Janine Magnan Movies

The title Life Love Death (originally La Vie, L'amour, la Mort) pretty much runs the gamut of the subject matter which normally appeals to French filmmaker Claude Lelouch. Awaiting execution for murder, Souad Amidou reflects on the events leading up to this sorry contingency. It seems that Amidou can only cohabit with prostitutes, thus he seeks out satisfaction in all the side streets of Europe. Disturbed by a whore's insults when he was unable to perform, Amidou goes completely off the deep end and begins cutting a swath of death from one end of Spain to another. Lelouch's principal stylistic decision in Life Love and Death is to draw as many parallels as possible between sex and bullfighting. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

Le Propre de l'Homme was the amateur, debut feature film of popular French director Claude Lelouch, who also wrote and acted in the 80-minute drama about a young man and woman in Paris. Obviously working on a tight purse string and only twenty-two at the time, there were limits to what Lelouch could do. What was possible was to film the young couple (the other half played by Janine Magnan) as they slowly get to know each other during the day, leading up to getting to know each other (in the Biblical sense) that night. Rather than weave the thread of their growing relationship through each scene, Lelouch decided to spin off events around them in a random fashion. Their final interlude in a hotel room is modestly symbolized by abstract images. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, Rovi