Salome Movies
- 1996
A feather-light and funny musing on the nature of love, fate and starting over, Claude Lelouch's comedy begins with the meeting of Fabio Lini, an actor turned undercover Paris cop and the notorious lawyer-cum-businessman Benoit Blanc . Both have come to the same clinic to have their ulcers checked, and as they chit-chat, they realize that they have much in common. Relations with women have played big parts in their ulcers. Both freely acknowledge that male/female relations are always problematic, and yet, despite the hindrances the unions present, neither Claude nor Benoit is able to live without them. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Fabrice Luchini, Bernard Tapie, (more)
- 1995
- R
Not a strict adaptation of the oft-filmed Victor Hugo classic, director Claude Lelouch's ambitious epic instead focuses on the story of two men, a father and a son, whose life stories bear striking similarities to Hugo's character Jean Valjean. The father is Henri Fortin (Jean-Paul Belmondo), a chauffeur (in 1900) wrongly accused of his employer's murder. Like Valjean, he is subjected to a harsh and unfair prison sentence. While Henri vainly attempts to escape his unjust fate, his family suffers, with his wife forced to raise their young son alone. The film jumps ahead several decades to show the adult life of this son (also Belmondo), a former boxer turned furniture mover who agrees to help smuggle a Jewish lawyer (Michel Boujenah) out of France during the Nazi occupation. Along the way, the lawyer reads to the younger Fortin from Les Misérables, and Fortin begins to imagine himself in the role of Jean Valjean, on the run from the obsessive Inspector Javert. ~ Judd Blaise, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Jean-Paul Belmondo, Michel Boujenah, (more)
- 1994
The potentially negative effects of using archaic and strict methods of dealing the children the main theme of this French film which is set in 1962. While it's story of two youngsters in love, it also explores romance and sexuality in children. It is told from their viewpoint. Gil and Jessica are two eccentric and imaginative children in love. Worried that their love is unhealthy, the surrounding adults subject the kids to two differing approaches to modify their "unnatural behavior." Dr. Nevele offers the traditional, stern methodology. Edouart offers a more permissive approach. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Hippolyte Girardot, Patrick Bouchitey, (more)
- 1993
Miguel (Luis Miguel Cintra) is lucky that his income will only level off if he neglects his business as a financier, and his wife and family will be well supported. Why? Because he has begun hearing noises that no one else hears, noises that bother him a great deal, and that make it impossible for him to bear human society. His wife (Jessica Weiss) is thoroughly put out by this radically changed behavior in her formerly good husband, but though she considers leaving him, she stays by his side. Deep in the mountains, Cecelia (Rita Dias), a devout, pure young cowherd, has been brutally raped by an old man. Her boyfriend (Pedro Hestnes) has killed the rapist, and fled the area. As a result of the rape, Cecelia is pregnant. One day, while driving in the mountains, Miguel gives Cecelia's boyfriend a ride. The two of them chance upon her sitting amid the rocks with her infant baby. The image is so like that of the Madonna that Miguel is thunderstruck. Not only that, the noises that plagued him have gone, and he can return to his patient wife a happier man. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Luis Miguel Cintra, Pedro Hestnes, (more)
- 1982
Gudrun Landgrebe plays a housewife who abruptly leaves her husband for a life of prostitution. At first, she retains her staid, middle-class values, but before long she is one of the most sexually adventurous women walking the streets. Soon she has more business than she can manage, forcing her to learn highly advanced bookkeeping skills to keep her business in order. While Gundrun indulges customers with fetishist inclinations, her AC-DC business partner Mathieu Carriere services both male and female clients. Becoming romantically involved themselves, Gundrun and Mathieu find that they can't manage a private and professional life at the same time. As the title suggests, one of the partners takes very drastic measures to express her discomfort with the conditions that prevail. Woman in Flames was an enormous moneymaker in Germany, where it was released as Die Flambierte Frau (which translates to the curiously gastronomic title A Woman Flambee). ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Gudrun Landgrebe, Mathieu Carrière, (more)
