Jean Pelegri Movies

A handful of people find themselves haunted on an idyllic summer afternoon by memories of death and loss in this contemplative drama from France. Siblings Zaza (Catherine Ferran) and Francois (Charles Berling) are enjoying a day at the beach with their brother Vincent (Didier Sandre) when Zaza and Francois each find themselves reminded in different ways of a tragic incident of 20 years ago when their younger sister died in an accident with a motorbike. Meanwhile, the grown-up Vincent builds a sand castle, as a young boy, Jumbo (Guillaume Charras), guards his creation from the waves. Jumbo, however, can't keep his mind from straying to thoughts of a close friend who recently died of cancer, and the boy can't help but imagine that he could have somehow prevented the death if he had tried. Director Pascale Ferran's work on Petits Arrangements avec les Morts was awarded with the Golden Camera at the 1994 Cannes Film Festival. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi

Set against the Allied invasion of North Africa in 1942, this overly-ambitious, comedy-drama focuses on the relationship between its two central characters, Leon Castelli (Roger Hanin) a half-Algerian, half-French bartender, talkative, but with a generous soul, and Etienne Labrouche (Philippe Noiret) the French colonial mayor of the town. Leon gets propositioned on a business deal by an American soldier and joins him in setting up an "underground" night spot in an abandoned airplane hangar that soon catches on and thrives like weeds in a garden. Etienne, in the meantime, starts an affair with the governess of his children and is caught out by his wife, who sends the woman packing. Since the ex-governess needs to support herself somehow, she accepts a waitress job working in the underground nightclub. The word gets out, and before much time has gone by, the nightclub is trashed by a hired gang. Furious at Etienne because he feels this is the mayor's way of paying him back for hiring the governess, Leon picks up a shotgun and goes to Etienne's estate seeking revenge. But fate has other ideas, and when he arrives, Leon discovers that Etienne's father has just died and left a bombshell of a revelation about his parentage that changes everything. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, Rovi

Director Robert Bresson chose Uruguayan nonactor Martin LaSalle for his leading man in Pickpocket. LaSalle's inexperience works against the film for some viewers, though Bresson himself was satisfied because his star proved himself a quick study in the art of lifting wallets (a genuine pickpocket was engaged as "technical adviser"). Essentially, the story is a character study of a cocky young criminal who becomes so entranced by the act of picking pockets that he literally can't stop himself. The Bressonian technique of concentrating more on the mechanics of the plot than the emotions of the characters is, as always, a matter of taste. Filmed in 1959, Pickpocket was released in the US in 1963. Loosely inspired by Feodor Dostoyevsky's novel Crime and Punishment. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi