Best French Fillims

[Treacle Toes]

If you have 30 minutes to spare, you could do worse than spend them on this little film.....

Just watched this and it's perfect for a wet/windy afternoon at home on the sofa...made me feel like I was a kid again home sick from school.

Really lovely, nicely shot etc.

Just came across this in the side tab:

Spoiler: All Summer In One Day

Not French but gonna watch that now.

Also a load of other short films that look interesting. Nice one. [/QUOTE]

 

[Quartz]

You might also try Nikita and Le Dernier Combat; Wasabi is not to everyone's taste.

 

[maya]

"Sous Le Sable" (Under the Sand) is one of the best french films I always forget to recommend... A quietly intense film, and one of the best about bereavement. With a very good performance from Charlotte Rampling.

Le Dernier Combat was Jean Reno's debut/breakthrough role, IIRC- . Eerily post-apocalyptic b&w tale with almost no dialogue...

Rutita1 All Summer In a Day was adapted from a Ray Bradbury short story of the same name actually, it got posted up on the 'reading...' thread a while ago IIRC but your video have much better picture quality- yay! One of the best films to show if you want to make kids understand the reality of bullying, while also being quite poetic about the alien world/'we're living on venus' thing and managing to pull it off on a near zero budget... We were shown it in class when I was about ten and I never forgot it, really moving- the director of that teleplay went on to become quite famous in his chosen field later I think.
Odd fun fact-

This story is about Venus and the Sun. Coincidentally, author Ray Bradbury himself died the same day as a very rare celestial event, a transit of Venus across the Sun.

Anyway, back to France... "La Jetée". It's so good... inspired Terry Gilliam's 12 Monkeys.

 

[redsquirrel]

If you have 30 minutes to spare, you could do worse than spend them on this little film.....

Just saw that for the first time the other week, great though I think Chenin Blanc is even better

 

[Sirena]

Just saw that for the first time the other week, great though I think Chenin Blanc is even better

I love it for the period street scenes and the beautiful shots...

 

[DaveCinzano]

Lacombe Lucien - boy rejected by resistance instead joins Milice

Malle's screenplay collaborator Patrick Modiano won the Nobel Prize for Literature yesterday:

http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/literature/laureates/2014/press.html

 

[kittyP]

Just downloading Au revoir les enfants now

Was brilliant!

 

[Belushi]

I hope so. Berthaud's moody hotness is much missed in these parts.

http://www.canalplus.fr/c-series/c-engrenages/pid4578-videos.html?vid=1151260 :thumbs :

 

[stavros]

http://www.canalplus.fr/c-series/c-engrenages/pid4578-videos.html?vid=1151260 :thumbs :

Oui, je l'entendais. Allez-y.

Esqu'il sera projeter à BBC4 encore?

 

[sim667]

Had a quick flick through, and didn't see one of my all time favourites listed (that said page 4 was blocked at work, because you're all offensive apparently)-

The diving bell and the Butterfly (le scaphandre et le papillon) - http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0401383/ - the book is stunning, the film is also stunning IMHO...... Its the true story of a man who suffers locked in syndrome, and writes a book using one eyelid to direct the person to the correct letters to write down.

A very long engagement (Un long dimanche de fiançailles) - http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0344510/ - Like Amelie, directed by Jeneut, with Tatou as the main character, but I prefer it to Amelie.

35 Shots of rum (35 Rhums) - http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1100048/ - Daughter and Father struggle to maintain their close relationship when the Daughter meets a boy/man. Quite a dour, silent film, but puts the aspect of feeling isolated across very well.

The science of sleep (La science des rêves) - http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0354899/ - its in france and set in france, but I'm not sure if its an actual french production. Its directed by Michel Gondry (he did spotless sunshine of the eternal mind), basically man falls for a wimminz and decides he wants to try and demonstrate the content of his rather mental dreams to her.

 

[JimW]

The Sorrow and The Pity 1969 documentary about Vichy collaboration with a couple of excellent former resistance fighters interviewed among many others.

 

[Lea]

Not necessarily the best but ones that I've enjoyed:

Baisers Volés (1968)
Domicile Conjugale (1970)
Le Grand Bleu (1988)
Romuald et Juliette (1989)
Les Trois Freres (1995)
Le Pari (1997)
Le Diner de Cons(1998)
Le Placard (2001)
Hors de Prix (2006)
Ne le dis a Personne (2006)
La Vie en Rose (La Mome) (2007)
L'Arnacoeur (2010)

 

[DaveCinzano]

Recently watched another of Olivier Marchal's crime dramas - Les Lyonnais. Really rather enjoyed it. Initially thought it would be another Euro retro-gangster type affair, in the vein of things like Vallanzasca - Gli Angeli Del Male came in the wake of Mesrine, Romanzo Criminale, Baader-Meinhof Complex etc, but it was far superior. The sort of film 44 Inch Chest tried to be.

 

[ska invita]

i rewatched Betty Blue this summer on tv...i really rated it at the time but it - or me - has dated....supposedly the book is still great though
Cinema Du Look-wise Diva is still great fun - saw that last year again and it was still very entertaining

 

[ska invita]

orphee

now thats a proper film

all the cocteau movies are ace but thats the pick of them

 

[Mr Moose]

I thought Betty Blue was dreadful, bonking aside. Few countries do bollix dressed up as art (the Big Blue FFS) quite so well as France, or at least as France used to do. Bit more substance these days.

Faves for me, like many others on the thread,

Au Revoir Les Enfants
Ma Vie En Rose - not the Edith Piaf film.
L'Appartment

 

[ViolentPanda]

As proof that the French can do schlocky action films:

The Nest.

 

[stavros]

Apparently, the fifth series of Engrenages (Spiral) started on French telly last night. I would assume that it'll emerge on BBC4 in the new year.

 

[gentlegreen]

since we've had Jean de Florette et al...
Tati. :-

Mon Oncle
Jour De Fete
Monsieur Hulot's Holiday
Traffic.

Probably in that order for me.

 

[campanula]

Vagabonde
Ma Vie en Rose
The Discreet Charm of the Bourgoisie
Avoir et Etre
La bete humaine
Vivre sa Vie

 

[davesgcr]

Le Bataille du Rail

French resistance and the SNCF !

 

[Roadkill]

Le Bataille du Rail

French resistance and the SNCF !

Great film, that, although AFAIK to be taken with a fair old pinch of salt...

 

[davesgcr]

Great film, that, although AFAIK to be taken with a fair old pinch of salt...

Of course - but superb railway shots - it is on Youtube !

 

[danny la rouge]

How did I miss this thread?

OK, here's my top ten:

Jules et Jim (François Truffaut)
À bout de souffle (Jean-Luc Godard)
Ascenseur pour l'échafaud (Louis Malle)
Les Biches (Claude Chabrol)
Au revoir les enfants (Malle)
Que la bête meure (Chabrol)
Les Quatre Cents Coups (Truffaut)
Les Amants (Malle)
Le feu follet (Malle)
Les Visiteurs (Jean-Marie Poiré)