuerte, Gwendoline Hamon,

    Julie Delarme, Thomas Alden

Dr. Sporgersi,

I saw a good French movie yesterday called "Driving Madeleine", about a Paris cab driver who takes an old woman from her home to the assisted-living facility she's moving into. He ends up driving her all over the city, to places where key events in her life took place. It's very well done, with some dark stuff I didn't expect, and a fairy-tale ending that only works because after spending two hours in the car with these people, it's exactly what you want to see happen. You see a lot of Paris, too. That's my recommendation for today. If you see it sometime, let me know what you think. 

                                                                                                 Nick

The Crime Is Mine (2023)

 

THE CRIME IS MINE  (2023)  ¢ ¢ ¢

    D: François Ozon

    Nadia Tereszkiewicz, Rebecca Marder, Isabelle Huppert,

    Fabric Luchini, Dany Boon, André Dussollier

When a starving actress is accused of murder, her flatmate, an equally hungry lawyer, defends her in court. Which is just the beginning of this screwball comedy, a period social satire with a distinctly feminist edge. It can't quite sustain the pace it starts out with, but the actors pull you along. If you aren't completely fluent in French, be ready to read subtitles real fast. 

The Teachers' Lounge (2023)

THE TEACHERS' LOUNGE  (2023)  ¢ ¢ ¢ 1/2

    D: Ilker Çatak

    Leonie Benesch, Anne-Kathrin Gummich, Eva Löbau

    Rafael Stachowiak, Michael Klammer, Leonard Stettnisch,

    Can Rodenbostel, Vincent Stachowiak, Padmé Hamdemir,

    Elsa Krieger, Kathrin Wehlisch, Kersten Reimann

In a middle school somewhere in Germany, a theft has occurred, and compelling evidence suggests who's responsible. A first-year teacher gets caught up in the investigation, but the more she tries to do what's right, the more she's vilified by everybody else. A contender for the Oscar for best foreign feature - it lost to "The Zone of Interest" - with a strong central performance by Leonie Benesch as a compassionate idealist trapped in a claustrophobic nightmare in a movie that never leaves the school.

Persecution (2009)

 

PERSECUTION  (2009)  ¢ ¢ 1/2

    D: Patrice Chéreau

    Romain Duris, Charlotte Gainsbourg, 

    Jean-Huges Anglade, Michel Duchaussoy,

    Gilles Cohen, Alex Descas, Hiam Abbass 

A gloomy, antisocial guy who remodels apartments and volunteers in a retirement home mopes around Paris with others who are equally sad and screwed up. The only exception is his girlfriend (Charlotte Gainsbourg), and even she admits she likes him better when they're apart. So it's kind of a downer, but it's not the worst French movie in which unhappy characters brood and smoke cigarettes. I don't know what movie that would be, and I hope I never find out.

Hardcore (2004)

 

HARDCORE  (2004)  ¢ ¢ 1/2

    D: Dennis Iliadis

    Katerina Tsavalou, Danae Skiadi, Ioannis Pappazisis,

    Omiros Poulakis, Andreas Marianos, Dimitris Liolios

A Greek movie about the dreary, fucked-up lives of two young prostitutes, one adventurous and outgoing and the other guarded and morose. There are some unexpected (and unlikely) turns in the story and occasional bits of animation, suggesting that some of what you're watching might be fantasy, but overall it's pretty depressing, and it comes with an implied teen safety advisory: If you're a kid who's burned down your parents' house and run away from home, a brothel in Athens might not be where you want to end up.

. . . And God Created Woman (1956)

 

. . . AND GOD CREATED WOMAN  (1956)  ¢ ¢

    D: Roger Vadim

    Brigitte Bardot, Curt Jurgens, Jean-Louis Trintignant

. . . and the movies created Bardot.

(1934-2025)

The Zone of Interest (2023)

 

THE ZONE OF INTEREST  (2023)  ¢ ¢ ¢ ¢

    D: Jonathan Glazer 

    Christian Friedel, Sandra Hüller, Martyna Poznanski,

    Medusa Knopf, Audrey Isaev, Stephanie Petrowitz

For most of this movie, you're eavesdropping on the mundane activities of a moderately prosperous German family, the catch being that the dad in this case, the guy with the really bad haircut, is Rudolf Höss, the commandant of Auschwitz, and their beautiful house and pool and garden are just outside the wall of the camp. The movie doesn't show you what'g going on on the other side of the wall, but you hear it - the muffled sounds of heavy machinery, shouts, screams, dogs barking, gun shots. You see only what the family sees: the smoke from a passing locomotive, the razor wire on the top of the wall, a glowing red light reflected on the curtains of somebody's bedroom, black smoke coming from the chimneys. But look at this nice fur coat and these clothes that just came in. Yesterday I found a diamond in a tube of toothpaste. Those Jews are clever, aren't they? Here you can (literally) smell the roses.  Why would anybody want to leave? The banality of evil and the evil of banality. This is a horror movie. 

Suzanna Andler (2021)

 

SUZANNA ANDLER  (2021)  ¢ 1/2

    D: Benoît Jacquot

    Charlotte Gainsbourg, Neils Schneider, 

    Julia Roy, Nathan Wilcocks 

A woman who's wealthy and bored mopes around a seaside villa she's thinking of renting for two million euros a month. She talks briefly with the real estate agent, and then with the guy she's cheating on her husband with and a woman with whom her husband has cheated on her. Sometimes, just to break the monotony, she and her lover smoke cigarettes. (Did I mention the movie is French?) The woman is played by Charlotte Gainsbourg, sporting a rich-girl look and wardrobe, and there are some exceptionally long takes, which is something, I guess, but the movie just drags on and on for what feels like days, and then it's over, but not soon enough.

One Cut of the Dead (2017)

 

ONE CUT OF THE DEAD  (2017)  ¢ ¢ 1/2

    D: Shin'ichirô Ueda

    Takayaki Hamatsu, Yuzuki Akiyama, Harumi Shuhama,

    Kazuaki Nagaya, Manabu Hosoi, Hiroshi Ichihara

A film within a film within a film within a film about a television crew trying to shoot a 30-minute zombie picture live in one take with no cuts. First you see what they shot. Then you see how they shot it. Lots of fake blood, a severed arm, a severed head, a video camera, a bottle of sake, an 

ax . . . 

Piaffe (2022)

 

PIAFFE  (2022)  ¢ ¢ 1/2

    D: Ann Oren

    Simone Bucio, Sebastian Rudolph, Lea Draeger,

    Simon Jaikiriuma Paetau, Josef Ostendorf

An elegant erotic fantasy about a woman who's doing sound design for a commercial that features a horse, and finds herself transforming in a most unusual way. It risks being silly, but Simone Bucio's daring performance transcends that, bringing a whole new dimension to the concept of being trans. And she has a nice tail.

Samba (2014)

SAMBA  (2014)  ¢ ¢ ¢

    D: Oliver Nakache, Éric Toledano

    Omar Sy, Charlotte Gainsbourg, Tahar Rahim,

    Youngar Fall, Issakla Sawadogo, Izïa Higelin

A French movie about the tentative relationship between an undocumented immigrant from Senegal, scuffling to survive and escape deportation, and a burned-out caseworker who has issues of her own. Life in the shadows. Love on the edge. Nicely acted by Sy and Gainsbourg. 

La Chimera (2023)

 

LA CHIMERA  (2023)  ¢ ¢ ¢

    D: Alice Rohrwacher

    Josh O'Connor, Carol Duarte, Isabella Rossellini,

    Vincenzo Nemolato, Giuliano Mantovani,

    Ramona Fiorini, Gian Piero Capretto

An archeologist just out of prison for grave robbing falls back in with the gang of thieves who set him up. With an uncanny ability to locate buried antiquities, he and his divining rod go back to work, and what he uncovers this time could either make him rich or get him killed. There's a lot of early Fellini in this, with the outlaws doubling as a ragtag group of actors, and a touch of magic realism and a dash of "The Lost King" thrown in. And there's a moral: If you want to make a killing in contraband Etruscan art, be rich. If you're not, they'll let you do the dirty work, but when it comes to the big score, and maybe staying out of jail, forget it. You're screwed.

Lourdes (2009)

 

LOURDES  (2009)  ¢ ¢ ¢ 1/2

    D: Jessica Hausner

    Sylvie Testud, Léa Seydoux, Bruno Tedeschini,

    Elina Löwensohn, Gilette Barbier, Gerhard Liebmann

For those not steeped in Catholic lore and legend, Lourdes is a place in France where the Virgin Mary is said to have made a personal appearance, witnessed by a peasant girl named Bernadette, in 1858. For a long time since then, Lourdes has been a place where crippled, sick, paralyzed and otherwise debilitated pilgrims go to pray to the Virgin for relief from their afflictions. If the way it's depicted in this quiet, meditative movie is accurate, Lourdes isn't just about faith and healing. It's a whole tourist industry that makes the Dickeyville Grotto look like, well, the Dickeyville Grotto. (You don't know about the Dickeyville Grotto? Then never mind.) One of those who comes to Lourdes is a young woman in a wheelchair, a paraplegic named Christine, played with beatific stillness by Sylvie Testud. She admits she goes on these religious excursions not so much because she believes, but to escape her confined existence. (She prefers cultural outings to religious ones.) To reveal what happens to Christine at Lourdes would reveal too much, but the movie tracks her stay there with restraint and a documentary-like detachment that both acknowledges and transcends the kitsch that surrounds her. The rationalizations the tour group leaders provide for God's role in all this seem pretty hollow. Testud's performance is anything but. 

Lucky Luke (2009)

 

LUCKY LUKE  (2009)  ¢ ¢ ¢ 1/2

    D: James Huth

    Jean Dujardin, Sylvie Testud, Melvil Poupaud,

    Michaël Youn, Alexandra Lamy, Daniel Prévost

The president of the United States, facing a tough reelection campaign, dispatches a gunman named Lucky Luke to clean up a place called Daisy Town, where he plans to sink the last spike in the Transcontinental Railroad. An absurdist French spoof on westerns, both spaghetti and traditional, based on a comic book. It plays like a cartoon, sometimes funny, sometimes silly, and usually both at once. (There's even a talking horse.) Calamity Jane, Jesse James and Billy the Kid all show up. They bring their guns. 

The Burning Sea (2021)

THE BURNING SEA  (2021)  ¢ ¢ ¢ 1/2

    D: John Andreas Anderson 

    Kristine Kujath Thorp, Henrik Bjelland, Bjorn Floberg,

    Rolf Kristian Larsen, Anders Baasmo, Nils Elias Olsen,

    Anneke von der Lippe, Ane Skumsvoll, Christoffer Staib

A pulse-pounding eco-thriller from Norway, about a massive oil-rig disaster in the North Sea. More evidence that the Norwegians know how to do this stuff as well as anybody. The storytelling's efficient, the effects look good, and the human element never gets lost. Some of the same people who worked on "The Quake" and "The Wave" were responsible for this. 

Blind (2014)

 

BLIND  (2014)  ¢ ¢ ¢

    D: Eskil Vogt

    Ellen Dorrit Petersen, Henrik Rafaelsen,

    Vera Vitali, Marius Kolbenstvedt

A woman who's lost her eyesight slips into a world of fantasy, and the lines between what's real and what she imagines get blurry. Some of this is comical. Some is disturbing. Some is a little of both. It's a case of paralyzing fear - agoraphobia and the nightmare of being suddenly blind, compounded by the fact that the woman's fantasy alter ego, who's dealing with the same issues, is way more happy and resilient than she is. Or she could just be crazy. Blind in more ways than one.