Blanca Li Movies

This French-Spanish drama depicts a flat marriage that picks up a few new wrinkles. Nicole (Miou-Miou) and Jean-Marie Kunstler (Charles Berling) have run their small-town dry-cleaning shop for 15 years. When they visit a local night club, they see the brother-sister act of Loic (Stanislas Merhar) and Marilyn (Mathilde Seigner), who perform under the name Queens of the Night, and the four soon become friends. Later, the Kuntslers visit Basel, Switzerland, where the siblings are appearing. They learn the team is splitting up and invite the bisexual Loic to help at their shop. He accepts, and his presence alters their outlook on life. Shown at the 1997 Venice and Toronto film festivals. ~ Bhob Stewart, Rovi

Spanish director Pedro Almodovar returns to his recurring framework of offbeat sexuality and death with this colorful comedy. Kika (Veronica Forque) is a Madrid makeup artist who falls in love with Ramon (Alex Casanovas), a dead man whose face Kika is hired to prepare for a funeral. Kika's attraction resurrects Ramon, and the two begin cohabiting. Kika becomes embroiled in a pair of criminal schemes, one involving her maid Juana (Rossy De Palma) and Juana's amorous, retarded brother Pablo (Santiago Lajusticia), the other involving Ramon's father, Nicholas (Peter Coyote). After Kika is raped by Pablo, she learns the incident was videotaped by Ramon, the footage ending up on a tabloid television program hosted by Andrea Scarface (Victoria Abril). Kika and Ramon split, but the latter discovers his father's complicity in the demise of his mother, leading to a violent confrontation. Because of Almodovar's humorous treatment of the film's rape, Kika was his third feature in a row that resulted in critical accusations of misogyny and exploitation. His subsequent material became more dramatic and less tinged with black humor. ~ Karl Williams, Rovi

Recalling such prior successes as The Big Chill, Peter's Friends, and Return of the Secaucus 7, director Danièle Thompson's seriocomedy A Change of Plans follows a group of four French couples who converge in an apartment over the course of one lengthy summer's eve and spend the time chatting about life, personal goals, relationships, and sex. The said event unfurls during the perennial "Fête de la Musique" in the City of Lights. Attendees include the shark-like divorce attorney who owns the apartment, ML (Karin Viard), and her out-of-work husband, Piotr (Dany Boon); slick, unctuous attorney Lucas (Christopher Thompson) and his slightly stuck-up homemaker wife, Sarah (Emmanuelle Seigner); gynecologist Melanie (Marina Fois) and her oncologist husband, Alain (Patrick Bruel); and ML's sister, Juliette (Marina Hands), and her much older boyfriend, Erwann (Patrick Chesnais). As the night unfurls, it becomes readily apparent that none of the partners are happy and that virtually all have cheated or are planning on cheating on each other, which turns the film into an extended meditation on dissatisfaction and infidelity among the Parisian upper crust. ~ Nathan Southern, Rovi