Christian Roy Movies
- 1994
- PG
A jungle boy comes to Paris in this French adventure that while primarily aimed towards children, will be equally enjoyable to adult audiences. The film opens with Steph, an international trader, winging to Venezuela to formally divorce his estranged wife Patricia who left him thirteen years ago to live in Lipo-Lipo, a remote outpost deep in the Amazon. While he is there, Steph discovers that Patricia secretly bore him a son, Mimi-Siku. Mimi is truly a child of the jungle, but he longs to see the Eiffel Tower. He returns to Paris with his father. Upon arrival, Steph is dismayed to discover that his partner Richard has fumbled a major soybean deal and that both of their jobs are on the line. While Richard and Steph are frantically trying to sell their excess beans which includes suspicious interactions with the Russian Mafia, Mimi-Siku, dressed in his loincloth and carrying his bow and arrow, explores his new home. Pandemonium ensues as the boy climbs the Eiffel Tower, begins shooting and eating aquarium fish, and accidently terrifying people with his pet tarantula. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Thierry Lhermitte, Patrick Timsit, (more)
Edmond Rostand's classic drama of inner and outer beauty is given a lavish treatment in this acclaimed French production. Gérard Depardieu portrays the title character, a brilliant, charismatic swordsman with a generous spirit and a genius for poetry. It would seem that such a man would have no trouble attracting women, but Cyrano considers himself doomed to loneliness by an unattractive face featuring an oversized nose. His feelings of inadequacy are emphasized when Roxane, the beautiful woman he adores, attracts the attention of Christian, a young cadet in Cyrano's service. Christian lacks the poetic gift, however, and he ironically turns to Cyrano for help in winning Roxane's love. What follows is a tale of deception, with Roxane falling in love with the ineloquent Christian thanks to Cyrano's words of love. The underlying narrative has become quite familiar to modern audiences through retellings and variations from the 1950 adaptation starring José Ferrer to Steve Martin's Roxanne. Director Jean-Paul Rappeneau's interpretation stresses the tragic majesty of the original, setting a vigorous performance by Depardieu against a beautifully designed reproduction of the period and an emphasis on the sound and poetry of Rostand's original language; the subtitles for the film's English release were penned by renowned British author Anthony Burgess. This attention to detail creates a particularly faithful cinematic rendering of the original work that met with positive critical responses. ~ Judd Blaise, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Gérard Depardieu, Anne Brochet, (more)
