Philippe Laudenbach Movies
An Alzheimer's-afflicted ex-policeman moves into a special needs residence - only to watch his life erupt into a waking nightmare - in Nicholas Boukhrief's tense psychological thriller Cortex (2008). During the golden years of his retirement, former police superintendent Charles Boyer (André Dussolier) opts to protect himself from the pitfalls of dementia by moving into The Residence, a facility designed to provide for elderly patients with neuro-degenerative disorders. Boyer isn't long in the new building, however, before ominous events begin to occur - including a high number of deaths among the patients. Eschewing the notion that this may be inevitable given the ages and illnesses of the populace, Charles smells a rat; he can never quite waive his sense that the others have been systematically rubbed out by an unknown party. As his investigation of the matter begins, questions linger about whether his suspicions are valid or merely a product of the ex-cop's Alzheimer-driven paranoia. ~ Nathan Southern, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- André Dussollier, Marthe Keller, (more)
Four prisoners sharing the same cramped cell make a discovery that could help them escape from even the most high security prison if it doesn't split their world wide open first. Carrere is an ambitious company director serving time for fraud, Marcus is a thirty-five year old transsexual on course to becoming a real woman, Daisy is a mentally deficient servant, and Lassalle is a sixty year old intellectual who murdered his wife of many years. Together, these lawless misfits do their best to serve their time without losing their minds. One day, after discovering a loose stone slab in their cell, the four incarcerated convicts unearth the diary of a former prisoner named Danvers who occupied the exact same cell at the turn of the century. According to the diary, there exist magic formulas so powerful than any prisoner could use them to escape. Later, when the men attempt to decipher the formulas, the entire prison becomes a terrifying cauldron of bizarre phenomena. ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Gérald Laroche, Philippe Laudenbach, (more)
The star of Jean-Pierre Jeunet's 2001 hit Amélie, Audrey Tautou is cast in this romantic comedy as Michèle, a 20-year-old model who has just broken up with her boyfriend and is mired in an identity crisis. Although her life appears to be full, she is convinced something is missing, and thus sets out on a mission to inject a bit of spirituality into her life, donning a bindi and dabbling with Buddha. Along the way, she meets François (Edouard Baer), a veterinarian and non-practicing Jew. Before François has time to exclaim "Oy, vey," Michèle is studying the Torah, festooning François' front door with a mezuzah, and asking to meet his parents. Unsurprisingly, this creates some tension between the two, particularly as what initially seemed a passing interest on Michèle's part soon resembles a somewhat disturbing obsession. ~ Rebecca Flint Marx, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Audrey Tautou, Edouard Baer, (more)
- 2000
Taking its title from a popular 1960s dance craze, this digital video comedy concerns the exploits of a particularly odd fictional talk-show host, portrayed by real-life French talk-show sensation Edouard Baer. Baer -- who also directed and co-wrote the film -- plays a sarcastic TV personality who decides to gather together the panel members from his live show before they shoot the program so that they have a chance to rehearse. To this end, the absurd group -- including a lawyer, a transvestite, and a grown woman who acts like a child -- rents a villa for a month. It doesn't take long for resentment to fester among the motley crew. ~ Michael Hastings, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Edouard Baer, Gilles Gaston-Dreyfus, (more)
- 1998
Iranian Iradj Azimi directed this French historical drama re-creating events depicted in the famous 1819 painting The Raft of the Medusa by Jean Louis Andre Theodore Gericault (1791-1824). The ill-fated voyage of the frigate Medusa begins when it departs Rochefort for Senegal in 1816. After striking a sandbar off the African coast, 150 civilians row safely to shore, but Captain Chaumareys (Jean Yanne) orders 140 soldiers and sailors onto a raft (minus supplies) and has it cut loose. Only 14 survive from the 140, creating a scandal back in France. Gericault (Laurent Terzieff) later talks to three of the survivors while researching his painting. Work on this film began in 1987, but sets destroyed by Hurricane Hugo caused delays, so the film was not completed until 1990. However, it then remained undistributed until an incident in which writer-director Azimi slashed his wrists in front of French Ministry of Culture officials. ~ Bhob Stewart, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Jean Yanne, Daniel Mesguich, (more)
After spending some time with his diplomat father in Germany, a young French medical student returns by train to Paris to resume his studies. He is puzzled by the harsh treatment he receives from customs at the border but doesn't begin to understand why until he gets home and discovers a mummified head in his luggage. He suspects that someone at customs put it there, but is not sure. Instead of reporting the meandering body part, he decides to investigate it using the tools he has as a medical student. It appears to be the head of a Russian who died somewhere in Asia. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Emmanuel Salinger, Thibault de Montalembert, (more)
- 1990
In this farcical spoof of spy thrillers, set in France, few obvious or old jokes are left untold, especially if they are at the expense of overweight women, the handicapped, or dogs who don't know where to defecate. The story itself concerns the unsanctioned efforts of a covert unit to gather evidence about illegal arms shipments with the unwitting help of an embassy employee. When it appears that she is about to ruin everything by getting married on a weekend which is important to their operation, project director La Squale (the Shark) (Jean Reno) directs that someone must seduce the woman's fiance so that she'll call off the weekend. Little does he know that the woman chosen is his own girlfriend -- the only one of his agents who is sufficiently thin to be alluring. One thing after another leads to the near failure of the operation -- including the efforts of the repentant fiance (Christian Clavier) to win his girlfriend back. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Christian Clavier, Jean Reno, (more)
- 1988
- PG13
Claude Sautet's A Few Days With Me (Quelque Jours avec Moi) stars Daniel Auteuil as the emotionally disturbed heir to a supermarket empire. Auteuil's mother Danielle Darrieux tries to give her son some purpose in life by assigning him the task of reinvigorating one of the supermarket chain's least profitable links. Every effort Auteuil makes to reach out and communicate with his employees is doomed to failure due to his conscious and unconscious insensitivities. He is humanized by a brief affair with maid Sandrine Bonnaire. The romance doesn't last, and Auteuil ends up back in a mental institution, but still there is a ray of hope for him in the final scenes. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Daniel Auteuil, Sandrine Bonnaire, (more)
- 1987
This episodic film comes from French director Eric Rohmer and is the seventh and final installment in the filmmaker's Comedies and Proverbs cycle. Reinette (Joëlle Miquel) is as innocent as a newborn babe, while Mirabelle (Jessica Forde) is as worldly and sophisticated as Reinette is not. Their country mouse/city mouse friendship begins when they share a room in Paris and endures through a quartet of whimsical experiences. Completed in 1987, Four Adventures of Reinette and Mirabelle was distributed in the U.S. in 1989. ~ Matthew Tobey, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Philippe Laudenbach, Joëlle Miquel, (more)
- 1986
After serving his apprenticeship as a screenwriter for director André Techiné, former movie critic Olivier Assayas wrote and directed this film. In the story, a penniless girl and two similarly impoverished boys with ambitions of becoming a successful rock group are sorely in need of some instruments to play on. They decide to break into a music store and manage to get their hands on the instruments they need -- killing the proprietor in the process. Though the police never catch up with them, something else waylays these "tough" kids -- their consciences. Despondent over the killing, one of the young men commits suicide. The others are then confronted with their own feelings about their crimes and each other and cannot easily give themselves over to their quest to become musicians. One of the film's musical highlights is a performance of the Woodentops. This teen drama won the critic's prize at the 1987 Venice Film Festival. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Wadeck Stanczak, Ann-Gisele Glass, (more)
- 1986
This is a charming and successful farce from director Thomas Gilou, featuring a witty screenplay co-authored by producer Monique Annaud. When a group of African squatters in Paris are threatened with eviction, they find themselves fighting against a bureaucracy that few French citizens understand, let alone immigrants. In desperation, they turn to their best option to resolve this dilemma: they call for a sorcerer from home. The sorcerer hops on a jet to Paris to cast spells on the entrenched bureaucrat, and while en route he strikes up a conversation with a fellow passenger, mentioning his job pays quite well. The interested passenger could stand to make a few extra francs, so he decides to take the sorcerer's place. Once he arrives, this imposter has to act like he knows what he is doing, and at the same time, he had better solve the eviction problem. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Jacques Villeret, Isaach de Bankolé, (more)
Jean-Jacques Beineix's Betty Blue stars Béatrice Dalle as the title character, a mentally unbalanced and sexually aggressive free spirit who becomes involved with Zorg (Jean-Hugues Anglade), a repairman moonlighting as a writer. The two engage in a variety of sexual encounters, and grow more passionate toward each other. Betty finds Zorg's book and is aggressively supportive; over time, her mental and emotional instability begin to catch up with her and drive her to the point of romantic obsession with Zorg -- leading to a grisly and shocking conclusion. ~ Perry Seibert, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Jean-Hugues Anglade, Béatrice Dalle, (more)
- 1984
This well-articulated, engaging story about the differing fortunes of two brothers just after Algeria's war for independence is conventional in its outlines, and may have several more characters than can be developed in a short time, but its subtle handling by director Ariel Zeitoun helps to counteract those flaws. Rego (Christophe Malavoy) has just returned from a tour of duty in Algeria where he escaped the demands of his budding musical career. Now that he is back, his former agent does not welcome him with open arms because he is still mad over Rego's sudden departure, just when things were going well. The delinquent, wild teenager Antoine (Pierre-Loup Rajot) is Rego's younger brother, now in love with his new music teacher (Gabrielle Lazure), and his persistence in going after the reserved young woman ends in a brief and forbidden fling -- and trouble for her. As events continue on their course, the fate of the two brothers is vastly divergent, even though they continue to have a strong bond between them. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Christophe Malavoy, Gabrielle Lazure, (more)
- 1984
In this confusing, surreal, and slow-paced drama that swings back and forth from strange to farcical, Robert (Alain Delon) meets Donatienne (Nathalie Baye) on a train. She tells him a story about a woman and a man who meet on a train and subsequently spend a night - only one night - in a glorious sexual encounter before they part forever. He is so taken with her that he ends up in her mountain chalet, not just for one night, but for many - drinking beer and forgetting about his wife in Paris. Donatienne then has sexual relations with all the men in her neighborhood - and the film steps fully into a bizarre world in which neither Robert nor Donatienne can honestly relate to each other. The mystery about what is going on is revealed in the end, but by then the film - verbose, inscrutable, and artificial - may have alienated more than one viewer. On the other hand, the performances of Delon and Baye stand out against this flawed backdrop, an achievement recognized at the 1984 Cesars when Delon won the Best Actor award for his role as Robert. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Alain Delon, Nathalie Baye, (more)
- 1984
Through a series of convoluted turns, like a tornado going through Kansas, director Claude Lelouch has managed to keep a vacuum at the center of his film. A corporate executive (Michel Piccoli and a young actress (Evelyne Bouix) suddenly disappear and reappear and disappear, almost as fast as blinking Christmas tree lights. Since neither can remember what is going on, it is likely that they are suffering from the classic "I was kidnapped by an extraterrestrial" syndrome. And in fact, that may be the case because it seems that some ETs wanted to speak through these two people to tell earthlings to quit gearing up their nuclear arsenals. Jean-Louis Trintignant plays an acting teacher and Charles Aznavour plays a restaurant owner in this complex story -- yet both stars cannot carry the film on their own merits. For many viewers the labyrinth that wends its way to the final credits is a bit difficult to follow, and at the center of the labyrinth is a woefully inadequate ending. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Charlotte Rampling, Michel Piccoli, (more)
- 1983
- PG
In this light, sometimes tongue-in-cheek mystery based on a Charles Williams thriller -- with snippets of Hitchcock, Kubrick, and even Victor Hugo -- director François Truffaut showcases one of his favorite actresses, Fanny Ardant, as an enterprising secretary in love with her boss but up against clearing him of murder. Julien Vercel (Jean-Louis Trintignant) is a real estate dealer accused of killing his wife and her lover. He hides in his office while his secretary, Barbara (Ardant), sets out to discover what really happened and why. When Barbara starts looking into the dark past of her boss' wife, she comes across illicit love affairs, a prostitution ring, and shady private detectives, until, finally, her suspicions turn toward Julien's lawyer himself. Tragically, Vivement Dimanche was to be Truffaut's last film; the great French director died of a cancerous brain tumor in 1984. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Fanny Ardant, Jean-Louis Trintignant, (more)
- 1980
- PG
Alain Resnais' Mon Oncle D'Amerique is presented in the form of a "case history," replete with a pedantic narrator, played by real-life behavioral scientist Henri Laborit. Gerald Depardieu plays a plant manager whose behavior is inspired by the films of "macho" French film star Jean Gabin. Nicole Garcia portrays an actress who has patterned her conduct after stage and film luminary Jean Marais. And Roger-Pierre is a TV executive whose main influence in life is lovely cinema actress Danielle Darrieux. Though it may sound like a Woody Allen comedy, Mon Oncle D'Amerique eschews satire for the most part, treating both its subject matter and its subjects with intense seriousness. The film scored a hit with moviegoers and critics alike, and was honored with six French Cesar Awards. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Gérard Depardieu, Nicole Garcia, (more)
Alain Resnais's third feature film, like his earlier Hiroshima Mon Amour and Last Year at Marienbad, is devoted to the vagaries of memory. The title character is seen only in the 8-millimeter films run over and over again by Bernard (Jean-Baptiste Thierée). A veteran of the French/Algerian war, Bernard was obliged to participate in the torture murder of Muriel, an Algerian girl accused of sabotage. He is no more successful at recapturing or altering his past than is his stepmother Helene (Delphine Seyrig), who attempts to rekindle a romance with Alphonse (Jean-Pierre Kerien). Practically everyone else in the cast follows the lead of the leads by dwelling on Things Past to the detriment of the Present. Resnais' scriptwriter on Muriel ou le Temps d'un Retou was Jean Cayrol, whose earlier collaboration with the director yielded the celebrated short subject Night and Fog. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Delphine Seyrig, Jean-Pierre Kerien, (more)
