Jo Prestia Movies

In this French drama, a teenager falls into a life of crime, little realizing the consequences. S. (Nicolas Duvauchelle) is a moody young man who loses his job at a bakery, and decides to throw in his lot with a group of thieves about the same age as himself. S. and his cronies are strictly small-timers, pulling off second-rate break-ins for an older crime boss, but his willingness to do what he's told helps him rise up the ladder to bigger and more lucrative jobs. However, S. lacks the maturity or experience to deal with the risks, and after a few disastrous mistakes, he finds his fortunes sinking far faster than they rose. Directed and co-written by Erick Zonca, Le Petit Voleur/The Little Thief was originally produced for French television and is not to be confused with Claude Miller's La Petite Voleuse, which was based on an unproduced screenplay by François Truffaut. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

Brian De Palma blends the emotional netherworld of film noir with a stylish portrayal of life among the wealthy and powerful in Paris in this glossy thriller. Laure Ash (Rebecca Romijn-Stamos) is a beautiful but mysterious woman who has aligned herself with a small ring of jewel thieves, led by a man known as Black Tie (Eriq Ebouaney), who has planned a major score during the Cannes Film Festival. Sexy model Veronica (Rie Rasmussen) is scheduled to make a spectacular entrance for the screening of director Regis Wargnier's picture, wearing a body-hugging piece of jewelry worth a cool ten million dollars. Laure approaches the sexually adventurous Veronica and is able to seduce her, while at the same time stealing her diamond-studded outfit and replacing it with a carefully constructed counterfeit. Veronica, however, also makes off the loot without giving her partners their cut, and must go into hiding in order to avoid the wrath of Black Tie and his cohorts. Fate allows Laure to make her way to the United States, where in time she marries a powerful politician. Photographer Nicolas Bardo (Antonio Banderas), however, had snapped a picture of Laure while she was on the lam years before, and when he takes an assignment to get a photo of the camera-shy woman, Laure realizes Nicolas is in a position to reveal her new identity to the world -- and put the bloodthirsty Black Tie back on her trail. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

A traveling entertainer falls prey to a disturbed recluse in director Fabrice Du Welz's twisted, slow-burn riff on Deliverance and The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. Having finished his latest performance at a remote retirement home, wandering singer Marc Stevens (Laurent Lucas) packs his gear into his van and sets out towards his next gig. Unfortunately for Marc, the fog-shrouded roads of rural France are more treacherous than he ever anticipated. When his van breaks down in the middle of the night and a skittish local promises to lead him to a nearby inn owned by the eccentric recluse Paul Bartel (Jackie Berroyer), it appears that luck may be on Marc's side and he will be back on the road with the light of the morning sun. This isn't your average bed and breakfast, though, and Bartel certainly isn't the kindly innkeeper he initially appears to be. When Marc's van is set aflame and his increasingly menacing host makes a most disturbing claim, the soft-spoken singer will be forced to fight for his life against not only Bartel, but an entire village of deeply disturbed woodsmen. ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide

The kidnapping and assassination of Moroccan political activist Mehdi Ben Barka, fictionalized in Yves Boisset's L'Attentat in 1972, gets a more historically accurate treatment in Serge Le Péron's noirish docudrama, the tabloid-headline-titled I Saw Ben Barka Get Killed. The film is narrated by cynical ex-con Georges Figon (Charles Berling), whose dead body is shown at the film's opening. Figon talks about the heady times, as newsreel footage of the civil rights movement and the anti-colonial uprisings of the 1960s is shown. In flashbacks, Figon wants to be a film producer, and has connections to screenwriter Marguerite Duras (Josiane Balasko) who puts him in touch with director Georges Franju (Jean-Pierre Léaud). Figon keeps promising to make his actress girlfriend, Anne-Marie Coffinet (Fabienne Babe), a star. But he still has ties to the underworld, and through them he meets the shady Chtouki (Azize Kabouche), a Moroccan operative who offers him a lot of money to scrap his current filmmaking plans to make a documentary about the worldwide anti-colonial movement. Chtouki's main interest is that the exiled Barka (Simon Abkarian) be hired as a consultant on the doc, so that he'll come to Paris to meet with Figon, Franju, and Philippe Bernier (Mathieu Amalric). On the day of the meeting, Figon watches from the café window as the French police intercept Barka and take him away. After witnessing what becomes of Barka, Figon grows increasingly concerned for his own safety, and goes to the press with a sensationalized version of the events. I Saw Ben Barka Get Killed was shown by the Film Society of Lincoln Center in 2006 as part of their annual Rendez-Vous with French Cinema. ~ Josh Ralske, All Movie Guide