Yves Afonso Movies

An artist fending off his detractors (more imagined than real) ends up making things more difficult for himself in this satiric comedy. Kevin Kazanovitch (Mike Marshall) is a theatrical director whose latest production, a farcical comedy, has become a resounding success. But Kazanovitch is by his nature high-strung and has a pronounced streak of paranoia, and when he's informed that he's to receive a highly coveted award for his work, Kazanovitch is certain it's part of a plot by his detractors to discredit him. The director is so thoroughly convinced of this that he decides to rewrite a few scenes of his play to comment on those he believes are trying to ruin him; he calls his cast to a special rehearsal of the material one afternoon, but Yves Lempereur (Yves Afonso), the show's leading man, gets in an auto accident while rushing to the theater from shooting a television commercial. As chance would have it, the man who hit Lempereur's car was Gaston (Jean Lefebvre), who happens to be dating Fifi Flores (Lili Vonderfield), an actress in the show. Lempereur is injured in the accident and will not be able to tread the boards for a few weeks; Kazanovitch is in a panic, until he discovers Gaston has a photographic memory and can learn Lempereur's lines in a flash (and plays the role nearly as well as the more experienced actor). However, after Gaston is cast in the play, Kazanovitch discovers his new star has a secret life, including a long-standing addiction to gambling. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi

His estranged wife is worth millions, but poor Paris resident Richard is homeless and jobless. He applied for unemployment benefits and now faces charges of fraud. To save himself from nine months in jail he must find his wife and force her to tell the courts the truth, that though she has married a politically-ambitious American governor and is filing U.S. tax returns, she is technically still married to Richard. But as she lives in America, how can he get to her? Opportunity knocks when Richard learns that she and her husband will be attending an international conference at an exclusive Paris hotel. To get in he will need a disguise. Meanwhile, at the hotel, the concierge and the director are panic stricken by the prospect of a surprise visit by an unknown auditor who is coming to check out allegations of a hotel-run prostitution ring. They immediately banish all their call girls from the premises, but one refuses to leave without a fight. She too is eventually ejected, and while in the middle of the street she has a charming encounter with Richard, who is disguised as a bum. When the seeming vagrant ambles into the hotel, the managers immediately mistake him for the auditor and instead of booting him out, the hoteliers roll out the red carpet and treat Richard like a king. While he continues his endeavors to see his wife, several other subplots add to the confusion, including one in which a naive couple from the country tries to reach the American governor in hopes of hashing out an international business deal. ~ Sandra Brennan, Rovi

When Nicolas learns that his E.T.-obsessed little boy Felix is doomed to an early death, he decides to arrange to fulfill the tyke's fondest dream, which is to be taken on a tour of another planet by an extraterrestrial being. Though this make-believe adventure may put his son's life in some jeopardy, he feels that the benefits outweigh the dangers. He borrows a spaceship prop from the circus, dons an "alien" costume, and while his boy is sedated, "abducts" him. The lad wakes up in the spaceship on the snow-covered summit of a mountain, and is soon met by his alien, "Gawin." Previously, Nicolas had neglected his boy somewhat, but now he is as attentive as anyone could ask. Eventually, a strange mountain hermit shows up and performs not just one, but two healing acts. ~ Clarke Fountain, Rovi

In this surreal comedy, Tonio (Simon de la Brosse) works very hard for every bit of ill-gotten cash he can get his hands on, but he remains a poor criminal in both senses of the word. He and his buddies Bruno (Dominique Pinon) and Hercule (Charles Schneider) think they have the solution to their pocketbook woes. The body of St. Bernadette has been miraculously preserved from decay and is a central object of pilgrimage in the shrine where it is kept. Why not steal that and hold it for ransom? The criminal gang is well able to pull this coup off and are soon in possession of one perfectly preserved corpse and a very fancy coffin. It's too bad for them that the church seems to have a limitless supply of these and doesn't want the one they stole back. Bemused, the lads set the coffin adrift on the river, only to be followed by it as they drive back upriver. In the course of carrying out their criminal designs, these lovable lugs encounter a variety of eccentric characters. ~ Clarke Fountain, Rovi

This fast-paced mystery is in part based on a novel by Yves Ellena and is at least equally based on the 1943 classic Le Corbeau, which in 1951 was produced in English by Otto Preminger as The Thirteenth Letter. In this movie, someone is using a pirate radio broadcast to dish the dirt on the lives of the elite of a small French town. Among the suspects for this increasingly damaging activity are a cynical journalist and an unusually honest cop. The story proceeds to a climax in the town's church, while the increasingly vituperative townspeople clash with one another. ~ Clarke Fountain, Rovi

In a routine look at what it means to finally leave adolescence behind -- even in one's mature years -- this series of mood swings and sequences focuses on two grown men. Francois (Jean Francois Stevenin, the director) and Leo (Yves Alonso) are old friends, and at one point they decide to go out and search for one of their childhood buddies, the brunt of several of their practical jokes. In true form, the men opt for playing yet another practical joke on their friend, but their plans backfire when his wife Helene (Carole Bouquet) comes into the picture instead. Her presence forces them to reconsider their shenanigans in a new light. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, Rovi

In this crime comedy, a jealous chauvinistic husband worries more about his wife's fidelity than her safety after she is taken hostage by a bank robber. ~ Sandra Brennan, Rovi

Jean-Luc Godard directed this brightly colored, pop-art homage to American crime cinema, which somehow finds room for extended commentary on leftist politics and the corrupt nature of advertising. Paula Nelson (Anna Karina) is a mystery woman (Is she a reporter? Perhaps a spy?) who used to be involved with Richard, a man who is now an outspoken Communist and has been linked to the murder of a foreign agent. Paula wants to silence Richard before he starts making trouble for her, but she can't find much hard evidence that's he's still alive outside of a recently discovered tape recorder that plays his recorded rants on current political issues. While speaking with Typhus (Ernest Menzer), a small time hood who knows about Paula's relationship with Richard, shots ring out and suddenly Typhus is dead. As Paula tries to find a way to get rid of the body, she tries to discover who killed him and why, as a pair of lackadaisical hoods (Laszlo Szabo and Jean-Pierre Leaud) follow her around Paris. Filled with references to American genre cinema and dedicated to Samuel Fuller and Nicholas Ray, Made In U.S.A. was the last film Godard would make with his one-time wife and frequent collaborator Anna Karina, and it was filmed simultaneously with another feature Godard released in 1966, 2 or 3 Things I Know About Her. The admittedly flimsy plot was loosely adapted from the novel The Jugger by Donald E. Westlake (published under the pseudonym Richard Stark); Westlake wasn't paid for the rights, and he prevented the film from being released in the United States until after his death in 2008. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi