Jean-Paul Roussillon Movies

La Chair et le Diable (The Devil and the Pulpit) is a serviceable vehicle for the magnificent Vivienne Romance. The star plays the sensuous wife of farm-owner Peter Van Eyck, who has recently hired itinerant laborer Rossano Brazzi. Sure enough, Vivienne and Brazzi inaugurate a torrid affair, with Vivienne as the aggressor. Shortly afterward, Van Eyck disappears, and when a mangled body turns up, the illicit lovers are accused of the crime. When Van Eyck does show up, it is to late to prevent a tragedy of near-apocalyptic dimensions. Oddly enough, this "outdoors" melodrama is largely filmed within the walls of a studio. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

This legendary opera by Mozart is lavishly produced and comedically performed with great skill by the Comedie Francaise. Andre Cadou conducts the orchestra. The award winning troupe brings its own special brand of humor to the story without compromising the plot or the grandeur of this audio and visual spectacle. ~ Dan Pavlides, All Movie Guide

This French sex farce is translated in English as The Trout. Joseph Losey directed and co-wrote the film, which stars Isabelle Huppert as Frederique, a young woman living on her family's rural trout farm. Frederique is trapped in a dull marriage to a rube. She decides to leave him and the trout farm for the city; she wants to make her living in the financial sector. She ends up in a cutthroat corporate world and meets up with the sophisticated Lou (the legendary Jeanne Moreau). Frederique finds herself trading sexual favors for corporate advancement and becoming more deeply involved in a complicated series of business dealings. Eventually, she longs for a return to her simpler life on the trout farm. ~ Michael Betzold, All Movie Guide

The "clowns" in this downbeat, sometimes brutal drama are anything but. The story is set among the down and out of Paris, none of whom are wholly sane. Melies (Daniel Kenigsberg) is an alcoholic whose former purpose in life was to make films. Now he focuses on drinking and his love for the ill-fated Absinthe (no doubt her name, as well as Melies of silent movie fame, were chosen with double meanings in mind). Absinthe wanders out of Melies's life and is gang-raped, leaving her even more withdrawn and out of touch with reality than before. She finds some refuge for awhile with a man named Carcass. Another character is looking for God in the sewers and watering holes of Paris but finds only misery and personal suffering, as a loveless and cruel world emerges into all of their lives. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide

Juliette (Nastassja Kinski) is a hairstylist who is diagnosed with cancer in this tearjerking romantic drama. Her illness leads her to oncologist Raoul Bergeron (Michel Piccoli), and she ends up as his mistress. When Juliette falls in love with Raoul's intern Clement (Jean-Hughes Anglade), the jealous doctor threatens to sabotage Clement's career. Juliette spends the rest of the film jumping from Raoul to Clement and back again. ~ Dan Pavlides, All Movie Guide

Pierre Vergne (Claude Chabrol) is an opportunist who weasels his way into the lives of the nurse Francoise (Valerie Allain) and her husband Jacques (Fabrice Luchini), an ambulance driver. He convinces the couple he is wealthy and hasn't long to live and that they will become the sole heirs to his alleged fortune. Micheline Presle and Jean-Paul Roussillon co-star in this wry comedy. ~ Dan Pavlides, All Movie Guide

The French-filmed Baxter is based on the American novel Hell Hound. The title character is a bull terrier, who in the course of the film has many masters--and for good reason. Baxter has been instrumental in the deaths or serious injuries of most of the human beings who've come in contact with him. The dog's latest owner is a young neo-Nazi. nd Baxter makes it quite clear (to the audience at least) what he has in store for this fellow. Don't be misled by the title or the fact that the leading character is a dog with a full range of human emotions; Baxter is not a family film. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

The Italians have bocce ball, and the French have a similar game, boules. This is played (generally in the southern part of the country) with steel balls on a packed-earth court. While these games have a bucolic, countrified and even genteel air about them, competition and betting are fierce. In this sports/crime thriller, a young man whose father was killed for violating the unspoken roles of the game in professional competition trains with his grandfather to become a champion boules player just like his father. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide

In this pleasant, largely uneventful drama, Jules' problems outside the home with girls and school work are reflected by the on-again, off-again support he receives from his mother in their perpetual conflict with his controlling father. In a humorous moment, Jules' mom has an embarrassing time shopping for condoms, which she is getting because she's thinking about having an affair. The boy stays after school quite frequently so that his instructor can collect overtime pay while practicing (with Jules) lines for a play he is hoping to appear in. Another friend of his is suing the school for educational malpractice: he can't get a job, so they must have done something wrong. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide

A brave and resourceful young woman keeps the spirit of the Three Musketeers alive in this historical adventure. Eloise (Sophie Marceau) is the daughter of the famed swordsman D'Artagnan (Philippe Noiret); while she has a remarkable gift with a blade herself, Eloise is devoting herself to her studies at a convent. However, when a slave escapes from the estate of the evil Duke of Crassac (Claude Rich) and seeks refuge in the convent, the Mother Superior (Pascale Roberts) is murdered in retaliation by the Duke's soldiers. In the midst of the attack, Eloise learns that the Duke and his men have even more dastardly plans in store; the murder of the Mother Superior is part on an ongoing scheme to throw the nation into disarray, making it easier for the Duke to overthrow the King and seize power. Joined by Quentin (Nils Tavernier), a poet, Eloise sets out to call her father and his old compatriots to action to stop the Duke; however, D'Artagan, who now lives a quiet life teaching fencing, isn't so sure he wants to wage a battle against the insurgent forces, no matter how awful they may be. La Fille de d'Artagnan (The Daughter of d'Artagnan) was released in the United States as Revenge of the Musketeers; leading lady Sophie Marceau does her own fencing on screen. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

In this French slapstick comedy, a boozy boxer, is again beaten to a pulp in the ring and decides to head for the Mediterranean resort of Norbonne where his brother owns a pizza wagon. En route he teams up with an aspiring con man, who has also been beaten up. As they travel southward, they meet many odd characters and have a variety of madcap adventures. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

The film is based on a true story of a young actor, Robert Hugues Lambert, who was hired to play the role of aviation hero Mermoz in occupied France during WW II. But his career came to a brutal end when his homosexuality was discovered and he was sent to a Nazi camp. The Vichy government's directive to bring to screen edifying films based on national myths, such as Charlemagne or Joan of Arc, led one producer to decide to make a film about Mermoz, an airmail pioneer who perished at the height of his fame, crashing in 1936. This symbolic figure was also an activist in an extreme rightwing party, the vice-president of a movement known as 'The Crosses of Fire.' Lambert, a relatively obscure theatre actor was hired for his physical resemblance. Another actor was hired to complete the film, but the sound crew managed to smuggle a microphone through the barbed wires to get a recording of Lambert's voice. The film had its premiere in Paris, but Lambert was shipped to Auschwitz, never to return. Based on this story, Jean Claude Grumberg wrote a fictional comedy about making a film during the Occupation. He decided that only a comedy could narrate the way most French people went about their business with their heads in the sand during the Occupation, seeking refuge in derivative comedy. The film's light tone, however, changes dramatically at the end when Lambert is taken away. ~ Gönül Dönmez-Colin, All Movie Guide