Colo Tavernier O'Hagan
- 1995
An eight-year old boy learns about love and betrayal in this French drama set in rural France during WW II. The boy, Francois, has moved from Paris to a quiet chateau with his parents who want to escape the stress of the war. In a nearby town, his father's mistress works as a tutor. Soon his father allows a refugee family of Polish Jews to move into the basement. They have a young daughter, and Francois has a terrible crush upon her and refuses to stay safely away from her. Real trouble begins when a Nazi commander and his unit also move into the house, totally unaware of the refugees living below them. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Jacques Weber, Brigitte Roüan, (more)
This drama examines three amoral young people living in Paris. 18-year-old Nathalie (Marie Gillain) works in a clothing store and dreams of opening her own boutique in the United States. She shares an apartment with her boyfriend Eric (Olivier Sitruk) and his slow-witted pal Bruno (Bruno Putzulu); she pays the rent while they stay home and watch crime movies on television. All three are looking for a fast and easy way to make some money, so together they devise a plan. Nathalie will hang out in nightclubs, meet prosperous-looking men, and go home with them. Once she's inside their apartments, she'll let in Eric and Bruno, and they'll rob the place of cash and valuables. The plan works well at first, before things go wrong one night and Eric commands Bruno to kill their victim. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Marie Gillain, Olivier Sitruk, (more)
In Bertrand Tavernier's Daddy Nostalgia, Caroline (Jane Birkin of Agnes Varda's Kung Fu Master), a Parisian screenwriter who has recently left her husband and their young son, travels to the countryside when she hears that her British father, Tony (Dirk Bogarde of Death in Venice, in his last film role) is in poor health and has just had a serious operation. Caroline accompanies Tony and her taciturn French mother, Miche (Odette Laure), to their beautiful seaside home. Miche is determined to keep Tony from drinking or overextending herself, where Caroline is more willing to indulge her father in the few pleasures he has left. They playfully speak English with each other, while Miche speaks only French. Miche doesn't like to talk about the past, so Tony reminisces with Caroline about his former life as a sophisticated, well-traveled young man. Caroline is getting along well with her father, but as he talks about his cocktail parties and trips around the world, she remembers him neglecting her when she was a young girl. "I have no memory of you before you were 20," he admits. Tony speaks sadly of his relationship with Miche, which has deteriorated in the past few years. He notices that she used to say, "Come to bed," and now she tells him, "Go to bed." As the seriousness of his illness becomes clearer, Caroline takes Tony on a day trip to Cannes, where her deep reserve of anger toward him comes to the surface. When he speaks of his "beautiful life," and how things were better for everyone back then, she explodes -- "I don't care about your beautiful life! It was a beautiful, selfish life!" But Caroline also yearns for Tony's acceptance and love, and they both dread the day when she has to return to Paris. ~ Josh Ralske, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Dirk Bogarde, Jane Birkin, (more)
- 1989
Adrien (Remi Martin) does not see eye to eye with his patrician father about much. It is 1912, and the old man still believes in the old rules which strait-jacket "men of class." He believes that the elite have the right to conquer where they can, that they should refrain from publicizing their improprieties, and he is rabidly pro-military. Adrian, kicked out of his military school for his own improprieties (and hiding that from his father), is naturally drawn to Vicky (Maruschka Detmers) a beautiful divorced woman and friend of the family who is staying at their mansion. The family tutor, a man of ordinary background (with some ideas which seem radical in this household) is similarly smitten. On the basis of their shared attraction, the two men form a friendship. Meanwhile, the object of their affection finds it diverting to toy with them. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Maruschka Detmers, Remi Martin, (more)
The women in this story are the customers of amateur abortionist Isabelle Huppert. The time is 1941, and the place is a Nazi-occupied French town. Struggling to survive, Huppert turns to illegally terminating unwanted pregnancies for a hefty fee. As her income increases, Huppert moves her family from their grimy surroundings to a posh apartment, sharing her digs with her new friend, prostitute Marie Trintignant. Completely seduced by her affluent lifestyle, Huppert ignores her shell-shocked husband Francois Cluzet, preferring to dally with Nazi collaborator Nils Tavernier. Things take a disastrous turn after one of Huppert's "customers" dies and her disgruntled husband turns her over to the authorities. Story of Women was inspired by the real-life tale of Marie-Louise Girard, who in 1943 was executed by the Vichy Government, who'd declared abortion as a Crime Against the State because it diminished the number of potential soldiers. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Isabelle Huppert, François Cluzet, (more)
- 1987
- R
In this 1987 film, director Bertrand Tavernier depicts French life in the Middle Ages as dreary, unromantic, and brutal. The story begins when a warrior leaves home to fight in the Hundred Years' War (1337-1453) between France and England. Before his departure, he gives his young son, François, a sword to safeguard his mother and her virtue. One day, after the boy opens a bedroom door to find his mother willingly submitting to a man, he uses the sword to kill the man and becomes traumatized with guilt and enmity toward his mother. Years later, François (Bernard Pierre Donnadieu) must go off to war as a chevalier, or knight. While he is away, his daughter, the gentle and loving Béatrice (Julie Delpy), sees to the needs of her little brother and her feckless mother. Although the castle in which they live is a sepulcher of shadows and stone, Béatrice maintains her spirits as she looks forward to the day when her father's voice will once again echo in the corridors. After four years of war in which he was held captive for a time by the English, he returns to the castle, a hardened warrior who has renounced God. Inside his twisted mind, he still carries the memory of that terrible day long ago, the day he discovered his mother was an adulteress. Giving the demons within him free rein, he begins to abuse everyone around him: He insults, bullies, and pillages the local village. He even forces his son Nils Tavernier to wear women's clothes and become the prey in a hunt. As he descends deeper into depravity, it is innocent Béatrice who suffers the most. Whether he has completely destroyed her, or whether she will rise up and destroy him, becomes the central focus of the film as it moves toward its conclusion. The dialogue is in French with English subtitles. ~ Mike Cummings, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Bernard-Pierre Donnadieu, Julie Delpy, (more)
French stage actor Louis Ducreux makes his film debut as a 76-year-old traditionalist painter, Monsieur Ladmiral, in this bittersweet portrait of a brooding artist. A widower, Ladmiral lives on an estate in the countryside near Paris with only his housekeeper, Mercedes (Monique Chaumette), and his paintings to keep him company. The action of the film takes place on a bright autumn Sunday in the early 1900s when Ladmiral's son, Gonzague (Michel Aumont), and Gonzague's wife, Marie-Therèse (Geneviève Mnich), come out from Paris with their three children to visit the old man. While making small talk with Gonzague, Ladmiral hints ever so subtly that his son has become too bourgeois, too conformist, too accepting of the status quo. Apparently, Ladmiral doesn't want his son to face what he is facing: self-recrimination for failing to take risks, failing to go beyond the bounds of tradition. Outdoors, the couple's two boys are only too eager to risk and dare. At one moment, they try to set fire to an insect and, failing, have the audacity to ask for a magnifying glass to do the job. Their father, Gonzague, disapproves, of course, but Ladmiral pronounces his blessing on the project, and he authorizes them to use his glass. No doubt, the old man hopes they survive childhood with their gumption and gall intact -- like Irène. Irène is Ladmiral's other child -- a vivacious, free-spirited beauty who speaks her mind and follows her whims. She is everything that Gonzague is not. Later, she drives her Papa to a dancehall. There, he tells her about his ruminations -- that maybe he should have experimented with impressionism. After examining his current project, he considers whether to make a decision, one that may change nothing -- or perhaps everything. ~ Mike Cummings, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Louis Ducreux, Sabine Azéma, (more)
