Doris Kunstmann Movies

Six of France's greatest screen comedians reunite in this long-awaited sequel to the classic box-office hits Les Bronzes and Les Bronzes Font du Ski. Skirt-chasing Popeye (Thierry Lhermitte) has settled down and married beautiful Graziella (Ornella Muti), and together they run an upscale resort hotel in Sardinia. However, Popeye still has his eye on the ladies rather than the bottom line -- he's carrying on with a beautiful young cook -- and Graziella warns him that he has to stop giving free rooms to his old friends. Unfortunately, this edict comes down just as Popeye's pals arrive, expecting a stay on the house. Jerome (Christian Clavier) was making a fortune as a plastic surgeon until a malpractice suit ended his career; now he hopes to reconnect with his former wife Gigi (Marie-Anne Chazel). However, when Gigi shows up it's clear she's also been seeing a plastic surgeon, and has brought along her new beau, upscale wig salesman Jean-Claude (Michel Blanc). And wealthy and smug Bernard (Gerard Jugnot) and Nathalie (Josiane Balasko) arrive with their dog in tow, though their vacation goes through a rough patch when Bernard makes a potentially disturbing discovery about their son. Les Bronzes 3: Amis Pour La Vie (aka Les Bronzes 3: Friends Forever) was directed by Patrice Leconte, who was also behind the camera for the original two films. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi

In this exploration of our violent society, writer and director Michael Haneke takes a disturbing look at how depictions of violence at once reflect and shape our culture. A well-to-do German family -- father Georg (Ulrich Mühe), mother Anna (Susanne Lothar), and son Georgie (Stefan Clapczynski) -- are settling in for the weekend at their vacation retreat near the lake. While Georg and his son head out for some sailing, a courteous young gentleman named Peter (Frank Giering) appears at the door, asking if he can borrow some eggs. When he breaks them, Anna offers him some more, but the conversation soon takes an odd turn; Peter goes from pleasant to sniveling to confrontational, and he's soon joined by his friend Paul (Arno Frisch). When Georg returns, he demands that Paul and Peter leave, but the two strangers refuse; Paul and Peter react with violence against Georg and his family, and they soon have the family tied up and begin torturing them. Peter and Paul occasionally refer to the camera in a manner recalling Bertolt Brecht, and near the end of the film, they even demand the opportunity to replay a scene so that they may mete out more punishment against their victims. The score includes classical selections by Mozart and Handel as well as performances by avant-garde composer John Zorn. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi

The story of this film was allegedly based on a true story witnessed by the director Nico Papatakis during his filmmaking collaboration with the controversial and much-lionized monstre sacrée Jean Genet. In the story, Marcel Spadice (Michel Piccoli) is a famous writer with a criminal background and a penchant for handsome men. From time to time, he induces an attractive female admirer to arrange for him to be introduced to nice, talented young men who happen to be sufficiently handsome to interest him. At other times, the endless effort to woo these men (who are most often heterosexual) grows wearying, and he goes to the train station to pick up soldiers looking for some easy money and a night's lodging. In this film, the writer has grown enamored with a young circus laborer (Lilah Dadi) who wants to move up in the world, literally, by becoming a tightrope walker. Marcel cadges an introduction, and for a time sponsors the young man's training. However, when the boy suffers an accident which renders him unfit for his chosen vocation, Marcel loses interest in him and takes up with another young man. ~ Clarke Fountain, Rovi

Frank (Klaus Loewitsch) has been making love with his stepmother Rachel (Erika Pluhar) for years. In fact, though he doesn't know it, his step-brother Roman is actually his son. Unfortunately, brother-son or not, the boy hates him, and engineers a plan to kill him which backfires, and instead injures his beloved mother. At the same time, Frank's overly affectionate relationship with his stepmother is revealed for what it is, and he is expelled from the house. Rachel lingers on for some years, paralyzed. Years later, on her deathbed, she reveals to the now-grown Roman (Peter Sattmann) and Frank the secret of their true kinship. Frank, by this time an alcoholic mess, goes on a rampage and then disappears during Rachel's funeral, and Roman teams up with Frank's wife Sandra to find him. ~ Clarke Fountain, Rovi

Alec Guinness plays against stereotype, imbuing his Adolf Hitler with an introverted solemnity in Ennio De Concini's Hitler: The Last Ten Days. Set almost entirely inside Hitler's Berlin bunker, the film chronicles the dying days of the Third Reich as the Allied armies close in on Berlin. Guinness's Hitler is an enclosed depressive who sinks slowly into madness, depression, and ultimately suicide as his 1,000-Year Reich collapses around him. ~ Paul Brenner, Rovi

The subject of this bleak German historical film is the deterioration of the life of a man who failed to adapt to the changes in Austria after the World War I. Trotta (Andras Balint) is a minor nobleman, who, along with his peers, cheers the advent of the war. The war causes many financial reverses for his family, and his marriage becomes chaotic; his wife leaves him to live with a woman, though she comes back to his bed from time to time. As conditions worsen, he is forced to rent rooms in what had been his family's mansion. His wife, who had returned to live with him during a pregnancy, leaves again, and he contemplates suicide. ~ Clarke Fountain, Rovi

Three young women and a male companion embark on a boat trip aboard a yacht through the fjords of Yugoslavia. The two rooms in the cabin are divided between the lesbian lovers, and the other heterosexual couple. Their LSD-soaked journey gives the female passengers a chance to engage in nudity and the sexual preference of their choice. At one point in their journey, the man is shot in the stomach and lies mortally wounded. While the assailant remains unknown, they embark on a harrowing return trip hampered by storms and the worsening condition of the gunshot victim. The lesbians take over the ship and plan to prematurely bury the nearly dead man at sea. They then set their sights on his female companion, whom they force into lesbianism and drive to thoughts of suicide. Due to legal squabbles, the film was plagued by court-managed (bad) editing. ~ Dan Pavlides, Rovi