André Wilms Movies

Gallic director François Ozon's idiosyncratic Ricky represents an attempt to weld together two polar opposite and seemingly incompatible genres: kitchen-sink realist 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 (Melusine Mayance) on the side. Circumstances shift dramatically when Katie falls into an affair with a Spanish colleague, Paco (Sergi Lopez), but no one can guess just how dramatically. Together they conceive a son whom they name Ricky, and when the infant is born, he sports odd markings on his back; this gives Paco uneasy feelings and prompts him to leave the house. In time, the baby sprouts angelic wings, turning him into both a freak and a curiosity. This naturally leads to an endless series of complications, such as Katie's concern about how to dress Ricky and keep him from flying away. More disturbingly, it draws hordes of gawkers and paparazzi, who suffocate the family with intrusive attention and seem permanently unwilling to relent. ~ Nathan Southern, All Movie Guide

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, All Movie Guide

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, All Movie Guide

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, All Movie Guide

This comedy is a sequel to Aki Kaurismaki's successful Leningrad Cowboys Go America. The Lennigrad 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, All Movie Guide

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, All Movie Guide

The makers of this laudatory documentary have caught filmmaker Aki Kaurismaki at work on his film La Vie de Boheme. Aki and his brother Mika have, between them, completely revitalized Finland's native film industry, and their wild, anarchic films have delighted audiences while smashing through old storytelling conventions. They are unusual in being considered as artistically advanced as they are popular with viewing audiences (one of their more successful comedies was Leningrad Cowboys Go America, about a crew of clueless Finnish country-western musicians). Various dignitaries in the modern film world offer their tribute to this exuberant and prolific filmmaker in French or English, and the filmmaker himself offers insights into his views and motivations. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide

In the late-18th century, it was unusual for anyone to become a master craftsman before the age of twenty, much less a master clockmaker. In this story, eighteen-year-old master clockmaker Max Bardo (Jonathan Zaccai) has come to the attention of a wealthy aristocratic inventor, who has hired him to repair the clocks in his chateau. When the young man arrives there, the inventor has died, but he is kept on to do the job he was hired for. Before long, he becomes an innocent pawn in the elaborate games of the inventor's upper-class heirs and associates, who are seeking to use the young man in their quest for a legendary device made by the dead man. Soon, Max winds up in a duel with one of the aristocrats. His challenger dies during the duel, but not at Max's hands. Despite the fact that a good number of the onlookers know perfectly well that he is innocent of the killing, the consequences (including an elaborate revenge scheme) fit their plans perfectly. Then as now, the powerless innocent have little defense against the subtle plots of depraved pillars of society. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide

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, All Movie Guide

Life is a Long Quiet River is the satirically philosophical title for this French domestic comedy. Borrowing a page from The Corsican Brothers, the film begins with a castoff mistress spitefully switching a pair of newborn babies at the maternity ward managed by her doctor lover. As a result, the daughter (Valerie Lalande) of a family of tramps and thieves is raised in a comfy bourgeois household, while the lowlife family ends up with the middle-class family's offspring (Benoit Magimel). Twelve years after the fact, the discarded mistress confesses to her misdeed. The mistress' ex-lover, doctor Daniel Gelin, tries to set things right, with hilariously disastrous consequences. Director Etie Chatiliez had received his training in French TV commercials, so it's not surprising that Life is a Long Quiet River is a string of anecdotes and punchlines. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Pacifist and enigmatic throughout, Le Soldat Qui Dort opens with a little boy crawling along the floor of a hospital ward where his father lies in a coma. On a train, going to a remote village where it is safer, the boy sees the coach car filled with soldiers covered in dried mud, sitting like apparitions waiting for eternity to end. Once at the village, an elderly woman takes the boy under her wing and everything is peaceful until her son comes home from the war and displays behavior typical of post-traumatic stress syndrome -- sudden bursts of anger complicated by swings in mood like those of a manic-depressive. The little boy, ever quiet, continues to observe this ex-soldier and the world around him with no commentary or clear references to reveal his thoughts, or to even reveal if he is the "sleeping soldier" of the title. This puzzle and the many others in the under-explained images is likely to leave most viewers wondering what the full meaning of the film might be. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide