Monique Spaziani Movies

Police detective Jacques Laniel's life becomes a nightmare the day drive-by shootists gun down his partner Thomas Colin. His colleagues make matters worse by blaming him for the death, and after his wife leaves him, Laniel decides to quit the force and launch a private investigation into Colin's murder. Soon afterward, Laniel finds the bullet-riddled body of famed author and literature professor Zachary Osborne tied to his car hood. The professor's wife hires Laniel to solve the murder, but what the detective finds is ugly: Osborne was a part of a lucrative land-speculation deal that involved the sale of a crumbling old rectory that had been turned into a halfway house called the Haven of the Monsters. The name is apt, for all the residents are convicted killers who were given inordinately light sentences. Up to this point in the plot, the film has been a standard crime thriller. But when Lanier starts questioning the Haven's tenants and their crimes are revealed via flashback, it takes on the character of a David Lynch production. ~ Sandra Brennan, Rovi

A white, Inuit boy named Avik is the focus of New Zealand director Vincent Ward's meditation on race and romance. In the opening moments of the movie, set in 1931 in the Arctic-Canadian settlement Nunataaq, Avik (portrayed initially by Robert Joamie) lives under the watchful eye of his grandmother (Jayko Pitseolak). While tagging along after British cartographer Walter Russell (Patrick Bergin), Avik falls prey to the "white man's disease,"--tuberculosis; to assuage his own guilt, Russell takes the boy to a Montreal clinic to recover. There, Avik meets Albertine, a mixed-blood Indian girl, and the two fall in love, but their relationship is quickly broken up by the Mother Superior who is in charge of the clinic. Years later, Avik again meets Russell, who this time is on a mission to recover the German U-boat lying wrecked off the coast of Nunataaq. Avik asks for Russell's help in learning the whereabouts of Albertine, and he gives the cartographer a chest X-ray of the girl which he has carried with him since their separation. More time elapses, and Avik (now played by Jason Scott Lee) has become a British bombardier fighting in World War II. He is sought out by Albertine (Anne Parillaud), who has become Russell's mistress. Still, she begins an affair with Avik; Russell soon finds out, and as revenge sends Avik and his crew on a suicide mission of which Avik is the lone survivor. Despondent over his war experiences, Avik flees to Canada, where he becomes an alcoholic; decades later, he is sought out by Rainee (Clotilde Courau), the daughter born from his affair with Albertine. On his way to the girl's wedding, Avik is killed in an accident; his body washes up on the beach at Nunataaq, a wedding gift still clutched in his arms. ~ Jason Ankeny, Rovi

Le Matou is based on a novel by Yves Beauchemin. The title translates freely to "Alley Cat", in reference to a pet owned by a Canadian street kid. Cat and kid are but two of several eccentrics with whom restauranteurs Jean Carmet and Monique Spaziani come in contact. Others include a bombastic chef and a self-styled conjurer. Filmed on location in Quebec and Florida, Le Matou was apparently never intended to draw huge crowds; its calculated quirkiness is aimed squarely at the "festival" crowd. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

In this family drama, an estranged daughter returns to her father and sister. After the girl's sudden departure years before, her father is unhappy, and her sister milks her father's favoritism for all it is worth. The conniving younger sister then causes the prodigal daughter's boyfriend to dump her. This then causes the returning young woman to become deeply depressed. ~ Sandra Brennan, Rovi