Stephane Bouy Movies

Young Laurette (Sophie Aubry) is mature beyond her years. Certainly, compared with her feuding parents, she's a pillar of responsible behavior. It's a good thing, too, as she has three younger siblings who would come to no good end if she weren't there to look after them. Particularly after both parents have run off screaming into the night (in different directions) after an argument. In this comedy, Laurette is left in charge on that occasion for almost two weeks. Little boss that she is, she insists that her parents come back together, but receives her comeuppance when that happy result comes about through no act of hers. Meanwhile, during her parent's absence she had had a brief fling of her own, and, pregnant, is headed off to New York city to join her boyfriend. ~ Clarke Fountain, Rovi

In this sci-fi film a suicidal salesman is saved when he encounters a scientist who is working on a revolutionary new antidepressant. The man becomes so peaceful of all around him, that he begins driving everyone around him crazy. ~ Sandra Brennan, Rovi

Three young siblings living on the fringes of society are spurred into action when the sister of the bunch is arrested for shoplifting. In this tragic drama, they have long-cherished the dream of going to Canada to live, and they sell everything they have to get her freed from jail and available for their odyssey. When she is sentenced to do jail time anyway, they kidnap her and flee across the border. ~ Clarke Fountain, Rovi

With a superb music score by Django Reinhardt, this is a Louis Malle film about the German occupation of France. Based on his own experiences in France during the occupation, Malle's film does not paint a pretty picture of the French Resistance and eventually he emigrated to America because of the critical reaction to this film. Essentially the tale of a young boy who wants to join the Resistance but is shunned by them because of his youth, he joins the Gestapo. Unfortunately, he then falls in love with a young Jewish girl. Push comes to shove and he suddenly has the unsympathetic Resistance and the Gestapo hot on his trail. Not a pretty picture of either side. ~ Tana Hobart, Rovi

This extraordinary romp uses no language whatever, except gestures and grunts. When a salt crystal is dropped into a solution of water that contains all the salt it can handle, something extraordinary happens: the swift formation of large crystals of salt from the apparently clear water. When Thesroc (Michel Piccoli) rebels against the dull conformity of his life with flamboyant anarchistic splendor, the whole world quickly goes howling mad. His day starts, as usual, when his mother more-or-less drags him out of bed and kicks him out the door to go to his factory job, which supports them all. At the factory, when he is called onto the carpet, he quits (but not before fondling the boss's secretary). Back at home, he makes love to his sister and then transforms the family's apartment into a more primitive abode. The conditions of the stone-age quickly return. ~ Clarke Fountain, Rovi

While arch surrealist Luis Bunuel never made a secret of his skepticism about the existence of God, he was also raised as a strict Spanish Catholic and remained fascinated with the church's teaching throughout his life, and his obsessions with both faith and the contradictions of dogma provided the basis for this episodic satiric comedy. Jean (Laurent Terzieff) and Pierre (Paul Frankeur) are two threadbare vagabonds who are making their way from Paris to Spain on a pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela, where the remains of Saint James are believed to be kept. While Jean and Pierre's journey begins in the 20th Century, as they travel they seemingly develop the ability to move through time and space as they pass through a variety of historical scenes taken from a broad range of theological texts -- and all involving heresy in one form or another. As they walk the long road to Santiago de Compostela (when they can't catch a ride), Jean and Pierre encounter Jesus (Bernard Verley), who decides not to shave his beard to keep his mother happy; a young boy with stigmata and unusual powers; the Marquis de Sade (Michel Piccoli), who patently struggles to teach atheism to a young girl he's captured; an eccentric priest who has an irreversible belief in transubstantiation until he changes his mind; two men who put their debate over Catholic dogma to the test in a duel with swords; and Satan (Pierre Clementi), who shows up just in time for a car wreck. La Voie Lactee (aka The Milky Way) was scripted by Bunuel and his frequent screenwriting collaborator Jean-Claude Carriere; each of the film's historic episodes was adapted faithfully from an actual biblical text or historical account. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi