Isabelle Sadoyan Movies

Three siblings must come to terms with their mother's mortality as they decide what to do with her valuable belongings in this warm family drama from filmmaker Olivier Assayas. Hélène Berthier (Edith Scob) is about to turn 75, and her children are gathering at her home in the country for a party. Adrienne (Juliette Binoche) has flown in from New York City, where she lives with her boyfriend, James (Kyle Eastwood). Jérémie (Jérémie Renier) has taken a rare break from his globe-trotting business interests to stop by with his wife (Valérie Bonneton). And Frédéric (Charles Berling), the only one who lives close enough to visit regularly, has also come with his spouse, Lisa (Dominique Reymond). Hélène has inherited a large and valuable collection of art from her brother, and with her health beginning to fail, she approaches Frédéric and asks that he, Jérémie, and Adrienne come up with a plan to deal with the pieces after her death. Frédéric wants to keep the collection together and see if they can persuade a gallery to purchase and present them as a set. Jérémie and Adrienne have other ideas, but as he's pondering a business opportunity in China and she's planning on settling in America for good, they don't have as much influence over the final decision as Frédéric. L'Heure d'Été (aka Summer Hours) was produced in part by the celebrated French art gallery Musée d'Orsay, and was one of a handful of films created to honor the museum in its 20th anniversary year. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

Two men with seemingly nothing in common become unlikely friends in this drama from France. Harry (Daniel Auteuil) is a salesman working for a large but faceless corporation, where he's become a success at the expense of his personal life. His wife Julie (Miou-Miou), frustrated by his lack of concern for his family, has divorced him, and while he still has visitation rights to his children, he manages to forget when it's his weekend with his daughters, and he neglects to pick them up at the train station. Harry is depressed and nearly suicidal; while driving late one rainy night, he accidentally hits a dog who is walking with Georges (Pascal Duquenne), a personable young man with Down's Syndrome. Georges lives in a mental institution, where he's happy and well cared for, but when several of the other patients leave for a weekend visit, Georges decides that he should leave too, and he sets out to visit his mother. Harry can't bring himself to leave Georges behind, so after burying the dog, he offers to drive him to his mother's home, which becomes the start of a complicated odyssey for the two of them, especially after Harry finds out that Georges' mother is no longer alive. Actor Pascal Duquenne actually does have Down's Syndrome; he and co-star Daniel Auteuil shared the Best Actor award at the 1996 Cannes Film Festival. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

This drama examines three amoral young people living in Paris. 18-year-old Nathalie (Marie Gillain) works in a clothing store and dreams of opening her own boutique in the United States. She shares an apartment with her boyfriend Eric (Olivier Sitruk) and his slow-witted pal Bruno (Bruno Putzulu); she pays the rent while they stay home and watch crime movies on television. All three are looking for a fast and easy way to make some money, so together they devise a plan. Nathalie will hang out in nightclubs, meet prosperous-looking men, and go home with them. Once she's inside their apartments, she'll let in Eric and Bruno, and they'll rob the place of cash and valuables. The plan works well at first, before things go wrong one night and Eric commands Bruno to kill their victim. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

This French drama is definitely controversial as it chronicles the sexual awakening of an 11 year old girl at the hands of a 50-year old man. The film tries to present it in a positive, and beautiful way, alluding to the fact that the curious girl wanted it to happen. The viewer can decide whether or not the film is beautiful or whether it is a glossy excuse for pedophilia. It is set just after World War II. A man has discovered and read Celine's diary which is filled with sexual longing and sensuality. The child herself, only portrayed as a photograph, describes her relations with a recently widowed hairdresser. The film contains little formal dialog and mostly focuses upon the daily lives of the people involved. The setting of the seduction is shown, but not the seduction itself. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

Jean-Luc Godard wrote, directed, and starred in this offbeat comedy. He appears as a bumbling cinematographer who drops film cannisters as he rushes to a screening, and he and others board a plane helmed by a pilot who is reading a self-help book about suicide. A philosophical narration accompanies scenes of recurring imagery. A man dancing with a woman, the vapor trail of a jet against the sky, and a dead man with a huge knife in his belly are used along with a glass door being slammed in a little girl's face. ~ Dan Pavlides, All Movie Guide

It is possible to enjoy Claude Lelouch's Man and a Woman: 20 Years Later on its own merits, though we advise that to fully appreciate the film, it's best to catch Lelouch's 1966 blockbuster A Man and a Woman first. True to its word, the 1986 film brings us up to date with the protagonists of the earlier picture. One-time movie script girl Anouk Aimee is now a producer, suffering a slump due to a string of box-office bombs. Former race car driver Jean-Louis Trintigant now books races for younger drivers. His love affair with Aimee long in the past, Tritignant is startled to receive an out-of-the-blue phone call from his former amour. She wants his permission to film a musical version of their romance, but with more "suitable" younger leads. Alas, Aimee has been part of the Studio System too long, and can't help but include a pointless subplot involving an escaped lunatic. Aimee must give up her show-biz excesses, and Tritignant must forsake his much-younger mistress Marie-Sophie Pochat, in order to clear the decks for a happy ending. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

This melodrama, set in WW II during the French occupation, tells the story of the members of a Jewish family who flee the Germans and end up hiding in the country manse of two aristocrats. Unfortunately, the Gestapo finds them and they are sent to a concentration camp. The film then leaps ahead to 1985 where the daughter of the couple begins believing that her dead brother has been reincarnated as a famed pianist. She feels this is so because both of them love Rachmaninoff's "Concerto No. 2". ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

In this cool, clinical adaptation of the novel about love and death by Yasunari Kawabata, Hugo (Andrzej Zulawski) is a writer whose one great book was based on an affair he had with Lea (Charlotte Rampling), a sculptor. Bereft of inspiration for a follow-up, Hugo returns years later to rekindle the flame of romance and creativity. Lea soundly rejects him, and her student Prudence (Myriem Roussel) feels a burning hatred for the man who deserted the woman/teacher she admires. So after Hugo returns to his wife and family in Paris, Prudence hunts him down to perversely seduce him in a mocking manner. In the meantime, she and Hugo's son Martin (Jean-Claude Adelin) fall in love for real. After Prudence goes back home, Martin comes for a visit -- with accidentally unhappy results for all concerned. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide

In this murder mystery, based on a Georges Simenon novel, a homicidal maniac goes on a killing spree beginning with his wife, whom he kept in the cellar. He then kills six of her aged friends and is preparing to murder a seventh when the intended victim dies naturally. As a substitute, he murders his favorite hooker, a crime that leads the police right to him. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

L'Adolescente (The Adolescent) was the second directorial stint for French film star Jeanne Moreau. This possibly autobiographical piece is set during the early war years. Laetitia Chauveau plays a twelve-year old girl whose future is determined by the events of one long summer holiday in the country in the period just before the outbreak of the Second World War. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Les Camisards brings events to the screen from the period in French history in which King Louis XIV ordered all Protestants to convert to Catholicism. The film begins just after the revocation of the Edict of Nantes (1598-1685), a proclamation that had granted official toleration to Protestants. Rather than being a sweeping epic, this film examines the fight of a small group of Protestants for survival in the mountainous Cevennes region. Some of the story is told using excerpts from the diary kept by an actual participant in the conflict. This movie is notable for its period authenticity and historical accuracy; it does not try to make the story into an analogy for modern issues, and the characters' concerns are correct for their time. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide