Laurent Bouhnik Movies
- 1999
Director Laurent Bouhnik has crafted a tough-minded but visually impressive look at life in prison with his film Zonzon (French slang for jail). Three inmates sharing a cell in a French correctional facility deal with the physical and emotional rigors of life behind bars. France (Pascal Greggory) is a massive but emotionally distant prisoner who seethes with inner rage at the wife and child who have all but abandoned him. Arnaud (Gael Morel) is a student serving six months on a drug charge, trying to deal with his sudden change of circumstances. And Kader (Jamel Debbouze) is a petty thief relatively unconcerned with his return to jail -- he's been here before and will probably be back again. Zonzon won respectful notices for its unusual use of visual devices -- color, composition, focus, slow-motion photography -- to capture the grim fatalism of life in stir; the film made its American debut with a screening at the 1999 Santa Barbara Film Festival. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Pascal Greggory, Gael Morel, (more)
- 1999
- NR
1999 Madeleine is the first step in an ambitious project by the French filmmaker Laurent Bouhnik to make one film per year between 1999-2009, recounting the turn of the century in an interweaving narrative pattern. Episode one is about Madeline, a lonely woman obsessed by religion and cleanliness. Her solitary existence leads her to place an advertisement for a man willing to share his life with a 'single, working 35-year-old.' She is a woman of our times who is caught between the paradoxes of modern life and individual needs for communication. The world offers her opportunities to satisfy material needs but, unfortunately, this is to the detriment of her spiritual needs. Madeleine received the 1st prize of the Young Jury (UBS) at the 1999 Locarno International Film Festival, and Vera Briole was awarded a Bronze Leopard as Best Actress. ~ Gönül Dönmez-Colin, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Vera Briole, Manuel Blanc, (more)
- 1996
This thoughtful French drama centers on a brother and sister, living on the furthest frontier of society's fringe in the title flophouse. Nathalie was once beautiful, but a life of drugs and prostitution has stolen her joie de vivre. Her oily, fast-talking pimp Denis, who has zero respect for women, does little to help her. Nathalie's brother Tof is a petty thief. One day he visits Pierre, a local shopkeeper who through Tof out of his store. Tof repays the favor by publicly humiliating Pierre at gunpoint, causing a far-reaching change in Pierre's life and circumstance. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Julie Gayet, Jean-Michel Fête, (more)
