Jean-Pierre Darras Movies

The second of a long string of animated children's films based on cartoon characters created by Rene Goscinny and Alberto Uderzo, this is an entertaining adventure featuring the intrepid Asterix. The hero is accompanied by his mutt Idefix (Francophones will love that one - "fixed idea" characterizes a stubborn mutt indeed) and pal Obelix, a little lacking in the attic but full of heart. Their mission is to rescue two friends captured into slavery by the nasty Romans -- a galling thought. The trio head to North Africa where they join the Foreign Legion, apparently of a much longer history than otherwise known, and then head to Rome for a climactic confrontation with some hungry lions. For the moms and dads in the audience there are generous send-ups of biblical sagas such as Ben Hur. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, Rovi

This French occult thriller marks the directing debut of Juan Buñuel, the son of the famous filmmaker, Luis Buñuel. Sophie is a pubescent adolescent girl, and when her family moves into a new house, poltergeist effects begin to appear: paint cans tip over, tin soldiers disappear. Upset after being forced to allow her fearful brother to sleep in her room, she barges into her parents' room, only to find them making love. After this, supernatural mayhem breaks loose in a big way all over the house. A local TV news crew hears of the phenomena, and tries to cash in on it, but the strangeness escalates until everyone but the girl is driven out of the house. ~ Clarke Fountain, Rovi

Happy chauvinists that they are, it comes as a complete surprise to the three men of this story when their wives, egged on by the more feminist of the three, leave them. They are appalled to discover that the women seem quite happy without them. After a number of unsuccessful attempts to find feminine consolation elsewhere, one by one the piggy men mend their ways and reconcile with their spouses. ~ Clarke Fountain, Rovi

This dark French comedy satirizes suburban living. Marthe Keller and Jacques Higelin play a newly married couple who have just moved into the suburbs. Nearly everything is oppressive: among other things, the walls of their house are too thin and their neighbors harangue them with complaints of all kinds. They also suffer from the difficulties of the commute to work. When this routine nearly drives the wife to suicide, they are both relieved when their house literally blows up around them. They then discover another set of indignities while they are at the hospital. ~ Clarke Fountain, Rovi

Hughes (Jean-Claude Carriere), a veterinarian, contacts an agency for people who are seeking marriage. Through the agency, he meets and marries Jeanne (Anna Karina), a woman with a large house where he can use the space to care for animals. Later, he turns jealous and suspects his wife has a secret life. She discovers he has followed her and retaliates by giving one of his poisonous snakes to a zoo. Eventually, the two lovers reconcile to combine forces against the animals that may be extraterrestrials who have taken on human form in this fantasy comedy effort. Carriere wrote both the original story and screenplay for the film. ~ Dan Pavlides, Rovi

While he is visiting his client Marcial (Victor Lanoux) in prison, leftist lawyer Duroc (Pierre Richard) is caught up in a prison riot. When Marcial takes him along during his jailbreak, Duroc is assumed by the authorities to have engineered the escape. The two of them are now both on the run. It is 1968, and a wild revolutionary current makes the streets unsafe for ordinary citizens while providing these two fugitives with many opportunities. Even though Marcial, a cheerfully right-wing murderer, disagrees with Duroc about politics, he is sufficiently fond of him to ensure that he is exonerated from blame for the escape. ~ Clarke Fountain, Rovi

La Vie Parisienne is a musical which is based on the farcical operetta by Jacques Offenbach which made the can-can famous. The story concerns two rich sons of the upper classes, who revel in the rich nightlife of Paris where they can drink, gamble, womanize and rub shoulders with all classes. Eventually, they tire of this and confine their elaborate womanizing schemes to other aristocrats, with the help of their sympathetic servants. ~ Clarke Fountain, Rovi

This French comedy is the first feature film directed by the well-known television-director Pierre Tcherina. In the film, the most elaborate designs of a greedy family are unwittingly undone by an ailing old man. The family has made a complicated financial arrangement which will result in their owning the lovely resort villa the old man is living in, but until he dies they are obligated to let him continue living there. Actually, the old man wouldn't be there in the first place, but the family arranged for him to live there as they expected him to die at any moment. Instead, he lives through the Second World War and the years following, completely oblivious to their plots to do away with him; he is extremely grateful for their attentiveness and generosity, and is saddened as, one after another, they drop by the wayside. ~ Clarke Fountain, Rovi

A clever adaptation of Moliere's play Les Fourberies de Scapin, this cinematic re-creation was directed by Roger Coggio who also plays the lead, Scapin -- a tramp who thrives on mischief. In this version, however, Coggio interprets Scapin's antics as clever put-ons, meant to help him obtain his objectives. The story starts out as a stage performance which Coggio then transforms into cinema, as though transforming the story from the "fiction" of play-acting to the "verite" of cinematic realism. That is a neat 20th-century trick that Scapin himself may have appreciated. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, Rovi

This 1990 French film presents idyllic episodes from the childhood of novelist and filmmaker Marcel Pagnol (1895-1974). Together, the episodes present a portrait of an ordinary family with an extraordinary ability to love. Set in Provencal in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the film first introduces members of the family, including Marcel (Julien Ciamaca). When he is still a preschooler, his father Joseph, a teacher, takes him to classes to watch over him. Marcel, however, learns along with the other children and starts to read out loud in class. Astonished, Joseph (Philippe Caubère) writes a sentence on the blackboard and asks, "What does that say?" Marcel, reading the words, says, "The father is proud of his little boy." This little scene establishes the tone and meaning of the film. Flashing ahead seven years, the camera then follows the Pagnols after they leave Marseilles for a summer vacation in the Provencal countryside, there to bask in the simplicity of rural life. From then on, it is not what happens to the family that engages audiences; it is how it happens -- with a quiet exuberance and joie de vivre. Besides Marcel and his father, the vacationers include his mother, Augustine (Nathalie Roussel), a beautiful and kindly homemaker; Marcel's little brother Paul (Victorien Delamare); and his Uncle Jules (Didier Pain) and Aunt Rose (Thérèse Liotard). After they arrive at their cottage, 11-year-old Marcel wastes no time wading into the greenery in search of adventure. What he finds is another adventuresome boy, Lili de Bellons (Joris Molinas), a native of the region. They become friends and fellow explorers, capturing cicadas, climbing rocks, and even invading an eagle's cave. Sometimes they just have fun shouting to hear an echo boomeranging back. At meal times -- often outdoors -- fresh fruit and good-natured repartee satisfy appetites. For spectator sport, the diners listen to the occasional religious arguments between Uncle Jules, a God-fearing Catholic, and Joseph, a God-doubting agnostic. Augustine and Aunt Rose avoid the polemics, for they have more important matters on their minds: keeping house, watching children, and planning the next day's menu. And then the film takes a turn toward real drama. Uncle Jules, full of tales about his prowess as a hunter, persuades Joseph, full of ignorance about guns and hunting, to go on a bird hunt. Woe is Papa, Marcel thinks. When the day of the great hunt arrives, Marcel secretly follows Joseph and Uncle Jules into the woods, setting the stage for the film's climactic moment. ~ Mike Cummings, Rovi