Agathe de la Fontaine Movies
This French drama, set in 1986, focuses upon the friendship between two Arab boys, one a normal boy raised in France, and the other a trained assassin on a mission for the fundamentalist organization that trained him. Laid has been indoctrinated and trained in a secret guerrilla training camp. Though only eleven, he is more a holy warrior than he is a little boy. Because he is so serious and calm, Laid is chosen to perform an assassination in Paris. Though he speaks fluent French, he needs to know more about how little French boys behave. Karim, who was raised in Paris, is forcibly borrowed from his father. Karim is the antithesis of Laid. He is fun loving, Westernized, and enthusiastic. Laid is intrigued and they become friends. The friendship changes history when the assassination plan fails in a surprising way. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Teufik Jallab, Younesse Boudache, (more)
- 1994
Be careful what you wish for...it just may come true. This is the underlying theme of this French-Canadian comedy drama that follows the travails of a TV addict who wins a talent contest and finds himself the subject of an embarrassingly revealing television series. Louis Jobin is a rather depressive young salesman who works in an electronics store. At night he is a passionate channel surfer, sitting upon his couch staring at his television. When Channel 19 announces a talent contest. Louis immediately enters. The contest winner will become the subject of a TV show with Channel 19 filming every movement, 24 hours a day for three months. Louis wins the contest and is at first elated by his prize but then begins to feel otherwise after he becomes a celebrity. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Martin Drainville, Agathe de la Fontaine, (more)
Mickey Rourke once again climbs the slippery slope of the erotically extreme in this sequel to 1986's 9 1/2 Weeks. It's been several years since John (Mickey Rourke) parted company with Elizabeth (the character played by Kim Basinger in the original film, although she doesn't appear in this sequel), but he's still obsessed by their passionate encounters. In hopes of finding her, John flies to Paris, where he instead discovers Lea (Angie Everhart), a close friend of Elizabeth's who designs high fashion clothing, and her assistant Claire (Agathe de la Fontaine). Lea is strongly attracted to John, but John is not able to let go of his obsession with Elizabeth so easily; when Lea tells John that Elizabeth has remarried, John begins to responds to her advances and they indulge in a variety of erotic games. However, in time, John learns that Lea can't always be trusted, and he realizes that their affair is not destined to last very long. Another 9 1/2 Weeks was also screened under the title Love in Paris. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Mickey Rourke, Agathe de la Fontaine, (more)
- 1998
Radu Mihaileanu directed this French-Belgian-Romanian-Dutch comedy-drama, set in Central Europe during the summer of 1941. Yiddish-speaking Jews purchase a train, forge identity papers, and leave town. Posing as both prisoners and Nazis, they hope to reach Palestine via the Soviet Union, but problems arise when they encounter real Germans. To make matters worse, resistance fighters plan to dynamite the train. Made in Romania with French and German dialogue, this film won an international critics prize at the 1998 Venice Film Festival. ~ Bhob Stewart, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Lionel Abelanski, Rufus, (more)
- 2000
Noted Italian comic Francesco Nuti directs and stars in this oddball romantic comedy about a man who falls for his girlfriend's lesbian lover. Divorced, middle-aged, and unattached, Dado (Nuti) is bowled over when he meets wild gal Francesca (Agathe de la Fontaine), who wrecks his car, beds him, and then dumps him by scrawling an AIDS threat on his bathroom mirror. Utterly crushed, Dado mopes about for days until he meets beautiful engineer Andrea (Francesca Neri) who warns him to stay away from her girlfriend, Francesca. Dado and Andrea start a no-holds-barred struggle for her heart until, tired of them both, Francesca leaves town. Soon the passions of animosity between Andrea and Dado turn into the passions of romance. ~ Jonathan Crow, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Francesco Nuti, Francesca Neri, (more)
- 2007
- PG13
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The astonishing true-life story of Jean-Dominic Bauby -- a man who held the world in his palm, lost everything to sudden paralysis at 43 years old, and somehow found the strength to rebound -- first touched the world in Bauby's best-selling autobiography The Diving Bell and the Butterfly (aka La Scaphandre et la Papillon), then in Jean-Jacques Beineix's half-hour 1997 documentary of Bauby at work, released under the same title, and, ten years after that, in this Cannes-selected docudrama, helmed by Julian Schnabel (Basquiat) and adapted from the memoir by Ronald Harwood (Cromwell). The Schnabel/Harwood picture follows Bauby's story to the letter -- his instantaneous descent from a wealthy and congenial playboy and the editor of French Elle, to a bed-bound, hospitalized stroke victim with an inactive brain stem that made it impossible for him to speak or move a muscle of his body. This prison, as it were, became a kind of "diving bell" for Bauby -- one with no means of escape. With the editor's mind unaffected, his only solace lay in the "butterfly" of his seemingly depthless fantasies and memories. Because of Bauby's physical restriction, he only possessed one channel for communication with the outside world: ocular activity. By moving his eyes and blinking, he not only began to interact again with the world around him, but -- astonishingly -- authored the said memoir via a code used to signify specific letters of the alphabet. In Schnabel's picture, Mathieu Amalric tackles the difficult role of Bauby; the film co-stars Emmanuelle Seigner, Marie-Josée Croze, Anne Consigny, and Patrick Chesnais. ~ Nathan Southern, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Mathieu Amalric, Emmanuelle Seigner, (more)
