Clotilde Courau

Writer/director Olivier Dahan (Crimson Rivers II) helmed La Vie en Rose, the screen biopic of tragic French songstress Edith Piaf. Marion Cotillard portrays Piaf, the superstar once raised as a young girl by her grandmother in a Normandy bordello, then discovered on a French street corner -- as a complete unknown -- by cabaret proprietor Louis Leplée (Gérard Depardieu). The film segues breezily between various episodes from Piaf's life -- such as her lover, French boxer Marcel Cerdan's (Jean-Pierre Martins) championship bout in mid-'40s New York; her period in Hollywood during the '50s; Piaf's abandonment as a young girl by her contortionist father (and earlier by her mother, a street singer); her brushes with the law as an adult; and her 1951 car accident and subsequent morphine addiction that caused her to age well beyond her years and left her barely mobile; and, through it all, her ability (like Billie Holiday) to funnel personal tragedy and emotional struggles into her vocalizations -- dazzling audiences in the process. ~ Nathan Southern, All Movie Guide

Actor Guillaume Canet, best known to American audiences for his work in The Beach, makes his directorial debut with the dark comedy, Mon idole. Canet also stars in the film as Bastien, an ambitious young man working as an assistant to Philippe Letzger (Philippe Lefebvre, who co-wrote the script with Canet and Eric Naggar) the overbearing host of a raucous, exploitative Jerry Springer-like game/talk show called It's Tissue Time! in which the goal is to make the contestants cry. Bastien warms up the audience and runs errands for Letzger, in addition to coming up with helpful ideas for the network, which Letzger takes credit for. Bastien puts up with Letzger’s abuse because he wants to work with his idol, the show's impossibly suave producer, Jean-Louis Broustal (François Berléand). To Bastien’s surprise, Broustal stops ignoring him one day, and starts taking an interest in the young man’s ideas. Bastien lives with his girlfriend, Fabienne (Clotilde Courau), who’s tired of hearing about how wonderful Broustal is. And Bastien is torn when he realizes that the pretty blond he’s been admiring around the office is Broustal’s young wife, Clara (Diane Kruger). Things take a strange turn for Bastien when Broustal invites him out for a night on the town that quickly turns into a weekend at the couple’s remote country estate. Clara quickly gets Bastien alone and beds him, and Broustal doesn’t seem to mind. Broustal makes a lot of promises about Bastien’s future in television, but what does the couple want from him? As the weekend progresses, their motives seem increasingly bizarre and even sinister. Mon idole was nominated for César Awards for Best First Film and for Berléand’s performance. It was shown at Lincoln Center in New York as part of their 2003 Rendez-vous with French Cinema. ~ Josh Ralske, All Movie Guide

French filmmaker Manuel Boursinhac directs the action thriller La Mentale. Samuel Le Bihan plays Dris, a criminal who wants to go straight. Major mob boss Yanis (Samy Naceri) is an old friend who desperately needs Dris' help. However, Dris has already spent enough time in jail and only wants to settle down with his old girlfriend Lise (Marie Guillard). When Dris finally agrees to go along with the plan, he finds his little brother Mel (David Saracino) kidnapped by the villainous Fèche (Michel Duchaussoy). La Mentale received a theatrical release in France in 2002 before going straight-to-video in the rest of Europe. ~ Andrea LeVasseur, All Movie Guide

Author Francoise Giroud once descibed the 15-year span from 1967 to 1981 as La parenthese enchantee, the era when the sexual revolution raged in France, beginning with the legalization of the birth control pill and ending with the dawn of the AIDS pandemic. Michel Spinosa's drama examines the lives and loves of five people who lived through this time. Longtime friends Paul (Roschdy Zem) and Vincent (Vincent Elbaz) meet Eve (Karin Viard) and Alice (Clotilde Courau) while on a vacation in 1969. Paul and Eve's first night together results in her becoming pregnant, and they soon marry. Vincent is attracted to Alice, but she disappears until the day he marries Marie (Geraldine Pailhas). Several years later, Eve is bored with Paul and feels sexually unsatisfied; Paul tries to learn how to be a better lover by reading the latest self-help books, while Eve begins having an affair with Vincent, who is unhappy with Marie. Alice, meanwhile, becomes an outspoken feminist activist after undergoing a dangerous illegal abortion. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

Mathias Ledoux directs this atmospheric erotic thriller. Author Jean Dorset (Jean-Hugues Anglade) has suffered from a bad case of writer's block since his first novel became a bestseller. He lives in a small apartment in Paris with his wife Michelle (Clotilde Courau) and, in spite of their ostensible success, the couple are having trouble making ends meet. One day they receive the utterly unexpected news that they are the sole inheritors of a wealthy neighbor, M. Guillemet, whom they have never met. Guillemet has left them his old townhouse along with all of his belongings, but with two conditions -- the first is that the dead man's papers be left untouched, and the second is that his live-in maid Clemence Richbourg (Christine Boisson) remain employed at the estate. The Dorsets soon learn why they were the recipients of such strange generosity. Guillemet had set up a camera with a massive zoom lens pointing to their bedroom window. The couple is shocked and disgusted, but not enough to give up their new tony digs. Clemence proves to be a more unnerving presence. Her steely, impassive demeanor coupled with her penchant for wearing Mao jackets (and, it turns out, naughty underwear) gives her an air of menace. Soon the Dorsets speculate that Clemence poisoned her former employer's food in an ill-fated attempt at inheriting his property. Later, Jean decides to write his next novel on his curious benefactor. When he starts digging around the old man's files, he begins to suspect that his wife not only did know Guillemet, but frequented his place. This film was screened at the 2000 Berlin Film Festival. ~ Jonathan Crow, All Movie Guide

The first feature by Bill Brookfield, Milk is an offbeat British comedy about a family in mourning. The death of an 81-year-old woman sets the scene for this tale about family funerals and the difficulty of burying one's mother. Adrian is an unmarried, unworldly, and unstable dairy farmer dissatisfied with his life. He has had his share of youthful ambitions, but now all he is capable of doing is sloping after dairy cows. Between his filial duty to his bed-ridden cosmopolitan mother Lucy and his obligation to the dairy farm, he has never had a chance in life until his mother suddenly dies. Set in the Wiltshire countryside, the action begins when Adrian discovers her body and ends with its offbeat disposal 48 hours later. His first reaction is to execute his mother's pet parrot and confiscate her precious painting before his extended family swarms the dilapidated farmhouse to pillage her loot. They all want a piece of Lucy and they all have conflicting plans for the funeral. But Adrian intends to surprise them on both counts. The idea that a family member's death brings out the true nature of family dynamics is not a novelty in cinema, but Brookfield dabs the subject with local color, gently poking fun at the quarrels of people whose blood ties do not guarantee similarities of character. ~ Gönül Dönmez-Colin, All Movie Guide

Gillaume Nicloux directed this French comedy drama about amateur sleuth Gabriel Lecouvreur, aka The Octopus (Jean-Pierre Darroussin), a Gallic gumshoe with no fixed address, who travels with his girlfriend Cheryl (Clotilde Courau) to a harbor town in western France. The graves of Cheryl's grandparents have been desecrated, and during their investigation of this, they encounter a half-dozen demented denizens and other looney locals. More than 100 paperbacks by different writers have chronicled The Octopus' adventures; this is the first film featuring the character. ~ Bhob Stewart, All Movie Guide

This Great War drama opens in the trenches during an artillery bombardment. Receiving bayonet wounds, young Simon (Guillaume Depardieu) drops out of the action, joining other injured soldiers at a Brittany hospital. One day he meets schoolteacher Marthe (Clotilde Courau), who lives in the household of the hospital's head doctor (Bernard Giraudeau). Soon a romance begins to develop. Cinematography by Kevin Jewison, son of director Norman Jewison. ~ Bhob Stewart, All Movie Guide

Three old French jamons attempt to make a comeback by working in a road-show production of Scoubidou in this hilarious French farce. Also on the tour are the flighty leading actress Carla Milo, and a murderous producer, Shapiron, who knows the show is a stinker and tries to convince Carla to feign an illness so they can collect the show's insurance money. Unfortunately, Carla would never dream of letting down her "fans" and so refuses. The three hams, meanwhile do not get along at all. Victor suffers great swings, he is either terrified of the crowd or grossly overacting while evil-tempered Georges is only in it for the money. Then there's Eddie, who thinks of himself as a Casanova and adores the notion of a little behind-the-scenes romance. When the desperate Shapiron decides to use physical force to get Carla to quit, the three has-beens rally 'round to protect her. This happens during a performance, much to the delight of the audience. Soon the show becomes a huge success and is slated to play on Broadway where the silliness intensifies because none of the actors can really speak English. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

A troubled young woman goes in search of the father she never knew in this French drama. In 1979, Elisa (Florence Thomassin) is an unhappy and unstable woman who -- after trying to strangle her two year old daughter Marie -- kills herself on Christmas Eve. Sixteen years later, Marie (Vanessa Paradis) has grown into a young woman with more than her share of problems; she's wise beyond her years when it comes to men, and she lies as often as she tells the truth. With her friends Solange (Clotilde Courau) and Ahmed (Sekkou Sall), Marie makes her way through a variety of small-time confidence games, but she's obsessed with discovering the identity of her father, who abandoned her after the death of her mother years before. After intimidating a number of civil service workers, Marie learns that her father is Jacques Desmoulins (Gerard Depardieu), a successful but reclusive songwriter who lives on a small island where he uses alcohol to keep him company. Marie makes her way to Jacques' island in the hope of getting even with the man she blames for many of her troubles. Leading lady Vanessa Paradis is also a successful pop singer in Europe. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

Paul Mazursky directed this comedy, which blends a broad satire of the film industry with a thoughtful tale of a middle-aged man looking back on his life's failures. Harry Stone (Danny Aiello) is a film director who desperately needs a hit -- so desperately that he gets talked into directing an inane sci-fi film about a group of farm kids (led by Ally Sheedy) who grow an enormous pickle that they turn into a spaceship, allowing them to visit the planet Cleveland (ruled by Little Richard and his right hand man, Griffin Dunne) where everyone eats nothing but meat. Convinced that the film will flop, Harry is in a state of panic as he returns to New York with his Parisian girlfriend Francoise (Clotilde Courau), a mere 20 years his junior, and visits his ex-wife Ellen (Dyan Cannon); his mother Yetta (Shelley Winters); and his son Gregory (Chris Penn). Meanwhile Harry flashes back on his childhood and the film he could have made of it, and pitches his dream film (a historical epic about the life of Montezuma) to studio executives, who instead want him to make a movie kids can relate to. The Pickle was filmed in 1991, but only received a token theatrical release two years later. Actually, the sci-fi story with Little Richard as the undisputed ruler of Cleveland looks like it might have been an ideal vehicle for Edward D. Wood Jr.. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

Life is pretty grim for the boy in this story. School holds no pleasures, his mother is a drunk, and his stepfather is a real pill. It's no surprise that he plays hooky sometimes. One day he discovers that he has an older sister. Consumed with a desire to find her, he uses his stepfather's pistol to hold up a store for money for his quest and then takes a policeman hostage. The policeman helps him find his sister, and the young woman whom he has never met before is surprisingly willing to try and help him get out of trouble and away from his depressing family. This drama is filmed in a sensitive and unusual fashion and won all sorts of French and European film-making awards, including the Prix Louis-Delluc. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide