André Wilms Movies
- 1988
France (Catherine Deneuve) is a haughty, bourgeoise wife abandoned by her husband by the side of the road after a vicious quarrel. She meets Charles (Gerard Depardieu), a doctor who has spent the last two nights taking his car engine apart and now can't get it back together. The meeting of the two strangers is the focus of the film, along with their encounters with characters at a truck stop. The lonely doctor understands the disturbed woman who is in denial and who thinks her husband will be coming back for her. ~ Dan Pavlides, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Catherine Deneuve, Gérard Depardieu, (more)
- 1987
- PG
In 19th century Europe, it was not uncommon in times of war for young aristocrats to hire peasant boys to fight in their place. Such a surrogate is portrayed by Cris Campion in the French Field of Honor (Champ d'Honneur). The conflict at hand is the Franco-Prussian war, which was virtually fought in the backyards of its combatants. Finding himself behind enemy lines, Campion befriends a Prussian soldier who, like himself, is a substitute. Together, Campion and his new comrade try to elude capture, learning a great deal about each other along the way. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Cris Campion, Pascale Rocard, (more)
- 1984
Gérard Depardieu's version of Tartuffe brings no innovative cinematic flair to the story of an outrageous and daring imposter who passes himself off as a haughty, pious priest (Tartuffe, also played by Depardieu), in order to gain access to the fortune and properties - and daughter - of the gullible merchant Orgon (François Périer). Molière's play was equally daring for its time, and was actually banned for five years until he adjusted the ending to give Tartuffe his come-uppance, and placate the French clergy in the process. Depardieu should have taken the lead of Molière, when he took the lead of this film, and displayed more creative bravado at the helm. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- François Perier, Gérard Depardieu, (more)
- 1984
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
- Starring:
- André Wilms, Laurent Pahud, (more)
- 1983
This West German film chronicles the trials of a group of people fleeing the invading Russian army in 1944-45 in the area of Pomerania in eastern Germany. Caught in the dead of winter, several men, women and children load themselves and their belongings onto horse-drawn wagons to start their journey to safety. At one point, the group reaches a farm where everyone in the family has committed suicide, and at another juncture they are hiding in the basement of a house when some Soviet soldiers come to the door looking for refugees. The French POWs who were in the house try to send the soldiers away, but they fail -- the soldiers discover the refugees and are about to rape the women when the Soviet officer in charge prevents that atrocity. These and other stories of a fictional group of refugees were taken from real accounts at this time. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Armin Mueller-Stahl, Marie-Charlotte Schüler, (more)
