Paul Vecchiali Movies

French independent director Paul Vecchiali playfully bites the hand that periodically feeds him (and many of the nation's other creative filmmakers) in this dark comedy. Writer and director Vecchiali stars as a moviemaker named Paul Vecchiali, who is trying to complete his latest project, a dramatic love story about a young couple whose relationship is complicated by the man's addiction to drugs. Short on funds, Vecchiali approaches the National Cinema Center, who offer loans and grants to independent filmmakers whom they believe are deserving. The NCC is less than impressed with Vecchiali's latest script, and they turn him down, just as they have done a number of times in the past. Angry and determined that the NCC will never break the spirit of another director, Vecchiali and his crew block out a plan to assassinate the nine members of the funding board, though the press and public seem more bemused than outraged by the sudden rash of killings. Predictably enough, À Vot' Bon Coeur received no funding from France's National Cinema Center, though Vecchiali did have the nerve to submit the script. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi

Set within a housing project located on the outskirts of Alsace, this French docudrama features a largely non-professional cast and centers on the interrelationship between a pair of elderly French nationals, Arab immigrants and a newly arrived family from Africa as they struggle to find niches in their rapidly changing world. ~ Sandra Brennan, Rovi

Set in a cafe which has become the hangout for a group of unhappy and frustrated men, this slice-of-life film follows them as they complain to one another about their lives, discuss their options, and generally quarrel and suffer. They are joined by a woman who is the ex-lover of one of them. Her presence heightens the already immense sexual frustration of these unsuccessful men - so much so, that one of them rapes her in a back room of the cafe. ~ Clarke Fountain, Rovi

How couples unite, interact, separate, reunite or find other partners is the focus of this off-beat romantic drama by Jacques Davila. The links in this chain begin with Christian and Nathalie, who are coworkers and friends. Christian discovers that his lover Francoise is having an affair, and Nathalie advises him to give his feelings some time to heal, about two years. Nathalie is angry that her lover Mark does not want to see her more often, while he is jealous of the men in her past. Meanwhile, Francoise finds out that her new lover is not that interested in her anymore, and after they split, she encounters him with someone else. As romance fluctuates like the lunar tides, the myth of one true love takes a beating. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, Rovi

In this drama with a nearly invisible storyline, Rosa (Marianne Basler), a very beautiful prostitute, finds that life as a hooker can be a downer. Nude scenes are plentiful, as Rosa goes about her business with the other hookers in the Les Halles district of Paris. Since Rosa is her pimp's main source of income, he is particularly unhappy when she begins to fall in love with a regular Joe with little money of his own. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, Rovi

Françoise Canavaggia (Danielle Darrieux) heads back to Toulon in 1963 with murderous plans for the people who now inhabit the villa that had once been hers. After arriving in Toulon, Françoise meets up with her sister and a niece, both adding to her tendency toward self-analysis. But with images of the present and past mixed with memories and fantasies of the past -- and excerpts from speeches by Petain and De Gaulle combined with psychological and philosophical ramblings -- director Paul Vecchiali has created complexities that many an audience will never figure out. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, Rovi

Featured in this evocative though still uneven first-time film by Marie-Claude Treilhou is the spunky Simone Barbes (Ingrid Bourgoin, a non-actress but an actual usher) who works as an usher in a porno cinema. She and a friend exchange witticisms while at work as the theater-goers sneak by looking guilty and certainly not wanting to be noticed. When Simone gets off work she heads to the seedy nightclub where her lesbian lover works and spends some time just hanging out. Once out of the club, she runs into a lonely man who picks her up but is unable to follow through on the sexual exploits he has in mind. Simone monologues and he listens, as the demi-monde of the city at night gets ready to cede to another day. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, Rovi

Pierre (Nicholas Silberg) is a garage mechanic in his mid-30s with a considerable yen for the ladies. It comes as something of a surprise even to him, though, when he falls passionately in love/lust with Jeanne (Helen Surgere), a much older woman in her 50s. She is unmoved by his advances, but despite her sharp rebuffs, he moons over her and hangs on every phone call, expecting it to be from her. Her heart thaws when she learns she is suffering from an incurable and fatal disease, and she is not sorry. ~ Clarke Fountain, Rovi

This pornographic feature is framed by a story involving a woman who is a hard-nosed private eye. Her job is to find out who is blackmailing a woman candidate for an important government post. Drawing on influences as diverse as the Algerian war, French political corruption movies and American detective movies such as The Big Sleep and Chinatown, this is an extraordinarily "regular" movie, considering its hardcore footage. ~ Clarke Fountain, Rovi

Unhappy women are being murdered by Emile (Jacques Perrin), a psychotic young man suffering from the delusion that his acts are mercy killings. The detective (Julien Guiomar) assigned to track down the killer resorts to seriously unorthodox and even unethical methods to get his man. In one instance, he impersonates a psychologist on a TV show he and Emile appear on together and attempts to provoke Emile into revealing himself. This film's cinematic style may be a kind of homage to the classic Fritz Lang thriller, M. ~ Clarke Fountain, Rovi