Jean-Claude de Goros Movies

French filmmaker Alexandre Aja writes and directs the slasher film Haute Tension, given the English title Switchblade Romance. Best friends Marie (Cécile De France) and Alex (Maïwenn Le Besco) go out to the countryside to visit Alex's parents. However, a homicidal delivery man (played by Philippe Nahon from Gaspar Noé's brutal movies) ends up at their house and starts killing everyone. Alex and Marie fight for their lives with help from several means of weaponry. Switchblade Romance was shown at the 2003 Toronto Film Festival as part of the Midnight program. The film was aquired by US distributor Lions Gate Films in 2004 and quickly put into turnaround as an NC-17 release, though plans for that were scrapped due to a lack of theater support of the controversial rating. Retitled High Tension, the R-rated version is missing one minute of grisly gore and features a redubbed audio track by star Cécile De France. ~ Andrea LeVasseur, All Movie Guide

Combining romance, science fiction and a political parable, Furia takes place in the future, after an oppressive government, which has shut down all political opposition, recognizes art as a means of free expression -- and therefore bans painting on public surfaces. Theo (Stanislas Merhar) is an activist artist who creates paintings on walls under the cover of darkness, despite the fact his bother Laurence (Wadek Stanczak) works with the local government. Their father Aaron (Pierre Vaneck), a local barkeep, used to paint, but when he was caught, the color was taken from his eyes and now he can only see in monochrome. When Theo meets another rebel artist, the lovely Elia (Marion Cotillard), he's immediately smitten, and when she's arrested and subjected to torture, Theo tries to have himself caught so he can be with her (and protect her) behind bars. Furia was adapted by director and co-screenwriter Alexandre Aja from a short story by Julio Cortazar, an Argentinian refugee who fled to Paris in the era when rebellious citizens were "disappearing" -- 30,000 in all. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

This sumptuous French drama offers episodes from the notorious life of 18th century socialite and playwright Pierre-Augustin Caron de Beaumarchais. The story begins in the 1770s with a rehearsal of his "The Barber of Seville." Young friend of Voltaire, Philipp Gudin introduces himself to the great playwright and offers to become his personal secretary. He then becomes the adventurous Beaumarchais' keeper as the author gets involved in a variety of situations including a duel with an angry husband, his battle with the corrupt French government and a serious long-term affair with Marie-Theres de Willer. It all comes to a climax when King Louis XV assigns the playwright a secret mission to London. There he must find and retrieve a damning document from transvestite aristocrat Chevalier D'Eon. Unfortunately, Beaumarchais gets tangled up with supporting American rebels and ends up tossed in jail. Louis XVI sees that he is finally released and then the writer becomes an arms smuggler for American revolutionaries. All of his activities bankrupt him and so Beaumarchais must return to writing plays. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

Diane Kurys and Antoine Lacomblez wrote this drama of a woman novelist and her troubled, 20-year relationship with a man who has fathered two children with another woman. ~ Nicole Gagne, All Movie Guide

Wanting to learn more about his Jewish heritage, a French philosophy professor moves to an Israeli kibbutz located near the Golan Heights in 1965. He is followed by a non-Jewish former student who abandons her aspirations of becoming a concert violinist to be with him. Two years pass, and professor Sacha is joined by three more former students who have come down to celebrate the lovely violinist's 20th birthday. Unfortunately, the tensions that led up to the Six Day's War are rapidly escalating and Sacha is drafted into the military. The night of the party, one of the guests shows home movies of their lives in Paris. Sacha cannot help but feel guilty pangs while watching for the films contain scenes of his love Myriam, the woman who committed suicide after he broke up with her. Her death is one of the reasons he left Paris. It is with this guilt roiling around inside that Sacha goes to war leading to the story's bittersweet conclusion. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

One might assume that the original title of this French production was C'est La Vie. Wrong: the film was initially released as La Baule-les-Pins, then distributed to English speaking countries under a more "understandable" French cognomen. The film is set during a deceptively idyllic summer. Two young girls are fascinated bystanders as their parents' marriage dissolves and their mother takes up with a younger man. What might have been material for tear-stained drama in an American film is treated with perceptive humor in C'est La Vie. Director Diane Kurys cowrote the screenplay with Alain Le Henry. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

A married American actor (Peter Coyote) falls in love with his on-screen flame (Greta Scacchi) while filming an Italian biography of author Cesare Pavese. France's 1987 entry to the Cannes Film Festival, this was the first English-language film for director Diane Kurys. ~ John Bush, All Movie Guide

This French/Canadian "caper" comedy stars Jean-Paul Belmondo as an oh-so-clever bank robber. Disguised as a clown, Belmondo robs a major Montreal bank, taking Guy Marchand and Kim Cattrall as a hostages. We soon learn that both Marchand and Cattral are actually Belmondo's accomplices in his precisely planned holdup. The trick now is for the threesome to get out of Montreal--a feat comparable to Hannibal crossing the Alps. Chock full of surprising plot twists, Hold-Up is based on a novel by Jay Cronley, which also served as the inspiration for the 1990 Bill Murray vehicle Quick Change. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Set against the Allied invasion of North Africa in 1942, this overly-ambitious, comedy-drama focuses on the relationship between its two central characters, Leon Castelli (Roger Hanin) a half-Algerian, half-French bartender, talkative, but with a generous soul, and Etienne Labrouche (Philippe Noiret) the French colonial mayor of the town. Leon gets propositioned on a business deal by an American soldier and joins him in setting up an "underground" night spot in an abandoned airplane hangar that soon catches on and thrives like weeds in a garden. Etienne, in the meantime, starts an affair with the governess of his children and is caught out by his wife, who sends the woman packing. Since the ex-governess needs to support herself somehow, she accepts a waitress job working in the underground nightclub. The word gets out, and before much time has gone by, the nightclub is trashed by a hired gang. Furious at Etienne because he feels this is the mayor's way of paying him back for hiring the governess, Leon picks up a shotgun and goes to Etienne's estate seeking revenge. But fate has other ideas, and when he arrives, Leon discovers that Etienne's father has just died and left a bombshell of a revelation about his parentage that changes everything. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide