Bruno Cremer Movies

Based on the novel Biribi, by Georges Darrien, this French film brings to the screen the story of Froissard (Michel Tureau), a young French soldier in the late 19th century who is assigned to Biribi, a disciplinary battalion in North Africa. Disciplinary battalions, then as now, were alternatives to prisons and court martials. Misfits and "hard cases" that the military is unable or unwilling to deal with in some other way are assigned to Biribis. However, a somewhat similar group of problem soldiers are often assigned to run such units. In this case, the young soldier Froissard, guilty of nothing much, is assigned to the battalion because of the indifferent negligence of his superior officers. He is placed under the leadership of sadists, rapists, and tough cases of all kinds. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide

The pushes and pulls of an emerging post-war society are behind the antagonisms in this routine, slow-paced story set in a Jesuit school in 1952. A somewhat old-fashioned priest has his own ideas about how to train the boys in his charge and at the same time, the director of the school is faced with serious financial and moral decisions. The one boy who tends to follow the priest's viewpoints is, in the end, too troubled to live up to his expectations and in a dramatic turn-around, the priest becomes victimized. A sliding moral scale not only allows the victimization to occur but raises larger questions about ethics and one's adjustment to a changing world. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide

A distinguished drama and considered an important entry in French cinema's new naturalism from one of the '80s most promising French filmmakers, this drama presents a shocking but humanistic look at the tragic lives of impoverished children living in the Paris projects. Bruno is a teenaged boy who has just moved into a high-rise project with his hard-working mother. Barely earning enough to support them takes all of her time. She communicates with Bruno via tender notes. Other than those brief missives and his pet bird, Bruno is alone. The apartment is located in one of the city's roughest suburbs and Bruno's involvement with crime seems inevitable. Shortly after he is befriended by the streetwise, battered and deeply troubled Jean-Roger, Bruno is out thieving, destroying property and harming people with a vengeance. These boys are not devoid of humane qualities. One of their teachers, a young idealistic woman, recognizes their potential and tries vainly to save the boys, but by the time she gets involved it is too late for Bruno and Jean-Roger. Though deep down they may have wanted only love, help and guidance, the brutal, unloving world around them consumes them. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

In this run-of-the-mill thriller, a frenetic, sexually dysfunctional thief loses it and shoots two employees and his accomplices during a bank robbery then escapes to the Riviera. Once there, he gets a room in a hotel and takes a couple hostage -- he needs some sort of shield from the police while he makes his getaway. But the more he runs, the more it seems there is nowhere to turn. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide

In an apparently empty airport, a Jewish family has gathered to greet one of its members who has come there to be with them. However, the airport is actually the ante-room of Death, and the family member is a recently deceased American survivor of the Holocaust. Although the party begins by greeting the man with warmth and affection, the gathering soon degenerates into a squabble about why most of those assembled failed to heed the warnings about the Holocaust and flee Germany. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide

In 1944, with Paris on the verge of Liberation by the allies, Adolph Hitler ordered that the City of Light be blown up and burned to the ground. General Dietrich Von Choltitz, after much rumination, decided that he didn't want to go down in history as the man who destroyed Paris. His refusal to follow Hitler's orders would make him a pariah in Germany for the rest of his life; nor was his gesture ever rewarded by the Allies. From this very human story in the midst of one of the most inhuman conflicts in history grew the screenplay (by Gore Vidal and Francis Ford Coppola) of the all-star, internationally produced Is Paris Burning? Whereas the earlier The Longest Day was able to support a castful of celebrities and brief subplot vignettes, Is Paris Burning? seems more weighted down than weighty. Still, a modern audience will have fun playing "spot the star" throughout the film, especially when those spotted stars include the likes of Gert Frobe (as Choltitz), Jean-Paul Belmondo, Alain Delon, Kirk Douglas (as Patton), Glenn Ford (as Bradley), Yves Montand, Simone Signoret, Robert Stack, and even Anthony Perkins as a wide-eyed GI. Filmed on a gargantuan scale, Is Paris Burning? was based on a book by Larry Collins and Dominique LaPierre. The film was lensed in black and white, save for the Technicolor finale (in the original road-show prints). ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

In France, the slang-word for "bounty hunter" is "alpagueur." When the police are working on cases where they do not want their presence officially known, they arrange for private individuals who specialize in this work to perform certain services, such as setting up major arrests. In this film, L'Alpageur is Jean-Paul Belmondo, who does his work with a considerable sense of humor, great charm, and in as "clean" a way as possible. First, he busts a drug-trafficking ring operating out of Rotterdam by observing that a certain "pregnant" woman moves in an unusual fashion. Her "baby" turns out to be a large, specially shaped package of heroin. The drug kingpins stung by his operation seek to find the man who thwarted them, but because L'Alpageur is known only to a few in the police department, the drug barons' corrupt police friends cannot determine who he is. Later, he busts the leaders of a prostitution ring. While they were all gathered in one room, he fed nitrous oxide into that space, and they all fell unconscious following a few giddy, laugh-filled moments. This made it possible for him to arrest them without their ever seeing him. His most important case, however, is his search for "The Hawk," a bank-robber who uses local juvenile delinquents in each town to help him set up his thefts. After each robbery, he kills his helpers. One of them, however, has survived and has been put in jail. L'Alpageur is given a false identity and is put into jail alongside the youth. His job is to help the lad escape, and find the elusive, murderous bank robber. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide

In this thriller, Karim Hamida (Richard Berry), an undercover agent for an Arab government, and Simon Atlan (Patrick Bruel), a Jewish cop, join forces to fight terrorism. To begin with they are paired by their superiors to bust up an international heroin ring operating in French high schools. At first, they haven't got anything good to say to each other, but when they catch wind of a terrorist hiding out at an embassy, they join forces. This same terrorist is posing as the director of an "Islamic cultural center" which is actually a school for mayhem. These two men infiltrate the center and disrupt its operations, nearly losing their lives in the process. The bad guy swears vengance, and begins a campaign of terrorism aimed specifically at these two men. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide

A group of French anarchists are moved to violence when their leader Raymond (Jacques Brel) is captured. They take up with the notorious gangster Bonnot (Bruno Cremer) and the gang steals a car to use in a bank robbery. The non-violent anarchists soon turn to killing and murder the guards before escaping to Belgium. They hide out in a whorehouse until a conniving madame blows the whistle on them. The group splits up, but the anarchists soon realize they are helpless without the ringleader Bonnot. The local police chief arrests one of the gang, and the authorities soon close in on the rest of the gang. By now police have enlisted the help of the army to insure that none of the criminals will escape in this mobster movie set in the early days of the 20th century. ~ Dan Pavlides, All Movie Guide

The Algerian War is the subject of this French documentary, as is only proper, because that war gave the French a new government, a new constitution, and resulted in the repatriation of over a million French colonists from Algeria. It also figures in French politics to this day. This war, and the French-Indochina War marked France's final period as a colonial power. This documentary, narrated by Bruno Cremer and Jacques Roubaix, examines the role of the OAS in the spread of terrorism to France. The internal forces in Algeria and France which led to the conflict are also discussed. The French colonists who were forced to leave Algeria had in many cases been there for generations, and their resettlement in France was disruptive for them, as well as for the French and Algerian economies. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide