A jeweler presents Max (Vincent Cassel) with three prospective rings for his upcoming marriage to Muriel (Sandrine Kiberlain): the first is elegant, yet understated; the second is intensely beautiful, but dangerously sharp and cutting; the third is seemingly ordinary, but has an inner glow and luster beneath the surface. Unable to choose among them (and […]
At a picturesque, remote estate in turn of the century Russia, a jovial physician, Nikolai (Nikita Mikhalkov) recounts an indelicate tale – momentarily stopping to inspect his reflection on a silver carafe – of his truncated courtship of a young woman named Ksyusha Kalitina following an embarrassing encounter with the deaf, elderly nurse at the […]
The title of Paul Meyer’s compassionate, sincere, and deeply personal feature film on immigrant labor, cultural assimilation, and exile, From the Branches Drops the Withered Blossom, is a line from a poem by Salvatore Quasimodo pondering the inevitability of change. Initially commissioned by the Ministry of Education to promote the integration of immigrant children into […]
Paul Meyer’s short film, Klinkaart, opens to the image of two sisters attempting to retrieve a fallen fruit drifting downstream of a river. The older sister then joins the other women from the village as they walk to the brickyard for her first day of work: removing the clay bricks from forms, laying them into […]
Le Samouraï opens to a shot of rain beating onto the window of a darkened room. At the corner of the frame, a puff of smoke emanates from a lit cigarette. An occasional shrill chirp is heard from a caged bird. The rest is silence. An impassive man, Jef Costello (Alain Delon), rises from the […]
Even in the underworld of professional gangsters and organized crime, there exists an implicit social structure. At the top of this criminal hierarchy is Bob (Roger Duchesne), an impeccably dressed, well-mannered reformed bank robber with a penchant for, or rather an addiction to, gambling. In fact, so well regarded is he that even the police […]