Mathilda May Movies

The bitter legacy of the French/Algerian War set the stage of this drama from director Alexandre Arcady, himself a Frenchman of Algerian birth. Pierre Nivel (Antoine DeCaunes) is a noted French television journalist and network anchorman. One day, he receives an unexpected visitor, an Algerian man with a message from someone named Leila. Pierre was born in Algeria, and he lived there until he was 17, when the French were forced to leave after Algeria won its independence in 1962. He's kept his Algerian past a secret from most of his friends and colleagues, but the note from Leila, his teenage sweetheart, leads him back to the land of his birth. It turns out that Leila now has a grown daughter, Amina (Nozha Khouadra), and Leila needs Pierre's help to smuggle her and her daughter out of the country. A defiant woman, Amina's refusal to go through with an arranged marriage to a fundamentalist and removal of her veil in public has put both herself and her family in great danger. La Bas ... Mon Pays/Return to Algiers was the first French production to be shot on location in Algeria since the nation won its independence. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi

In 1945, filmmaker Roberto Rossellini released the daring Rome, Open City, a film that sharply criticized the Nazis and became a cornerstone of the Italian Neorealist movement. This Italian drama tells the fascinating true story of the film's genesis. Originally Rossellini and his screenwriter wanted the film to chronicle and comment upon the Nazi occupation of Rome. After finding a suitable cast they began making the film and then showed a few rushes to outspoken producer Pepino Amato who was so upset by the radical message that he walked out, taking his financial backing with him. Fortunately, the director manages to find backing from an enigmatic countess. ~ Sandra Brennan, Rovi

In this French romance, an escaped convict on the lam falls in love with a movie costumer. Paul Salomon is on the lam after he broke out of prison. He goes a winterbound resort town near the English Channel to retrieve a satchel full of loot. He is headed for Blighty. In the town, he stops in a clothing shop where he encounters Suzanne, another customer. Later he sees her in a restaurant and sits down at her table. He immediately tells her who he is and what he is doing. Suzanne disbelieves him and begins making up outrageous lies about her own life. She bases her "lifestory" on that of Helena the Russian violinist who is the protagonist of the film she is working on. Paul keeps telling the truth and she keeps embellishing until she finally realizes that he isn't lying. She falls for him and they passionately consummate their budding affair. Meanwhile a police chief is hot on Paul's trail. ~ Sandra Brennan, Rovi

Danny Huston's Becoming Colette purports to be an account of the early formative years of French author Gabrielle Colette (Mathilda May) and her evolution from naive country bumpkin to a Parisian socialite in a George Sand suit. The film turns up the heat with Colette as a teen with a crush on her father. This desire is then transferred to the suave and cosmopolitan Villars (Klaus Maria Brandauer) -- a fatherly twenty-five years her senior. The two start their hanky-panky on her father's country estate, resulting in a whirlwind courtship and marriage. Their honeymoon night is a succession of passionate unbuttonings. Colette writes in detail about it the next day in her diary. Villars then takes Colette to the Moulin Rouge to meet his mistress, the bisexual Polaire (Virginia Madsen). Polaire and Colette hit it off and soon are taking it off in a lesbian embrace. Meanwhile, Villars has taken to publishing Colette's diaries and is making money hand over fist. But finally Colette catches on after realizing that while she is toiling away at home cranking out Claudine books, Villars is busy taking her earnings and spending the cash on a succession of frilly mistresses. Making her stand in pants, she decides to abandon Villars and go out on her own. ~ Paul Brenner, Rovi

A woman desperate to change her life takes a wrong turn into danger and degradation in this drama. In 1924, Stephanie (Mathilda May) is travelling to Buenos Aires with her husband, who is considerably older than her and in poor health. Stephanie is not happy with her life, so when a young woman named Alba falls overboard and drowns, Stephanie assumes her identity once the ship arrives in Argentina. Stephanie realizes that this was a terrible mistake when she learns that Alba was the mail-order bride of Zico (Esai Morales), a notorious pimp and mobster who puts her to work in a brothel that he operates with his family. A terrified Stephanie kills her first customer and is soon on the run from the police; she finds that she must return to Zico's criminal family for protection, where she is placed at the mercy of Cholo (Vincent D'Onofrio), the sensuous-but-brutal "King of the Tango." Naked Tango reunited Leonard Schrader, Manuel Puig, and David Weisman, who had worked together as screenwriter, book author, and producer on the international hit Kiss of the Spider Woman (1985). ~ Mark Deming, Rovi

Isabelle Eberhardt dramatizes the tragic true story of the iconoclastic Swiss-born writer, who gained notoriety for both her lifestyle and her work in North Africa at the turn of the twentieth century. Eberhardt (Mathilda May) began dressing as a man and converted to Islam in her teens. As the film opens, she returns from the African desert to tend to her ailing father in Geneva. After his death, the wife of the Marquis de Mores summons her to Paris. The Marquis has gone missing in North Africa, because of Eberhardt's familiarity with the region, his wife pays her to go and track her husband down. Eberhardt settles in Algiers, where, hindered by the French authorities, she quickly gives up the search for de Mores, assuming that he's dead. She stays in North Africa, journeys frequently into the desert, and writes about her experiences for publisher Victor Barrucand (Claude Villers). The hard drinking Eberhardt meets Slimene (Tcheky Karyo of The Patriot), a Foreign Legion soldier, and falls in love with him. Through him, she makes contact with the secretive Sufi brotherhood of Qadriya. As she witnesses the abuses of the French colonists, her writings grow more political in nature and she starts to get more attention. One French military officer, Comte (Richard Moire) imprisons and abuses her. When an Arab swordsman viciously attacks her, Eberhardt holds Comte responsible. He eventually arranges for her deportation. But the resilient Eberhardt returns to North Africa, against Slimene's wishes. There, another French officer, Major Lyautey (Peter O'Toole) befriends her. He seems a decent man, but when he asks her to report to him on Arab groups hostile to the French, she wrestles with her conscience. Australian director Ian Pringle would later go on to produce Romper Stomper, starring Russell Crowe. ~ Josh Ralske, Rovi

Cora (Mathilde May) and her neighbor Jean (Pierre Arditi) meet for the first time when Cora's five-year-old son falls off the balcony in this drama. Jean is caught outside naked when a gust of wind slams the door closed, causing the frightened young boy to fall three stories. The two get to know each other better as they wait at the hospital for news on the comatose patient. ~ Dan Pavlides, Rovi

Based on a novel by Patricia Highsmith, Le Cri du Hibou concerns Robert (Christophe Malavoy), a commercial artist who has moved to a quiet neighborhood in Vichy, hoping to escape a severe depression brought on by the unpleasant breakup of his marriage to Veronique (Virginie Thevenet). Robert finds himself spying on his new neighbor Juliette (Mathilda May), but there's little or no erotic component to his voyeurism -- she seems to lead a simple and well-ordered life, and it makes Robert feel better to watch someone so secure and at ease. Robert even goes so far as to tell Juliette how much her admires her quietly contented existence, but beneath the surface, Juliette is hardly as secure as she looks. Robert's remarks make her wonder if her life has become too placid, and she decides to break off her engagement with Patrick (Jacques Penot) to pursue a relationship with Robert. This sends Patrick into a rage, and he plots an elaborate revenge -- he picks a dramatic fight with Robert, and then goes into hiding, leading people to believe Robert killed him. The ruse fools Juliette, who is distraught at the thought that her new love might be a murderer (even though Robert has expressed no romantic interest in her). Le Cri du Hibou was adapted and directed by France's leading suspense director, Claude Chabrol. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi

Director Tobe Hooper adapts Colin Wilson's edgy novel The Space Vampires in this in this horror/sci-fi epic with a cult following. The story concerns a joint British-American space probe of Hailey's Comet. Inside the comet, the astronauts, headed by Carlsen (Steve Railsback), find a spaceship that contains the dead bodies of several aliens, along with the naked bodies of three human-like creatures in suspended animation. They bring the aliens aboard the ship for examination, but the specimens are sloppily guarded and soon the trio spread contagion among the population of the ship. Returning to earth, the beautiful space vampire (Mathilda May) escapes into London and begins to feed of the bodies of the unwary Britons, turning the city into a zombie-populated wasteland. It is now left for Carlsen to stop the vampire invaders. ~ Paul Brenner, Rovi

During World War II, allied soldiers Ralph Bates and Yves Beneyton escape from a Nazi POW camp in France. They escape to Lyons, where they accept the hospitality of mademoiselle Cherie Lunghi. The woman has a psychic sister, played by Mathilda May, who sees dark days ahead for the two escapees. Sure enough, Bates is killed, whereupon Beneyton, at Lunghi's behest, assumes Bates' identity. It's all part of a complex inheritance-scam plot, but Beneyton does not figure this out until he's in too deep. Letters to an Unknown Lover is based on the Boileau-Narcejack suspense novel Les Louves, which was the original French title of this film. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi