Lucas Belvaux Movies

The bleakest and most claustrophobic nightmare of many a European actualizes in director Régis Wargnier's apocalyptic thriller Pars vite et reviens tard (AKA Have Mercy on Us All). Not long after his abandonment by his girlfriend, French police captain Jean-Baptiste Adamsberg is confronted by a string of bizarre signs strewn across Paris - strange talismans and omens that appear inexplicably on Parisian doors, whispered words that forebode an unspeakable onslaught of doom. All suggest someone's crude warning, and a riddle that Adamsberg must solve to stave off a coming tragedy - but the meaning eludes the captain until calamity hits: the Plague returns, wiping out scores of victims in its wake. And more problematically, it appears that some malevolent soul is single-handedly controlling the outbreak, willing it wherever he or she chooses. Lucas Belvaux, Marie Gillain, Michel Serrault and Mathias Mlekuz co-star; Wargnier co-authored the script with Harriet Marin, Lawrence Shore, Julien Rappeneau and Ariane Fert, adapted from the novel by Fred Vargas. ~ Nathan Southern, All Movie Guide

Director Chantal Akerman helmed this offbeat comedy about a mother and daughter who find themselves living together again for the first time in many years. Still reeling emotionally from the recent death of her husband, Catherine (Aurore Clément) has chosen to leave her old home and move in with her grown daughter, Charlotte (Sylvie Testud). While Charlotte is sympathetic, she's something less than enthusiastic; her mother's mood swings and the clutter of her collected belongings are cramping her home and her style, and when Catherine decides to revive her career as a piano teacher, the constant parade of youngsters bludgeoning the keyboard makes it all but impossible for Charlotte to complete her latest writing project. Catherine and Charlotte decide to look for more spacious living quarters, while Charlotte is also in search of her own office space. As a steady stream of prospective tenants check out their home, Charlotte makes friends with a pregnant woman looking for a new flat (Natacha Régnier), while her search for a space of her own brings Charlotte a relationship with a like-minded realtor (Jean-Pierre Marielle) and an unlikely collaborator in Michelle (Elsa Zylberstein), a poet who enjoys tinkering with Charlotte's prose. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

Inspired by Lawrence Durrell's collection of interrelated novels, The Alexandria Quartet, Lucas Belvaux's trilogy--the violent noir On the Run, the romantic comedy An Amazing Couple, and the melodrama After the Life, examine many of the same characters from three distinct perspectives. In On the Run, taciturn leftist revolutionary Bruno (Belvaux) escapes from prison with the help of one of his former comrades. When his partner is killed by the police, Bruno tracks down another former member of his gang, Jeanne (Catherine Frot), who is now living a quiet, respectable life as a schoolteacher, with a husband and a young son. Bruno is determined to get revenge on the powerful man who betrayed his revolution. Jeanne doesn't want to live in the past. She offers Bruno enough help to get rid of him. Trying to trap his prey, Bruno follows a drug dealer who works for the man. He meets Agnes (Dominique Blanc), a junkie who happens to be the wife of the cop, Pascal (Gilbert Melki) who's hunting Bruno. Bruno ends up helping Agnes avoid the police and cop a fix. In return, she takes him to the vacation home of her co-worker, Cecile (Ornella Muti), where he hides out. But when his plans for revenge go horribly awry, Bruno turns to Jeanne again, and she has to weigh her family's safety against her allegiance to her old friend. While On the Run focuses on Bruno and Jeanne, An Amazing Couple is centered on the paranoid Cecile, who hires Pascal to watch her husband, while After the Life deals with the damaged marriage of Agnes and Pascal. The trilogy was shown at the 2003 Tribeca Film Festival. ~ Josh Ralske, All Movie Guide

Michel and Juliette have just broken up over Michel's affair with the much younger Romance. Alice and Nicolas are still together, but maybe this is because Nicolas does not know of Alice's affair with handsome sports photographer Gaspard. This sly sex comedy, the sophomore effort of Belgian filmmaker Lucas Belvaux, follows the covert sexual misadventures of the troubled foursome. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

Financial backers from three different countries--Belgium, Canada, France--converged upon the domestic drama L'Air de Rein (Easy In Mind). Carole Courtoy stars as a woman who is convinced that she has only a few months to live. In the time left, she wanders through various European communities, seeking out new experiences. Throughout, we're never sure if her illness will suddenly snatch her away, a fact which adds a veneer of suspense to the proceedings. Given its largest showing at the Barcelona Film Festival, L'Air de Rien was written and directed by Mary Jimenez. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

In a routine murder mystery based on a novel by Dominique Roulet, a cruel, wheelchair-bound invalid (Stephane Audran) who consistently terrorizes her teen son Louis (Lucas Belvaux) into abject obedience, is threatened with the loss of her home by a conniving trio who want her property as part of a deal for a lucrative development project. The three men are comprised of a butcher (Jean-Claude Bouillaud), a doctor (Jean Topart), and a notary (Michel Bouquet). Louis is a postal worker who is fending off the attentions of Henriette at the office (Pauline Lafont), and brings his mother all the mail scheduled for their trio of enemies, whereupon she steams it open and keeps herself informed about their plans. In retaliation for their attempts to seize his home, young Louis pours sugar into the butcher's gas tank which ultimately causes a fatal accident, and in fact, the doctor's wife has also died in a car accident. And now the notary's mistress is missing. Enter, at last, the imperious and heavy-handed Inspector Jean Lavardin (Jean Poiret) to finally go after the clues and the suspects until the case is solved. He succeeds admirably, and as a consequence, appears on his own in 1985's Inspector Lavardin. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide

The Boy Soldier is set in the 1930s and is based on a novel by Yves Gibeau, a book that has the unusual distinction of being banned in military precincts in France. In the film, a young fellow, Simon Chalumet (Lucas Belvaux) is sent to a military school by his overbearing father, an ex-soldier who has little sympathy for his son's more gentle temperament, or for his interest in films. In spite of various forms of harassment meant to whip the young men into shape, Simon does survive the years of harsh treatment with his own interests and basic nature unscathed. Reality intrudes in the end, when Simon is sent to the front and faces war and combat for the first time. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide