Isabelle Nanty Movies

In this 1987 film, director Bertrand Tavernier depicts French life in the Middle Ages as dreary, unromantic, and brutal. The story begins when a warrior leaves home to fight in the Hundred Years' War (1337-1453) between France and England. Before his departure, he gives his young son, François, a sword to safeguard his mother and her virtue. One day, after the boy opens a bedroom door to find his mother willingly submitting to a man, he uses the sword to kill the man and becomes traumatized with guilt and enmity toward his mother. Years later, François (Bernard Pierre Donnadieu) must go off to war as a chevalier, or knight. While he is away, his daughter, the gentle and loving Béatrice (Julie Delpy), sees to the needs of her little brother and her feckless mother. Although the castle in which they live is a sepulcher of shadows and stone, Béatrice maintains her spirits as she looks forward to the day when her father's voice will once again echo in the corridors. After four years of war in which he was held captive for a time by the English, he returns to the castle, a hardened warrior who has renounced God. Inside his twisted mind, he still carries the memory of that terrible day long ago, the day he discovered his mother was an adulteress. Giving the demons within him free rein, he begins to abuse everyone around him: He insults, bullies, and pillages the local village. He even forces his son Nils Tavernier to wear women's clothes and become the prey in a hunt. As he descends deeper into depravity, it is innocent Béatrice who suffers the most. Whether he has completely destroyed her, or whether she will rise up and destroy him, becomes the central focus of the film as it moves toward its conclusion. The dialogue is in French with English subtitles. ~ Mike Cummings, All Movie Guide

Red Kiss is set in the politically supercharged Paris of 1952. 15-year-old French girl Charlotte Valandrey, the daughter of radicals, is severely beaten by the constabulary while attending a communist rally. Photojournalist Lambert Wilson pauses long enough to take a picture of the bloodied Valandrey. Fascinated by Wilson's aloofness, Valandrey attaches herself to him. She is momentarily disappointed because Wilson is not the communist that he appeared to be at first, but love is stronger than ideology this time out, and the twosome end up in bed. Valandrey's commitment to the Red cause diminishes as her love for Wilson increases. She is forced to quit her local communist cell, but this is more due to jealousy than politics (her cohorts had wanted to get her in the sack themselves). Further disillusionment with the Cause comes about when Valandrey discovers that she is actually the daughter of Laurent Terzieff, a former party member who has renounced communism. Confused, Valandrey runs off with Wilson, whereupon her commie foster father, behaving like a garden-variety capitalist, brings charges against Wilson for compromising Valandrey's morals. The anti-communist subtext of Red Kiss is not the sole raison d'etre for the film; rather, it is used as backdrop for the heroine's emotional coming-of-age, as well as her struggle to establish her own values, rather than those of her family and friends. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide