Anne Alvaro Movies
In 1982, legendary Polish filmmaker Andrzej Wajda fled his homeland and relocated in France to direct this powerful story about the ethical boundaries of power and leadership, which had many parallels to Poland's volatile political situation in the late 1970s and early 1980s. Danton (Gérard Depardieu) and Robespierre (Wojciech Pszoniak) were close friends and fought together in the French Revolution, but by 1793 Robespierre was France's ruler, determined to wipe out opposition with a series of mass executions that became known as the Reign of Terror. Danton, well known as a spokesman of the people, had been living in relative solitude in the French countryside, but he returned to Paris to challenge Robespierre's violent rule and call for the people to demand their rights. Robespierre, however, could not accept such a challenge, even from a friend and colleague, and he blocked out a plan for the capture and execution of Danton and his allies. Wajda remained in France until 1989, when the collapse of Communist rule made it possible for him to return to his homeland. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Gérard Depardieu, Wojciech Pszoniak, (more)
- 1983
In this polemical look at a revolutionary released from prison and bent on getting back at the right-wing conservatives who got him into prison in the first place, director Romain Goupil uses a heavier hand than in his earlier, well-received film, Mourir a 30 Ans. There is a certain amount of stereotyping in the way the fascists and leftists look and act, something that may have worked against the director's portrayal of fascists in the police force, or idealized revolutionaries. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Tchéky Karyo, France Camus, (more)
- 1983
Lacking any visible plot, Ville des Pirates meanders from episodes that are alternately comic or dramatic, gross or non-sequitur, capricious or outrageous, all in the name of a murder mystery. A hard sell to anyone who is not a student of the avant-garde or the history of cinema, most audiences will want to focus more on their popcorn than the screen in this inscrutable cinematic offering from prolific, exiled Chilean director Raul Ruiz. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Hugues Quester, Anne Alvaro, (more)
- 1984
Chilean director Raúl Ruíz has transformed Jean Racine's classical love story about Berenice and the Roman emperor Titus into an intriguing, avant-garde representation of a woman living in a "shadow world." Berenice was the daughter of Herod, and because she was not Roman herself, she was rejected as a suitable queen for Titus. While the essence of the story is easy to state, Racine's 17th-century poetic language is a hard go for most audiences, and Ruíz's great accomplishment has been to eliminate the circuitous, intricate language -- creating a combination of expressionism and "Mexican melodrama," to paraphrase his own description. Berenice interacts with shadows that speak but are never seen as the people they represent, allowing the nuances and tonalities of the actor's voices to carry the emotion inherent in the rejected woman's tragic circumstances. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Anne Alvaro, Jean Badin, (more)
- 1985
In this low-budget thriller from director Jacek Gasiorowski, a young son slowly becomes aware of a sleazy underworld inhabited by the oddballs and dangerous men that his father must deal with in order to collect the money he needs to pay off a drug debt. Denis (Hugues Quester is a designer who resorts to selling drugs to survive, but now his drug bosses give him the length of one day to come up with the money he owes them, or else. His son Pierrot (Pierre Champenois) goes along with him, as the two frantically move from one end of town to the other, trying to collect from a wide variety of people: a Vietnamese heroin addict, a dealer and musician, and others on the fringe. In the meantime, Denis' period of grace is quickly running out, and young Pierrot has received a crash-course on the lower rungs of humanity. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Hugues Quester, Anne Alvaro, (more)
- 1999
- NR
The idea for this film about a generation and its lost ideals came to Romain Goupil after attending several funerals of friends in the fall of 1996, where the '68 generation, now in influential positions in media or politics, kept meeting each other. It seemed as if the revolution that they had tried to make was being buried with each coffin. A mort la mort is in some ways an homage to this generation, now in their fifties. They were a privileged generation that thought that they could change the world, doing everything that their parents failed to do. There were no actual deaths in France as there were in Germany or Italy, but the system was not ideal for personal issues or for love. There was always a scapegoat for the injustices of the world, be it capitalism or imperialism. That way the blame could be placed somewhere else. Some of the '68 generation are still faithful to the principles of their youth and still continue to fight for the illusions of the past. But with the war going on in Kosovo, the only way is to take direct action against Fascism. While narrating the story of a generation, the director uses humor, making fun of the thousand ways of fidelity to ideas, to passion and to women and how the ideal of fidelity fares when confronted with reality. The protagonist, Thomas (played by Goupil himself) tries to face life that has passed with a theory of offense. That is why he has to say "'Death to Death'' to put an end to all deaths, but this is an illusion, it is fiction which only cinema can make real. The film tries to face all issues by taking a contrary approach. 52nd Cannes Film Festival, 1999. ~ Gönül Dönmez-Colin, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Romain Goupil, Marianne Denicourt, (more)
Agnes Jaoui co-writes and directs this romantic comedy of manners set in France's rustic Provence. Unpolished and ultra-pragmatic industrialist Jean-Jacques Castella (co-scripter Jean-Pierre Bacri) reluctantly attends Racine's tragedy "Berenice" in order to see his niece play a bit part. He is taken with the play's strangely familiar-looking leading lady Clara Devaux (Anne Alvaro). During the course of the show, Castella soon remembers that he once hired and then promptly fired the actress as an English language tutor. He immediately goes out and signs up for language lessons. Thinking that he is nothing but an ill-tempered philistine with bad taste, Clara rejects him until Castella charms her off her feet. ~ Jonathan Crow, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Jean-Pierre Bacri, Anne Alvaro, (more)
- 2003
French actor Mathieu Amalric directs the made-for-TV comedy La Chose Publique (Public Affairs). Shot on digital video, the film is a satire of French politics and media personalities. Television director Philippe Roberts (Jean-Quentin Chatelain) has been assigned to make a film series, so he decides to use his own life and marriage as an inspiration. Public Affairs was shown at the 2003 Cannes Film Festival. ~ Andrea LeVasseur, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Jean-Quentin Chatelain, Anne Alvaro, (more)
- 2007
- PG13
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The astonishing true-life story of Jean-Dominic Bauby -- a man who held the world in his palm, lost everything to sudden paralysis at 43 years old, and somehow found the strength to rebound -- first touched the world in Bauby's best-selling autobiography The Diving Bell and the Butterfly (aka La Scaphandre et la Papillon), then in Jean-Jacques Beineix's half-hour 1997 documentary of Bauby at work, released under the same title, and, ten years after that, in this Cannes-selected docudrama, helmed by Julian Schnabel (Basquiat) and adapted from the memoir by Ronald Harwood (Cromwell). The Schnabel/Harwood picture follows Bauby's story to the letter -- his instantaneous descent from a wealthy and congenial playboy and the editor of French Elle, to a bed-bound, hospitalized stroke victim with an inactive brain stem that made it impossible for him to speak or move a muscle of his body. This prison, as it were, became a kind of "diving bell" for Bauby -- one with no means of escape. With the editor's mind unaffected, his only solace lay in the "butterfly" of his seemingly depthless fantasies and memories. Because of Bauby's physical restriction, he only possessed one channel for communication with the outside world: ocular activity. By moving his eyes and blinking, he not only began to interact again with the world around him, but -- astonishingly -- authored the said memoir via a code used to signify specific letters of the alphabet. In Schnabel's picture, Mathieu Amalric tackles the difficult role of Bauby; the film co-stars Emmanuelle Seigner, Marie-Josée Croze, Anne Consigny, and Patrick Chesnais. ~ Nathan Southern, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Mathieu Amalric, Emmanuelle Seigner, (more)
- 2008
A group of women struggling with their sexuality speak openly with the female counselors who wonder if such a thing as "sexual freedom" is truly possible in this tale of the incredible hidden in mundane, everyday events. ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Anne Alvaro, Nathalie Baye, (more)
