Françoise Brion Movies

In Housewarming (the original title of which translates as Remodeling: You Know When It Starts...), Carole Bouquet stars as Chantal Letellier, a wealthy, powerful, and happily divorced Paris attorney who devotes a lot of her time to helping the city's poorly treated immigrants. Chantal literally dances her way through the courtroom, winning over the judges with ease. Her busy life seems to be going swimmingly until she decides to remodel her massive apartment. She hires a brilliant but mercurial former client from Colombia, Eduardo (Marcial Di Fonzo Bo), as her architect. He and his illegal immigrant crew are highly qualified, just not in the jobs they've been hired to do, and they quickly begin to demolish her home. A few other problems arise. Poncin (Jean-Pierre Castaldi), an obnoxious wealthy former client, has fallen in love with Chantal and begun stalking her. Her young daughter, Pulchérie (Giulia Dussolier), apparently has a crush on a worker with a questionable background who speaks no French and calls himself Betamax (Geovanny Tituaña). Chantal's teenaged son, Martin (Ferdinand Chesnais), quickly grows irritated with the destruction, and the workers' devil-may-care attitude. As Eduardo's ambitions grow, and the project's costs mount, Chantal's immense reserve of patience begins to wane. Housewarming, directed by Brigitte Roüan, marks the last filmed appearance by legendary producer Humbert Balsan, who committed suicide in 2005. The film also stars Aldo Maccione, Didier Flamand, Sotigui Kouyaté, Bernard Menez, and Françoise Brion. Housewarming was shown by the Film Society of Lincoln Center as part of their Rendez-Vous with French Cinema in 2006. ~ Josh Ralske, Rovi

Almost a follow-up to director Claude Sautet's Un Coeur en Hiver (1992), Nelly & Monsieur Arnaud further explores repressed emotions and failed relationships. Nelly (Emmanuelle Béart), an attractive young woman, is six months behind in her rent and struggling with odd jobs, while her husband (Charles Berling) lies in bed reading newspapers and watching TV. Her friend Jacqueline introduces her to Pierre Arnaud (Michel Serrault), a retired judge and wealthy ex-businessman, who offers to settle Nelly's debt. She agrees and is later so disappointed by her husband's indifferent reaction that she leaves him. Arnaud asks her to be his secretary because he needs help in typing his memoirs. Though obviously attracted to her, he rarely expresses his emotions, and he suddenly erupts only when he finds out about Nelly's affair with his young publisher Vincent (Jean-Hugues Anglade). The film won Césars from the French Academy of Cinema for Best Director and Best Actor, although it lost Best Film to Mathieu Kassovitz's more innovative La haine. ~ Yuri German, Rovi

In this argumentative, fractious drama about a warped sense of male-female love, Bruno (Jacques Bonnafe) who is clearly not playing with a full deck, devises a means to test the love of his girlfriend Isabelle (Ann Gisel Glass). Since Isabelle had been in love with Alain (Xavier Deluc) in the past, Bruno invites Alain to a surprise birthday party for her at a hotel -- what better way to judge her feelings than to get them together? Alain arrives with his current girlfriend Lio (Fanny Bastien) to find that the "party" is only a foursome. Soon after the two couples start the evening off, their polite exteriors deteriorate as they bicker on, and on, and on. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, Rovi

This disturbing French drama comments upon the effects of excessive television violence on children. It's set within a seaside villa, where under the care of a nanny, a group of children spend most of their days watching violent television shows. One day they all go to the beach. The nanny dozes while they frolic. For a joke, they load the snoozing servant into a rubber raft and set her out to sea. She panics when she wakes up and ends up drowning. The kids do try to save her, but when they fail they decide to run wild instead of reporting the incident. The death means nothing to them until a threatening stranger appears and tells them he witnessed it all. He then proceeds to terrify them with his predictions about what the authorities will do with such killers. The children turn around and get their own kind of revenge. ~ Sandra Brennan, Rovi

Chafing under her suppressive parents, Nea begins keeping a secret diary, recording her innermost erotic yearnings. When imagination proves inadequate, she decides to experience first-hand the things she's previously only fantasized about. Nea eases into her sexual adventures out of boredom rather than supposed necessity. ~ Iotis Erlewine, Rovi

When a young Englishwoman (Mimsy Farmer) crosses the paths of an annual hunting party, two of the hunters rape and try to kill her. She manages to shoot one of them and escape. The rest of them decide to hunt her down. ~ Clarke Fountain, Rovi

This glossy Alistair MacLean action programmer concerns the machinations involved in smuggling an Eastern European scientist out of France and into the United States while being pursued by gang of international pirates, who want the scientist for themselves so that they can grab the secrets that the scientist holds and sell them to the highest bidder. The film deals with Neil Bowman (David Birney), a carefree American who is hired by French land baron the Duc de Croyter (Michel Lonsdale) to make sure that the scientist finds his way safely aboard a jet bound for America. Lila (Charlotte Rampling), a svelte British photographer, happens upon the scene and snuggles up to Neil, right before barriers are throw in their way by the pirate-kidnappers. ~ Paul Brenner, Rovi

In this Belgian/French romance, based on the novel by Françoise Mallet-Joris, Tamara (Françoise Brion), a sex-hungry and ambitious woman "on the make," trifles with the affections of Lena (Sharon Gurney), in order to gain affection with Lena's wealthy father. When Tamara and the father are wed, Lena cultivates her wounded feelings and wants vengeance. Though now married, Tamara is unable to pummel her own lustful tendencies, and when the dashing, but rakish, Parisian director Gerfaud newly arrives in town, she sets her sights on him. Lena, seizing the opportunity for sweet revenge, gets to him first, and he whisks her away to the deluxe "Red Room" of a local brothel. However, getting a man into bed and enjoying it are two different things: Lena tells the man to desist and is raped for her pains. She succeeds in making Tamara furious, however, and the two women fight all the way back into each others arms. ~ Clarke Fountain, Rovi

Helmut Berger is Alain, a real sicko, who may be so because his mother was a prostitute. He can only make love with a "decent" woman when she is drugged senseless, though he can manage one-time encounters with prostitutes and also gladly suffers the abuse of his boyfriends. He seems to have deliberately driven his first wife to suicide, and now he has married Nathalie (Virna Lisi). A police inspector (Charles Aznavour) has gotten wind of these doings, and attempts to intervene before a second tragedy can occur, but his superiors will not allow him to. This is a French language film, with no dubbing or subtitles. ~ Clarke Fountain, Rovi

This amiable French comedy stars Philipe Noiret as Alexander, an shiftless farmer who prefers sleep to work. After his nagging wife dies, Alexander becomes even lazier. The farmer becomes entranced by a beautiful young woman, and proposes marriage. But when his prospective wife gives evidence of being just as domineering as wife number one, Alexander balks at the altar and retreats to his previous life of ease. Originally titled Alexandre Le Bienhereaux, Very Happy Alexander was directed by Yves Robert, best known for his international success The Tall Blond Man with the One Black Shoe. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

In this French crime drama, an ex-Resistance fighter has a ruined reputation after he succumbed to Nazi torture during the war and spilled vital information. After the war, he witnesses a killing and finds himself considered the prime suspect. He is brought in for questioning. The leader of an underground political group, the real killer, is also questioned. Fearing that the fighter will rat on him, the leader has the fighter, who kept quiet, murdered. ~ Sandra Brennan, Rovi