Francois Viaur Movies
One woman decides to change the world by changing the lives of the people she knows in this charming and romantic comic fantasy from director Jean-Pierre Jeunet. Amelie (Audrey Tautou) is a young woman who had a decidedly unusual childhood; misdiagnosed with an unusual heart condition, Amelie didn't attend school with other children, but spent most of her time in her room, where she developed a keen imagination and an active fantasy life. Her mother Amandine (Lorella Cravotta) died in a freak accident when Amelie was eight, and her father Raphael (Rufus) had limited contact with her, since his presence seemed to throw her heart into high gear. Despite all this, Amelie has grown into a healthy and beautiful young woman who works in a cafe and has a whimsical, romantic nature. When Princess Diana dies in a car wreck in the summer of 1997, Amelie is reminded that life can be fleeting and she decides it's time for her to intervene in the lives of those around her, hoping to bring a bit of happiness to her neighbors and the regulars at the cafe. Amelie starts by bringing together two lonely people -- Georgette (Isabelle Nanty), a tobacconist with a severe case of hypochondria, and Joseph (Dominique Pinon), an especially ill-tempered customer. When Amelie finds a box of old toys in her apartment, she returns them to their former owner, Mr. Bretodeau (Maurice Benichou), sending him on a reverie of childhood. Amelie befriends Dufayel (Serge Merlin), an elderly artist living nearby whose bones are so brittle, thanks to a rare disease, that everything in his flat must be padded for his protection. And Amelie decides someone has to step into the life of Nino (Mathieu Kassovitz), a lonely adult video store clerk and part-time carnival spook-show ghost who collects pictures left behind at photo booths around Paris. Le Fabuleux Destin D'Amelie Poulain received unusually enthusiastic advance reviews prior to its French premiere in the spring of 2001, and was well received at a special free screening at that year's Cannes Film Festival. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Audrey Tautou, Mathieu Kassovitz, (more)
In this farcical look at a female detective/mystery story writer, Cathy Palmer (JoBeth Williams) is an ordinary housewife living in Ohio with a condescending husband who is far from ideal. When Cathy wins a writing contest and has the chance to go to Paris and meet the author of the romance novels she loves, her husband tries to prevent the trip. In the end, Cathy's interests prevail, though her husband still refuses to go with her. After arriving in Paris, Cathy is knocked down by a car and wakes up in the hospital with all memory of her past life erased. In its place, she believes she is Rebecca Ryan, the heroine in the romance novels she has read. Carrying her unconscious role to the hilt, she dresses in elegant clothes and meets the comically rattled Alan McMann (Tom Conti) who becomes her partner, of sorts. Little does she know that Alan is not Rebecca's secretary, but the actual ghost writer of the Ryan novels. Cathy begins to suspect that villains are lurking everywhere, and her intuition in that regard is unerring -- she has doubts about the klutzy leader of the French opposition party (Giancarlo Giannini), and it turns out her doubts are well-founded. As the plot thickens, it becomes apparent that sooner or later Cathy-cum-Rebecca will have to realize the truth about her identity, but in the meantime, much skullduggery awaits. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- JoBeth Williams, Tom Conti, (more)
- 1983
Lacking the bite to be really funny, this wilted farce stars French comedian Coluche as Michel Bernardin, a white-collar trouble-shooter for tourists caught in a bind, or in bandages, depending on the problem. His business "Planet Assistance" sends people all over to help travelers in need, and as his first assignment of the moment, Michel goes off to a North African nation to get a man out of the hospital and back to Paris. After he arrives, he escapes from the hospital and the country with the wrong man and accidentally sets off a coup d'etat. Next, in New York, he is attacked by men who think he is a drug lord when he is in Harlem trying to bring a hospitalized musician home to France. Lastly, he goes to Hong Kong where he comes across his fiancée but is also an unwitting puppet of some racketeers. By this time, the comedy has sunk so low it has dipped completely out of sight. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Coluche, Valérie Mairesse, (more)
No relation to the 1949 Somerset Maugham "omnibus" film of the same name, 1981's Quartet is based on the roman a clef by Jean Rhys. Though the names are changed, it is clearly the story of Rhys' romance with Ford Maddox Ford in 1920s Paris. The titular quartet consists of novelist Isabelle Adjani, her Polish husband Anthony Higgins, wealthy philanderer Alan Bates and Bates' artist wife Maggie Smith. Though she's been indulgent of Higgins's past indiscretions, Smith isn't keen on her husband carrying on an affair with Adjani under their own roof. Meanwhile, Higgins sits in prison, jailed for his various petty thefts. Once Higgins is released, he learns about the Bates-Adjani-Smith contretemps. When the dust settles, it is Adjani who suffers the most. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Alan Bates, Maggie Smith, (more)
Alain Delon plays Mr. Klein, a French-Catholic art dealer during the Nazi occupation. Strapped for cash, Klein takes financial advantage of his Jewish neighbors, knowing that they have no legal recourse. Ironically, Klein is himself mistaken for a missing Jew, a man who has been using Mr. Klein's name as a cover for his secret operations. As he desperately seeks out that man, he learns a bitter lesson about life in the other man's shoes. Star Delon is one of the four producers of this French feature. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Alain Delon, Jeanne Moreau, (more)
Director Roman Polanski casts himself in the lead of the psychological thriller The Tenant. Trelkovsky (Polanski) rents an apartment in a spooky old residential building, where his neighbors -- mostly old recluses -- eye him with suspicious contempt. Upon discovering that the apartment's previous tenant, a beautiful young woman, jumped from the window in a suicide attempt, Trelkovsky begins obsessing over the dead woman. Growing increasingly paranoid, Trelkovsky convinces himself that his neighbors plan to kill him. He even comes to the conclusion that Stella (Isabel Adjani), the woman he has fallen in love with, is in on the "plot." Ultimately, Polanski assumes the identity of the suicide victim -- and inherits her self-destructive urges. Some critics found the movie tedious and overdone; others compared it to Polanski's early breakthrough, Repulsion. The film was based on Le Locataire Chimerique, a novel by Roland Topor. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Roman Polanski, Isabelle Adjani, (more)
Arriving nearly a decade after Mon Oncle, Playtime continues the adventures of M. Hulot. More than a decade seems to have passed since its predecessor, however. The colorful Paris of Mon Oncle, last seen being slowly chipped away by progress, has now vanished almost entirely. Playtime takes as its setting an ultra-modern Paris where familiar landmarks appear only as fleeting reflections in the new buildings of glass and steel. Alternating between Hulot and a group of American tourists, Tati exploits the chaos just below the overly ordered surface of this brave new world. Again moving from one nearly wordless episode to another, Tati sends his alter ego off to make an appointment in a whirring, featureless office complex. He subsequently moves on to an exhibition of new inventions, meets an old friend at an aquarium-like apartment, wreaks havoc in a snooty new restaurant, and, again, almost falls in love. The most ambitious and technically complex of the Hulot films, it proved unprofitable and helped usher in the financial difficulties that would plague Tati late in life before later getting the recognition it enjoys today. ~ Keith Phipps, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Jacques Tati, Barbara Dennek, (more)
