Véra Belmont Movies

Based on the real life of star Dida Diafat, Chok Dee: The Kickboxer relates the tale of how Diafat learned his remarkable fighting skills. While imprisoned, Diafat came under the training of a Thai Boxing expert. At his mentor's urging, Diafat attempts to join a school that teaches an even more impressive form of the discipline, but there he must prove his worth. ~ Perry Seibert, All Movie Guide

The performer known as Farinelli, born Carlo Broschi (and played in this film by Stefano Dionisi), was famous in the 18th century as the world's greatest castrato, a male singer whose testicles were removed in childhood so that he would retain the high, clear voice of a child while gaining the control and power of an adult vocalist. A strikingly gifted singer with a range of more than three octaves, Farinelli was given little choice but to sacrifice his manhood in exchange for his art, and as his career was founded on the surgery that would dramatically restrict his off-stage life, his art was in turn hemmed in by his family. Carlo's father declared early on that he should only sing the songs of his brother Riccardo (Enrico LoVerso), and while Farinelli's fame gives Riccardo's career a needed boost, the mediocrity of Riccardo's compositions holds Farinelli back. When the singer is given the opportunity to work with the great composer Handel (Jeroen Krabbe), his brother's jealously and Farinelli's own poorly chosen career alliances stand in his way. The brothers' often contentious partnership also extends to the bedroom; while Farinelli's performances set women on fire, he's physically incapable of satisfying them sexually, so he provides the foreplay in a bizarre game of seduction and then turns his conquests over to his brother. Farinelli il Castrato received a Golden Globe award as Best Foreign Language Film of 1994 and an Academy Award nomination in the same category. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

Polish bureaucrat Jozef Burski (Donald Sutherland) all but loses his reason for living when he is "downsized" by his government. Reduced to non-person status, Burski reaches out to his friends for moral support, but they turn their backs on him. Worse still, he doesn't know why he's been targeted for this emotional abuse; every time he tries to find out, something calamitous happens. The emotional strain takes its biggest toll on Burski's wife Mira (Anne Archer), who ends up in a state asylum. Suddenly, Burski's exile is lifted: it's all been a test of his loyalty to his homeland. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Red Kiss is set in the politically supercharged Paris of 1952. 15-year-old French girl Charlotte Valandrey, the daughter of radicals, is severely beaten by the constabulary while attending a communist rally. Photojournalist Lambert Wilson pauses long enough to take a picture of the bloodied Valandrey. Fascinated by Wilson's aloofness, Valandrey attaches herself to him. She is momentarily disappointed because Wilson is not the communist that he appeared to be at first, but love is stronger than ideology this time out, and the twosome end up in bed. Valandrey's commitment to the Red cause diminishes as her love for Wilson increases. She is forced to quit her local communist cell, but this is more due to jealousy than politics (her cohorts had wanted to get her in the sack themselves). Further disillusionment with the Cause comes about when Valandrey discovers that she is actually the daughter of Laurent Terzieff, a former party member who has renounced communism. Confused, Valandrey runs off with Wilson, whereupon her commie foster father, behaving like a garden-variety capitalist, brings charges against Wilson for compromising Valandrey's morals. The anti-communist subtext of Red Kiss is not the sole raison d'etre for the film; rather, it is used as backdrop for the heroine's emotional coming-of-age, as well as her struggle to establish her own values, rather than those of her family and friends. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Based on an autobiographical novel by Marie Cardinal, this well-acted psychological drama details the tormented relationship between Marie (Nicole Garcia) and her mother, stemming from Marie's childhood on their estate in Algeria. The mother, Eliane (Marie-Christine Barrault) had lost a child before Marie was born, and was consumed with hatred for her husband who was carrying tuberculosis and may have been the cause of the child's death. That hatred was never resolved, and Marie grew up in a bitter and strained household. As both women grow older, Marie marries and raises a family while her mother sinks ever deeper into anger, frustration, poverty, and isolated despair. She vents her destructive emotions on her daughter and is completely resistent to her daughter's attempts to help her, to make her life better. At the beginning of the film, Marie has been hemorrhaging and collapses on the Metro - but instead of following the advice of her doctor (and uncle) and going through surgery, she goes into psychoanalysis, where her past slowly comes to light over a three-year period. The sessions with the psychologist and her on-going relationship with her mother unfold as the events in the film. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide

A man is left grieving for his dead family after they were shot down in a train station, innocent bystanders to a robbery gone wrong. They were never vindicated since the police seem unable (if not reluctant) to solve the case. Driven in part because he survived and they did not, and frustrated with the inept police, the man starts his own investigation with the aid of a right-wing organization that advocates citizens' militias. He discovers that a woman who also survived the train-station massacre has a brother with blood on his hands -- he is clearly the mastermind behind the "robbery" killings -- staged to effect the politically-motivated assassination of one particular man. He and the woman join ranks to bring the brother to justice, but soon they themselves are being hunted down because they know too much. The right-wing group comes on the scene again, catalyzing a final showdown that seems inevitable from the beginning. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide

Fush (Claude Brasseur) and Ballestrat (Claude Rich) are the rival police detectives who head different departments trying to capture a notorious gangster in this crime thriller. Both are not above using underhanded and illegal means to attain their goals. Marie (Marlene Jobert) a the female cop in Ballestrat's department who adds to the tension by having an affair with Fush. When an ambush attempt goes wrong, Fush puts his life in danger by confronting the gangster whose criminal activities sparked the intense manhunt. ~ Dan Pavlides, All Movie Guide

A 10-year-old boy feels unwanted when his mother places him in a home for wayward children. He goes to a foster home where a family of workers finds him to be too much for them. When the unruly child discovers the family plans to give up on him, he drowns their daughter's cat in retaliation. He is sent to another home where he is cared for by an elderly couple. The boy takes to the woman, a kindly grandmother who reaches out to the disturbed boy. His deliberate disobedience lessens somewhat in his new environment, but he is arrested after throwing bolts at cars from a bridge. The boy tries to overcome his mother's rejection and struggles to boost his self image in this childhood drama. ~ Dan Pavlides, All Movie Guide