Olivier Delbosc Movies

François Ozon's psychological thriller Swimming Pool stars Charlotte Rampling as a mystery writer. When Sarah (Rampling) is offered the use of her publisher's vacation home, she accepts the offer. The conservative, repressed Sarah clashes with the house's other inhabitant, Julie (Ludivine Sagnier), the uninhibited daughter of the publisher. Julie's promiscuous sex life intrigues Sarah and starts to lead to the thawing of the emotional deep-freeze between the two. The death of one of Julie's nightly assignations complicates their lives. Swimming Pool was screened in competition at the 2003 Cannes Film Festival. ~ Perry Seibert, All Movie Guide

Directed by Giordano Gederlini and produced by the same folks who packaged Francois Ozon's 8 Women, Samourais gives martial arts movies a rarely seen French twist. Beginning in feudal Japan, a pregnant woman manages to escape persecution long enough to have her baby, Kodeni (Santi Sudaros), a human-looking demon whose bald head reveals the shape of a spider peaking up from beneath the skin. Fast forward to present day Japan, where the death of a video-game engineer is traced back to Kodeni's goons. Though Tokyo policeman Fujiwara (Yasuaki Kurata) manages to foil and temporarily kill Kodeni, he is visited by the spirit of an ancient warrior, who warns him that Fujiwara's daughter, Akemi (Mai Anh Le), will give birth to the reincarnation of Kodeni. In order to prevent Kodeni's return, Fujiwara must travel to France, where his daughter has been studying for two years, and kill her demonic unborn child -- the fate of the world depends on it. ~ Tracie Cooper, All Movie Guide

A gaggle of mothers, wives, daughters, maids, and mistresses gather for a holiday homecoming at their country mansion -- and end up having to solve a murder-mystery -- in this musical-comic homage to studio-era "women's pictures" from acclaimed French director François Ozon. Partly inspired by George Cukor's 1939 classic The Women, 8 Femmes stars Catherine Deneuve as Gaby, a high-society matron just returned to her country house to celebrate Christmas with her husband; mother Mamy (Danielle Darrieux); sister Augustine (Isabelle Huppert); and daughters Suzon (Virginie Ledoyen) and Catharine (Ludivine Sagnier). Not long after they all arrive, however, do they find the man of the house with a knife in his back, whereupon everyone becomes a suspect -- including maids Chanel (Firmine Richard) and Louise (Emmanuelle Béart). The mysterious arrival of Augustine's sister-in-law Pierrette (Fanny Ardant) only complicates matters, as the titular eight women find themselves snowed in by a fierce blizzard, forced to confront the matter of the lifeless husband -- and their long-standing secrets and resentments -- without the aid of the police. Following its immensely successful release in France in early 2002, 8 Women enjoyed much acclaim at the Berlin and Toronto Film Festivals. ~ Michael Hastings, All Movie Guide

This is a dark, sinister second feature from the director of the 1995 film The Rock of Acapulco, featuring Charles Berling and Karin Viard as a married couple in Paris enjoying the fruits of their careers. He works in an executive post and she works out of a spacious Paris apartment she has inherited from her parents. Their son Julien (Alexandre Bongibault) and daughter Aude (Camille Vatel) are mostly in the care of babysitter Daphnee (Ludvine Sagnier). One day, an unkempt older couple (Manuela Gourary and Pierre Julien) ring their doorbell and introduce themselves as "the Worms," a sibling pair that evidently lived in the building years before. Marianne welcomes them in to look around. Their behavior seems courteous at first, but upon their departure, the family is affected. The house begins to do things on its own, Marianne's depression comes back to haunt her, and Daphnee's sweet demeanor turns sour without warning. A moody thriller from France, this is the first production of Bee Movies, a genre-based company known for such fare.
~ Jason Clark, All Movie Guide

Noted French filmmaker François Ozon directs this drama about personal loss and resilience. Marie (Charlotte Rampling) is deeply in love with her husband, Jean (Bruno Cremer). One day while vacationing at the seashore, Jean disappears into the ocean. A distraught Marie notifies the authorities, but sadly, they find no trace of her beloved husband. Later, back in Paris, Marie attends a dinner party hosted by her friend Amanda (Alexandra Stewart); over the course of dinner, it emerges that Marie and Jean had been married for 25 years. Marie speaks of Jean as if he were still alive, something that disturbs Amanda's fellow dinner guests, and after she is driven home by Vincent (Jacques Nolot), another guest, Marie sees Jean in her apartment and at breakfast the next morning. It quickly becomes apparent that Marie's imagination enables her to go along in life as if nothing happened to Jean, but as she slowly becomes involved with Vincent, she begins to cope with the fact that she is in fact living on her own. ~ Rebecca Flint Marx, All Movie Guide

Playing like a combination of Todd Solondz, John Waters, and a dysfunctional and incestuous generic television sitcom, director François Ozon's blacker than night psychological family comedy touches on many aspects that would frighten off most casual viewers on concept alone. From the opening scene of a father gunning down his family (albeit experienced audibly while the camera remains fixed on an external shot of the exceedingly proper and mundane suburban home) to mother/son sex, and even moments that border on bestiality, Sitcom gleefully and unapologetically attempts to dismantle the denial-prone status quo while constantly dwelling on self-conscious shock tactics and riffs on such nuclear family stereotypes as the indifferent father and the obsessively proper mother figure. And while Ozon's tactics hit the marks at times early on, as the film grows increasingly debaucherous it becomes more and more difficult to assess the method to the suburban nightmare madness the film portrays. By the time the surreal climax involving one of the human characters' literal transformation into the catalyst that set the opening scene's tragedy into motion rolls around, it feels uncharacteristically out of place and forced within the admittedly already absurd context of the previous 70 minutes. As repulsive as some of the more sordid details of the deteriorating family values may be, the majority of the film keeps the viewer involved and interested until the apparent lack of direction and outcome sends it careening out of control and spiraling into a nonsensical conclusion. Had Ozon anchored himself to reality, so to speak, he may have crafted a not altogether flawless, but effective comment on the banality of the sugar-coated denial that makes up the majority of television sitcoms and its disturbing transcendence into real life. As it stands however, the film is effective and entertaining for the most part, though its ambiguously confusing ending distills the jarring impact that this otherwise effective satire may have held. ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide