Anne Consigny Movies

Oscar-winning director Florian Gallenberger explores the crucial role that foreigners played in helping countless Chinese escape a fate worse than death in this period docudrama concerning the 1937 invasion of Nanking by the ruthless Japanese Imperial Army. Casually known by historians as the "Rape of Nanking," the relentless assault on the then-Chinese capitol found countless men, women, and children slaughtered with a ferocity that shocked the entire world. Yet, despite the violence that surrounded them, some people refused to sit by silently as the innocents perished. One of those people was German engineer and Nazi party member John Rabe, who earned the nickname "The Schindler of China" for constructing a vast safety zone in which nearly a quarter of a million civilians sought sanctuary. Ulrich Tukur, Daniel Brühl, Dagmar Manzel, and Steve Buscemi star. ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide

A man is shot dead, but is the woman with the gun really the killer? That's the all-important question in this thriller from France. Henri Pages (Pierre Arditi) is a successful politician who with his wife Elaine (Miou-Miou) has invited an eclectic group of guests to their country home for a weekend get-together. Joining Henri and Elaine are Pierre Collier (Lambert Wilson), a prominent psychoanalyst; his unhappy wife Claire (Anne Consigny); Pierre's lover Esther (Valeria Bruni-Tedeschi), an artist; Lea (Caterina Murino), an exhibitionistic actress who was once involved with Pierre; Philippe (Mathieu Demy), a straight-laced writer; and Marthe (Celine Sallette), a beautiful woman given to severe mood swings. Henri has a large collection of guns, and while Pierre is enjoying a swim, he's shot to death with one of the rare firearms. While Claire is holding the murder weapon when the body is found, police detective Lieutenant Grange (Maurice Benichou) isn't so certain he has an open and shut case on his hands, and begins looking into the many people who have a reason for wanting Pierre out of the picture. Grange's investigation becomes even more challenging when Lea makes it clear she's sexually attracted to him. Le Grand Alibi (aka The Great Alibi) was adapted from the novel The Hollow, a Hercule Poirot mystery by Agatha Christie. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

The devastating reverberations of a profound tragedy echo through generations of a long-suffering French family in this emotional family drama from director Arnaud Desplechin. When Abel and his wife, Junon, started a family, it seemed like the seeds of true happiness had been planted. But while their daughter, Elizabeth, was healthy from the day she was born, things quickly turned dark when her brother Joseph was diagnosed with a rare and deadly genetic condition. Joseph's only hope for survival was a bone marrow transplant, but Abel, Junon, and Elizabeth were all incompatible. In one last, desperate chance to save their son's life, Abel and Junon conceived a third child. But not even little Henri could save his ailing brother's life. Joseph died at the age of seven, and neither his siblings nor his parents have ever found the strength to recover. Years later, family relations have deteriorated beyond the point of repair; the tensions between family matriarch Elizabeth and her cynical brother Henri finally culminating in a violent confrontation in which Elizabeth banishes her alcoholic brother and refuses him further contact with his troubled adolescent nephew, Paul. ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide

The astonishing true-life story of Jean-Dominic Bauby -- a man who held the world in his palm, lost everything to sudden paralysis at 43 years old, and somehow found the strength to rebound -- first touched the world in Bauby's best-selling autobiography The Diving Bell and the Butterfly (aka La Scaphandre et la Papillon), then in Jean-Jacques Beineix's half-hour 1997 documentary of Bauby at work, released under the same title, and, ten years after that, in this Cannes-selected docudrama, helmed by Julian Schnabel (Basquiat) and adapted from the memoir by Ronald Harwood (Cromwell). The Schnabel/Harwood picture follows Bauby's story to the letter -- his instantaneous descent from a wealthy and congenial playboy and the editor of French Elle, to a bed-bound, hospitalized stroke victim with an inactive brain stem that made it impossible for him to speak or move a muscle of his body. This prison, as it were, became a kind of "diving bell" for Bauby -- one with no means of escape. With the editor's mind unaffected, his only solace lay in the "butterfly" of his seemingly depthless fantasies and memories. Because of Bauby's physical restriction, he only possessed one channel for communication with the outside world: ocular activity. By moving his eyes and blinking, he not only began to interact again with the world around him, but -- astonishingly -- authored the said memoir via a code used to signify specific letters of the alphabet. In Schnabel's picture, Mathieu Amalric tackles the difficult role of Bauby; the film co-stars Emmanuelle Seigner, Marie-Josée Croze, Anne Consigny, and Patrick Chesnais. ~ Nathan Southern, All Movie Guide

This tough-as-nails, crime-themed docudrama constitutes the second installment in a four hour, two-part biopic on the doings of infamous French thug Jacques Mesrine (1936-79), officially regarded for many years as "Public Enemy #1" in Gaul. Here, he is played to the hilt by Vincent Cassel, who underwent massive weight gain and weight loss to properly evoke Mesrine. Picking up where the same year's Mesrine: L'Instinct de Mort left off, this outing covers Mesrine's life from 1973-79. The tale opens in March of '73, with Mesrine in the custody of authorities; he's accused of knowing an equally brutal and frightening mobster, Michel Ardouin (Samuel LeBihan), but aggressively denies this; a thrilling escape and an ugly shoot-out jointly perpetrated by the men, however, reveal the extent of Mesrine's deception. Mesrine, it seems, hasn't merely evolved into a legend in his own time, but a legend of his own making, aggressively feeding his own self-myth by perpetrating one outrageous criminal act after another. His latest ploy, it seems, involves donning a series of elaborate disguises (such as that of a doctor visiting his dying father, or a police inspector making inquiries) that enable him to pull off casino heists and other elaborate felonies. Eventually, Mesrine grows listless and bored with his own braggadocio and turns to extremist political factions for "inspiration," such as the Red Brigades and the Baader-Meinhof Gang, before an ugly incident with Parisian authorities brings him tumbling down from his throne. ~ Nathan Southern, All Movie Guide

French director Philippe Le Guay's comedy One Fine Day observes the behavior that may erupt when fate deals a new set of cards to a perpetual loser. Seemingly for years on end, French banker François Berthier (Benoit Pooleverde) has endured a lackluster, burdensome existence, with no perceivable light at the end of the tunnel. Each day carries a new set of hidden frustrations for him. On one particularly dour Monday, Murphy's Law is in full force: the espresso machine explodes, showering François with coffee; he endures a jam-packed, claustrophobic train ride to work; his boss terrorizes him relentlessly; his soon to be ex-wife Caroline (Anne Consigny) indicates that she's almost done with their divorce papers; François bombs at tennis. But just as circumstances seem incapable of growing worse, Fortuna spins upward once again and, mystically, turns everything around on Tuesday: François wakes up to a perfect cup of coffee, receives a much-sought-after apology from his boss, meets a beautiful young woman in a cafeteria who flirts with him, and even draws renewed interest from Caroline. At a loss to account for this change of fate, François nonetheless revels in it, and - bolstered by a renewed sense of confidence - tries to see how far he can push his success - with the most riotous and unpredictable of consequences. ~ Nathan Southern, All Movie Guide

Euro screen legends Gérard Depardieu and Daniel Auteuil star, respectively, as French cops Denis Klein and Leo Vrinks, in Olivier Marchal's tough-as-steel policier 36 Quai des Orfevres. The story unravels at the titular Parisian police headquarters, where Klein (who heads up the department's anti-crime unit) and Vrinks (who manages the "search and action squad") go head-to-head -- competing with one another not only to succeed their boss, but to be the first to solve an ongoing series of security-van robberies. Ultimately, the men resort to sabotaging one another, and thus set the stage for an ongoing series of twists, turns, reversals, and betrayals. Valeria Golino and Catherine Marchal co-star; Olivier Marchal co-authored the script with Dominique Loiseau, Julien Rappeneau, and Franck Mancuso. ~ Nathan Southern, All Movie Guide

With this 410-minute epic, Prolific Portuguese director Manoel de Oliveira adapts the 7-hour stage play of Catholic playwright Paul Claudel. Two people -- Dona Prouheze (Anne Consigny) and Don Rodigue (Luis Miguel Cintra) have fallen in love but are honor-bound to renounce their passion for a greater love of God. Dona Prouheze is particularly devout and has offered her satin slipper to the Virgin Mary in exchange for the Virgin's protection against sin. She dies as virginal as when she was born, while Don Rodrigue conquers Asian lands for king and country. As his life progresses, he becomes more and more devoted to painting religious subjects on his ship, rebuffing the royal attempts to get him back into active duty. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide