Integrating the filmmaker’s familiar elements of whimsical, quixotic adventure (Celine and Julie Go Boating), integrated – but unresolved – conspiracy (Gang of Four, Secret Defense, and The Story of Marie and Julien), and liberated bohemianism (La Belle noiseuse, La Religeuse), Le Pont du Nord is an effervescent, ingeniously constructed, and infectiously affectionate paean to the […]
Behind the cloistered walls of a Paris convent in 1757, a young woman named Suzanne (Anna Karina), the sole remaining unmarried daughter of a prominent attorney named Simonin (Charles Millot) and his wife (Christiane Lénier), is reluctantly brought before the priest in order to take her monastic vows before creating a scandal by willfully (and […]
An attractive young woman named Marion (Arielle Dombasle) has retreated to her brother’s house in Normandy for a late summer holiday to await the finalization of her divorce. One day, accompanied by her charming adolescent cousin, Pauline (Amanda Langlet), Marion encounters her former lover, a quiet and pensive young man named Pierre (Pascal Greggory) on […]
Jean-Louis (Jean-Louis Trintignant), a devout, unmarried engineer, has a very specific profile in mind for his ideal wife: attractive, blonde, intelligent, and above all, a practicing Catholic. He believes that he has found his soulmate when he spots a young student named Françoise (Marie-Christine Barrault) in a crowded church during Sunday mass, and resolves to […]
Five years before Abbas Kiarostami would blur the delineation between documentary and fiction in Close-Up by casting underemployed laborer and accused Mohsen Makhmalbaf impersonator, Sabzian to participate in a re-enactment of his fateful encounter with Mrs. Mahrokh Ahankhah and his subsequent deception of the Ahankhah family by ingratiating himself into their company, Françoise Romand would […]
By the time the final, pillow shot of Solitary Fragments unfolds – a congested panorama of dour, monolithic structures, interchangeable, tiled rooftops, and mobile cranes hovering over the cityscape in a perpetual state of construction and demolition – I was convinced that the film would conclude with some sort of postscript dedication to Edward Yang. […]