Eric Defosse Movies

To the French, Michel "Coluche" Colucci (1944-86) was not merely a household name but a veritable institution. A stocky, goofy comic who often turned up in big screen farces such as L'Aile Ou la Cuisse (1976) and Inspecteur la Bavure (1980) , Colucci gained notoriety for his emotionally rocky and stormy personal life that witnessed him battling alcoholism and extreme drug addiction - making him something of a French equivalent to John Belushi or Chris Farley. Unlike Belushi or Farley, however, Coluche made the unusual decision (for one of his background) to briefly enter mainstream politics. In a bid for the French presidential nomination in 1981, he delighted many and shocked others by reeling in an impressive 15% of the French popular vote - reason enough to believe that this actor, with solid humanitarian values and a commitment to civil rights, might have actually stood a solid chance had he campaigned more aggressively and remained in the running for a longer period. Antoine de Caunes's biopic Coluche, l'Histoire d'un mec hones in exclusively on this intriguing period of the comic's life and career, with François-Xavier Demaison playing the famous actor. The tale begins with his impulsive and drug-fueled decision to run on the ticket, coaxing bums, drunks and social outcasts to band together and lay waste to mainstream politicians. When Coluche pulls in around 10% of the vote, he draws the ire of politicos François Mitterand and Valerie Giscard d'Estaing, who promptly send out an advisor to dissuade the funnyman from running. Director de Caunes spends the majority of the film cross-cutting between recreations of Coluche's popular stage acts, and a not uncritical look at the star's attempts to push himself to his very limits and beyond -- with a mainstream political run that began as a joke but quickly took on very real and frightening proportions. ~ Nathan Southern, Rovi

Novelist and filmmaker Jose Giovanni turned to the remarkable true story of how his father helped him escape a date with the guillotine for this drama, which is based closely on events from his own life. During World War II, Manu (Vincent Lecoeur, as a character Giovanni modeled after himself) fought with the French Resistance, but near the end of the war he fell into a life of crime, and in 1947, 22-year-old Manu was arrested for his part in a bungled robbery that left a man dead. While Manu did not pull the fatal trigger, he refuses to say who did, since it would mean implicating his uncle, one of the few members of his family who has stood by him; Manu's brother is dead, and he turned his back on his father Joe (Bruno Cremer) years ago. Manu is sentenced to death, and while he protests his innocence, his attempts to escape from prison do little to convince anyone that he's telling the truth. To keep himself sane while waiting on Death Row, Manu begins writing a novel, but unknown to him, the father he will not speak with has been researching his son's case, and spends the better part of the next four years searching for a way to prove his son's innocence and earn him a clemency that would set him free. In real life, Jose Giovanni was unaware of his father's role in his release from prison until after his death; years later, Giovanni wrote an acclaimed biography of his father's own remarkable life, which included a very successful career as a professional gambler and a spell as official translator to renowned U.S. general "Black Jack" Pershing during World War I. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi

Two women who were best friends since childhood come to realize the toll that adulthood has taken on their understanding of each other in this acclaimed French drama. Mina Tannenbaum (Romane Bohringer) and Ethel Benegui (Elsa Zylberstein) first met when they were ten years old. As young Jewish girls growing up in Paris, both felt like outcasts among their schoolmates, and they began to bond as fellow outsiders. That's about all they have in common. As a child, Ethel was a pudgy extrovert from an upper-middle class family who was eager to make friends, while slender and serious-minded Mina preferred to follow her own path and keep her own counsel, and she was raised under less privileged circumstances. Mina and Ethel have remained close friends as adults, but they are still as different as night and day. Mina, still an intelligent iconoclast, has made a name for herself as an artist, while Ethel happened into a career as a pop culture journalist. Ethel has had a number of unsatisfying relationships with men, while Mina is usually too afraid to approach the men she's attracted to. And while both Ethel and Mina value each other's friendship, in time they begin to realize how little they have in common -- and they provide each other with as much aggravation as comfort. Mina Tannenbaum was the debut feature for writer and director Martine Dugowson; it earned her a Cesar Award nomination (the French Oscar) for "Best First Film." ~ Mark Deming, Rovi