André Wilms Movies

Aki Kaurismaki's La Havre stars Andre Wilms as Marcel, a free-spirited, good-natured writer who is currently making a living as a shoeshiner. He meets Idrissa (Blondin Miguel), an African refugee and helps the young man hide from officials who want him deported., Meanwhile, Marcel's loving wife suffers from a serious illness. ~ Perry Seibert, Rovi

Gallic director François Ozon's idiosyncratic Ricky represents an attempt to weld together two polar-opposite and seemingly incompatible genres: kitchen-sink realistic drama and high-concept Spielbergian fantasy. Loosely inspired by a Rose Tremain short story, the tale opens on a council estate just east of Paris (in the Seine-et-Marne), where single mom Katie (Alexandra Lamy) ekes out a low-key and fairly miserable existence. She earns her keep as a factory worker while glumly attempting to raise her seven-year-old daughter, Lisa (Mélusine Mayance), on the side. Circumstances shift dramatically when Katie falls into an affair with a Spanish colleague, Paco (Sergi López), but no one can guess just how dramatically. Together they conceive a son whom they name Ricky, who has a
physiological quirk that makes him a freak of nature, draws a considerable amount of attention from the press, and creates all kinds of impracticalities for the parents. ~ Nathan Southern, Rovi

Francis Palluau's directorial debut Bienvenue Chez les Rozes (Welcome to the Rozes) is a comedy about a hostage situation. Gilbert (Lorant Deutsch) and MG (Jean Dujardin) escape from prison and end up hiding out at the home of Daniel and Beatrice Roze (André Wilms and Carole Bouquet), who are celebrating their 20th wedding anniversary. MG takes everyone hostage in order to get money owed to him from the theft that put him in jail, and the Rozes do not seem to be perturbed at all by the evening's turn of events. Clemence Poesy rounds out the cast as Magali, the daughter of Daniel and Beatrice. ~ Perry Seibert, Rovi

The harsh realities of prison life are parallelled with the day-to-day drone of factory work in director Bénédicte Liénard's dramatic study in compromise. Serving time in prison for an unspecified violent crime related to her employment at the factory, Joanna (Séverine Caneele) experiences the dehumanization of the penal system while her old friends on the assembly line suffer the exploitations of the working class. ~ Jason Buchanan, Rovi

Aki Kaurismaki's Juha is the fourth adaptation of this love triangle involving a woman and two men. The original story took place in the 18th century and revolved around a former servant girl, Marja, who is married to plain, simple-minded and older Juha, but in love with Russian salesman and 'Casanova' Shemeikka. Kaurismaki's story is set in the late 1970's, shot silent and furnished with captions to disclose the dialogue. It is meant to be watched with live music, preferably with the score's composer Anssi Tikanmaki conducting his own orchestra. Absence of sound (dialogue) is not really new for Kaurismaki, whose 1990 masterpiece Tulitikkutehtaan tyttö/The Match Factory Girl took 17 minutes before a word was uttered. Instead of imitating silent movies, Kaurismaki placed his version of Juha at the moment of the history of silent film when some sound could be used. Acting style and images start somewhere in the late 1920's and towards the end slowly move into the '50's B-movie style. With Timo Salmien behind the lenses, who has been collaborating as cinematographer with Aki and brother Mika Kaurismaki since 1981, and some of the regular cast (such as André Wilms, Elina Salo, Sakari Kuosmanen and Kati Outinen), Juha is distinctively a Kaurismaki film. Published in 1911, well-known Finnish author Juhani Aho's tragic drama has been filmed three times before. The first was Johan in 1920 by Mauritz Stiller, who staged it in provincial Sweden (which was a strange locale for the Finnish audiences). The second, Juha, was brought to screen in 1937 by Nyrki Tapiovaara, who was faithful to the script, but the film was not very successful. The third Juha was by Toivo Sarkka in 1956, and it was also the first Finnish film shot in color. It was the worst of the three, according to film historians, looking like a picture postcard; nevertheless, it was a big box-office hit. ~ Gönül Dönmez-Colin, Rovi

This comedy is a sequel to Aki Kaurismaki's successful Leningrad Cowboys Go America. The Lenigrad Cowboys are billed as the "worst rock'n'roll band in the world." In the last film they went to the U.S. In this film they travel from Mexico back to Lennigrad. The story begins in Mexico. The band, after having a top ten hit, decided to settle there. Their success seemed assured until they discovered the joys of tequila which killed off many of the band members. Those that didn't die went native. They were impoverished and living on cactus when they decide to travel to Coney Island to play a gig. They reunite with their old manager Vladimir who now calls himself Moses. He vows to return the band home to "the Promised Land," Siberia. ~ Sandra Brennan, Rovi

This African comedy takes a sharp, satiric poke at one of the white colonialist's most sacred cows--the humanitarian work of Dr. Albert Schweitzer. The film was shot beside Ganon's Ogooue River in Lambarene, where the real Schweitzer did most of his work, and the settings are more realistic than romanticized. The story covers the last 25 years in the Great White's African stay, and observes the changing African attitudes towards the good doctor's frequently condescending ministrations. ~ Sandra Brennan, Rovi

One would think that Maud could divorce her completely unamorous husband: in ten years of marriage, they have never once had sex. In this comedy, based on Tom Sharpe's novel Blott on the Landscape, Maud's husband is the mayor of the town they live in, and she is the hereditary owner of an ancient and glorious mansion. If she divorces him, under French law, he will gain the mansion from her. However, even if she doesn't divorce him and keeps the mansion, if her perfidious husband's current plans go through, the mansion will be blown up to make way for a new railway line. He wants to get his hands on the cash settlement that would bring. Somehow, Maud has to find a way to save her mansion, and it would be nice if, somewhere along the line she could find somebody to have sex with. ~ Clarke Fountain, Rovi

This is a well-regarded contemporary dramatic retelling of the story most familiar to audiences from Puccini's great opera La Bohème and was made by the noted Finnish film director Aki Kaurismaki. Like the opera, it is based on the novel Scènes de la vie de bohème by Henri Murger. Despite their ever-present poverty, which poses a constant threat to their continued existence, the artists and their friends in this movie speak in only the most polite, elegant, and genteel manner, which only serves to underscore their desperate situation. In the story, the poet Marcel has been unable to come up with the rent for his barely tolerable room and has been evicted from it. While wandering in his neighborhood, he catches the eye of Rodolfo, an Albanian immigrant eating in a small cafe, who waves him over and invites him to share his dinner. Though they have never met, they are soon deeply involved in a discussion about art. They leave the restaurant together and, for want of a better idea, wander back to Marcel's former room. There the poet and his new friend, the painter Rodolfo, discover an equally congenial companion in the man who just rented his room, Schaumard, an Irish composer. Just one step away from starvation most of the time, these loyal friends share resources to help one another out. On one occasion, Marcel needs a suit for a job interview and is able to borrow one from one of Rodolfo's portrait sitters long enough to be interviewed and get a paid job. With his earnings from his new editing job, Marcel buys Schaumard a car he needs. On the job, Marcel meets poor provincial girl Musette, whom he falls for, and at the same time Rodolfo finds another poor provincial girl, Mimi, on his doorstep. He quickly comes to love Mimi, but circumstances constantly thwart their being together, until he at last succeeds in making a place for them and she dies in his arms. ~ Clarke Fountain, Rovi

This drama was based on the true story of a young German Jew who survived the Holocaust by falling in with the Nazis. Solomon Perel (Marco Hofschneider) is the son of a Jewish shoe salesman coming of age in Germany during the rise of Adolf Hitler. In 1938, a group of Nazis attack Solomon's family home; his sister is killed, and 13-year-old Solomon flees to Poland. Solomon winds up in an orphanage operated by Stalinist forces; when German forces storm Poland, Solomon's fluent German allows him to join the Nazis as a translator, posing as Josef Peters, an ethnic German. In time, "Peters" is made a member of the elite Hitler Youth, but since Solomon is circumcised, he can be easily revealed as a Jew, and he lives in constant fear that his secret will be discovered. Solomon's close calls include an attempted seduction by Robert Kellerman (André Wilms), a homosexual officer, and his relationship with Leni (Julie Delpy), a beautiful but violently anti-Semitic woman who wants to bear his child for the glory of the master race. Europa, Europa (shown in Europe as Hitlerjunge Salomon) also features the real Solomon Perel, who appears briefly as himself. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi

In the 19th century, children -- particularly the children of the poor -- were considered to be an exploitable resource of docile and cheap labor who were paid starvation (literally) wages. Anyone who had the effrontery to steal so much as a portion of a loaf of bread for any reason would (at the very least) go to prison, regardless of their age. As in much of the world, this was true in France in 1847, when this film is set. However, people of conscience were beginning to protest against this situation. The story takes place in a prison for children where conditions are particularly harsh. The warden is a thick-headed martinet who demands complete compliance with the rules, or the children will be brutally dealt with. The assistant warden is a more modern man, and is appalled by the whole institution, but seeks to begin by reforming it. To that end, he has invited a journalist to come and see the conditions that prevail there, in the hopes that she will rouse public opinion against at least this one form of injustice. However, the young prisoners have their own ideas, and when they take over the prison, it is with tragic consequences. ~ Clarke Fountain, Rovi

At the suggestion of a friend, Constance (Miou-Miou) places an ad in the paper offering her services as a reader in this romantic comedy drama. Her job leads her to a variety of employers and occasional romantic involvement. Maria Casares plays the widow of an East European general who has Constance read Tolstoy and Marx. Pierre Dux is the local magistrate who prefers to hear the memoirs of the Marquis de Sade. She also has an affair with a harried business executive played by Patrick Chesnais. This film was named the "Best Feature" at the 1988 Montreal World Film Festival. ~ Dan Pavlides, Rovi