Marion Loran Movies
Darius Caunes is so charming, you want to forget that he killed his wife. He is so charming that you will probably want to overlook the fact that he is counterfeiting currency. He is audacious and skillful. He has even made a friend of the honest and dogged police inspector who investigated his wife's murder. He is unflappable and is something of an artist at crime. However, even the best plans go astray, and when his assistant at the print shop he owns accidentally gets hold of a bill and passes it on to a former boyfriend who has come around begging for money, he finds himself having to spin a web of improvisations that lead him into less than artistic crimes and murders. In this blackest of black comedies, the indignation of the murderer at the failure of his schemes is at least as funny, and as thrilling, as the detective's persistence and energy in getting the numerous clues he is given exactly wrong. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Michel Serrault, Anna Galiena, (more)
The grim post-World War I era in Europe is grist for director Bertrand Tavernier's mill in Life and Nothing But. Philipe Noiret portrays a French major who is supervising the gruesome task of counting and identifying the corpses still strewn over the battlefield. Noiret is obsessed with the notion that, by doing his job above and beyond the call of duty, he can somehow make up for the carnage in which he participated a few years earlier. The major's mission is intercut with short vignettes involving the families and loved ones of the dead, and with the efforts by another officer to find a suitable candidate for an Unknown Soldier testimonial. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Philippe Noiret, Sabine Azéma, (more)
Racism and the games people play with it aren't unique to the U.S. by any means. In this French comedy, Rachid, a nice-looking Arab boy, plays with the pervasive fear of non-whites in Paris by having two friends approach pretty girls while looking as sinister as they can, so that he can "rescue" them and strike up an acquaintance. When he and Denis, a black West Indies man, find themselves in pursuit of the same girl, oddly enough, they become best friends. They team up in order to try and persuade the girl's parents that they are respectable enough to rent an apartment from them. However, as any person of color knows, this is far more easily said than done wherever race (and class) are issues. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Julie Jezequel, Smain, (more)
Originally titled Peau D'Ane, Jacques Demy's Dos Cruces en Danger Pass is better known by its English-language title Donkey Skin. Based on a fairy tale by Charles Perrault (of Cinderella fame), the bizarre story concerns the king (Jean Marais) of a strange, enchanted land. Catherine Deneuve plays the dual role of the king's wife and daughter. When the wife dies, she makes the king promise that he'll never marry anyone less beautiful than she; thus, he is compelled to wed his own daughter! The fairy godmother (Delphine Seyrig) tries to save the girl from this incestuous fate by telling her to make impossible demands for her wedding gifts. One such demand is for the skin of a magic donkey which deposits valuable jewels in its compost heaps. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Catherine Deneuve, Jean Marais, (more)












