Bernard Verley Movies

D.H. Lawrence's once-scandalous tale of a married woman who finds herself through an affair with another man is brought to the screen in this adaptation directed by Pascale Ferran. Constance Chatterley (Marina Hands) is a lovely woman in her mid twenties who is married to Sir Clifford Chatterley (Hippolyte Girardot), a wealthy British nobleman many years her senior who is paralyzed from the waist down due to an injury sustained during World War I. While Constance loves her husband, she has grown weary of her life as a bird in a gilded cage, as well as her husband's lack of affection. One day, Constance steps out to take a walk and pauses to tell Parkin (Jean-Louis Coulloc'h), the estate's groundskeeper, that the cook would like him to shoot a pheasant for the evening's meal. Constance discovers Parkin is only half-dressed, and the physical strength of his body makes a strong impression on her. Parkin senses Constance's attraction to him, and he's equally taken by her beauty; in time the two throw caution to the wind and give in to their mutual passion. Constance blooms through her lovemaking with Parkin, and she finds his simple, rustic individualism is more to her taste than the life her husband has given her. But as Constance embraces her love for Parkin, others become aware of their relationship. Lady Chatterley was adapted from Lady Chatterley et l'Homme des Bois, the second of three versions Lawrence would publish of his best-known novel (it was published in English as John Thomas and Lady Jane). ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

Swiss filmmaker Jean-François Amiguet directs the road movie Au Sud des Nuages (South of the Clouds). Aging farmer Adrien (Bernard Verley) is a quiet man from a mountain village in the Swiss Alps. He convinces his friends to accompany him on a train ride to Beijing by way of the Trans-Siberian Express. At the last minute, they are joined by the talkative Roger (François Morel). Going through Berlin, Moscow, and Mongolia, Adrien's companions drop out until he is left with his polar opposite, Roger. In Ulanbaatar, Roger takes off with a Mongolian woman (Ariunzaya Tsogoo) leaving Adrien to continue his journey alone. South of the Clouds was nominated for the Golden Leopard at the 2003 Locarno Film Festival. ~ Andrea LeVasseur, All Movie Guide

This thriller from veteran director Claude Chabrol is a tense suspense drama, leavened with sly humor, about the fallout from a shocking crime in a small town. Frederique Lesage (Valeria Bruni-Tedeschi), the new chief of police in a cozy and fashionable seaside community in Brittany, soon finds her job more eventful than she expected when a ten-year-old girl is found raped and murdered. The last person to see her alive was René Sterne (Jacques Gamblin), a cynical and once-famous artist who has fallen on hard times and gives drawing lessons to children to make ends meet. René, who is passionately devoted to his wife (Sandrine Bonnaire), a nurse whose perpetual good cheer is the polar opposite of his personality, quickly becomes the prime suspect in the absence of any real clues. Meanwhile, Frederique becomes better acquainted with the eccentric residents of the town, including a self-important TV journalist (Antoine de Caunes), a small-time crook who fences stolen goods (Pierre Marlot), and a curious pair of married shopkeepers (Bulle Ogier and Noel Simsolo). Chabrol's son Matthieu Chabrol composed the score for this film. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

In the offbeat comedy La Dilettante, Pierette (Catherine Frot) is a woman who describes herself as having "opted for the temporary on a permanent basis." After 15 years of living the good life in Switzerland, Pierette one day packs her bags full of fashionable outfits and returns to her native Paris with no idea of what she'll do. Pierette, however, leads a charmed life; while her son is forced to work the graveyard shift at a factory due to poor job prospects, she's able to find a job right away at a high school. Pierette soon reintroduces herself to her 23-year-old daughter (Barbara Schulz) and one-time best friend (Nathalie Lafaurie), trying to use her charm to skate over years of neglect. She just as suddenly finds a new beau, Ackerman (Bernard Verley), and starts helping him out with his antique business. However, what would seem like a simple matter -- buying a clock from an elderly woman -- soon turns out to be very complicated and fraught with consequence. The first directorial effort in eight years from Pascal Thomas, La Dilettante was shown as part of the 1999 Moscow Film Festival. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

With this 1997 film, acclaimed documentarist Damian Pettigrew (Fellini: I'm A Born Liar) creates a biographical portrait of Balthasar Klossowski de Rola (1908-2001), also known as Balthus - a French-born modernist painter whose thickly-painted portraits of lyrically-posed, often nude adolescent girls (while non-exploitative) made him both unique and highly controversial in his day. Pettigrew visits Balthus in his Swiss studio, just four years prior to his death, for a firsthand look at the artist's unique creative process. Pettigrew also conducts and interpolates interviews with those in Balthus's family and social circle, and works in still photographs of the artist and his work by such luminaries as Irving Penn and Henri Cartier-Bresson. ~ Nathan Southern, All Movie Guide

This French comedy looks at sex from the perspectives of the participant's navels. The story focuses upon the complex and titillating relationship crises between a large group of Parisian baby boomers. Watch them as they come together, move apart, gossip, pout, and engage in witty dialog. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

This unique French offering is a compilation of 30 short films focused on AIDS. The mini-films were based on over 3,000 ideas put in by French school children and were made by filmmakers on a voluntary basis. Most of the vignettes deal with heterosexuality and AIDS, but one deals with drug-usage, and one with homosexuality. It took four production houses three years to create this inspirational and informative film. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

In this stylish French drama fits well into the film noir genre. A visitor comes to the home of Stephane, the wife of an important magistrate. She, claiming attempted rape, calmly shoots him. The visitor is the legendary gangster Wadek Aslanian who was beloved as a latter day Robin Hood. Stephane's husband hires a lawyer, Paul, to defend her. Paul learns many disturbing things about Stephane's sordid past when he starts receiving anonymous letters describing her exploits which included prostitution, performing in porno-movies, and most interestingly having a liaison with Aslanian. The judge is ignorant of his wife's past. Despite her dark and mysterious past, Paul cannot help but fall in love with Stephane. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

A young teenaged girl tries to get affection from her cold-hearted mother in this gentle French drama. 14-year old Rosine lives somewhere in northern France where the cold rain continually falls. It is a metaphor for her life. Her mother Marie had her when she was only 16 and now wants little to do with her. She spends most of her nights out on the town. Rosine hungers for her mother's love. She is almost obsessed with getting it. She is frustrated because she never does. One day Pierre, her father shows up from the blue and Mare gladly takes him in. Rosine is a good sport and likes that he takes an interest in her. The brief respite from gloom doesn't last as Pierre soon begins to beat Marie and eventually rapes Rosine. The traumatized girl tries to get her mother to admit the incident, to pay attention to the hurting child, but Marie just doesn't care. Marie has no choice but to run away from home and make her own way. Marie is a spirited young woman and though not shown in the film, stands a good chance of making it in life. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

Tina (Sophie Aubry) is an unpleasant young woman with an unpleasantly supine mother and an unpleasantly futureless boyfriend. Even for someone whose range of facial expressions consists of mild-to-moderate sulking, this is too much, and she decides to look up the father she has never known. Along the way, she discovers that she has a half sister whom she has never met, a girl involved in an intense, abusive relationship with a married man: her father's lawyer. Tina eventually meets up with her father and discovers, naturally enough, that he is not a particularly nice man and furthermore wants nothing whatever to do with her. Somehow all these new people in Tina's life continue to be involved with each other, despite the resounding lack of joy they seem to feel in each other's company. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide

Romane Bohringer plays a young pianist ekeing out a living in Nazi-occupied Paris. When her favorite coworker, singer (Yelena Safonova), relocates to London, Bohringer goes along, much to the discomfort of Safonova's possessive husband-manager. The latter role is played by Romane Bohringer's father, veteran character actor Richard Bohringer, a fact that adds several subliminal layers to the already multitextured storyline. Avoiding the cruder implications of its material, The Accompanist is a model of taste and decorum -- perhaps too much so. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

The unique distinction of this standard comedy drama is that it is the first foreign, feature-length movie filmed in mainland China. Novice director Camille de Casabianca obtained permission from the authorities and set up her story around Valerie (Christine Citti), a woman who follows Yves (Yves Renier), the man she loves, to China. Yves is a journalist assigned to report on Western tourists behind the Bamboo Curtain, and it is an unintentionally comical group of tourists at that. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide