Mag Bodard Movies

Noted French filmmaker Demy's wife Agnes Varda helmed this intensely personal tribute to her late husband. It is her third such tribute and is the only one to look deeply into Demy's vision as a director and his filmmaking techniques. To do so, she uses perfectly preserved film clips from each of the director's works and interviews with those who knew and loved him. Those interviewed include actress Catherine Deneuve, actress Anouk Aimee, actor Michel Piccoli, composer Michel Legrand, his own children and others, including female fans whose lives where influenced by his work. Also included are intimate home movies of him during a visit by Francois Truffaut and the late Jim Morrison. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

Also known as The Best Way to Walk, this film was originally released in France as La Meilleure Façon de Marcher. It was the first feature-length effort of François Truffaut associate/disciple Claude Miller. Patrick Dewaere and Patrick Bouchitey head the cast as a pair of teenage summer-camp counselors. Despite their late-adolescent rivalries and sexual confusion, each of them achieves some sort of awakening. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

This well-made period melodrama, set in late 19th-century France, highlights the worldly, flirtatious fashion of the day and the demands of genuine piety on the one hand and debauchery on the other. Aurore (Francoise Fabian) is a high-minded but flirtatious woman of society who charmingly refuses the attentions of one man, claiming she would have had to completely lost heart to marry such an old miser as he. She falls for completely debauched charmer Raphael (Maurice Ronet) and hopes at first to win him to a life of virtue. Unsuccessful in this and deeply obsessed with him, she then simply hopes to win him and, in the attempt, enters further and further into his depraved world. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide

In this thriller a beautiful girl approaches a journalist in a Parisian bar. Her clothing is in tatters and she seems dazed. She tells him that someone has drugged her and that she needs a place to rest. The gentlemanly journalist obliges and takes her home. The following day, she has fully recovered and they stroll through town. The woman believes that someone is following her, and she suddenly disappears. Later the writer reads the paper and learns that her body was found in a car wreck. He is highly skeptical and tries to find her. Sure enough, he learns that the death was a ruse staged by her stepfather who wanted to collect on her insurance policy. The journalist saves the young woman from her step-parent, and the two fall in love. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

A gorgeous woman takes it upon herself to make a man fall for her, whether he likes it or not, in this romantic comedy. Gaspard (Jean-Pierre Cassel) is a successful musician who owns a large estate in the country; he lives a quiet life with few distraction, and prefers to keep it that way. However, Gaspard's peace is disturbed one day when he gets into a minor traffic accident with Felicia (Brigitte Bardot), a beautiful but eccentric divorcee driving a Rolls-Royce. Felicia is immediately taken with Gaspard, but he doesn't much care for her; sensing a challenge, Felicia makes it her goal to turn Gaspard's head and make him fall in love with her. However, the harder Felicia tries, Gaspard puts up an even greater fight, and their potential romance turns into a high-stakes battle of wits. While Brigitte Bardot was still lovely and glamorous at 35 when she made L'Ours et la Poupee, she was nearing the end of her career as Europe's greatest female star; within five years, she would retire from acting. Collectors take note: though this film was originally shot and released in Eastmancolor, at least one U.S. video release issued the picture in a dubbed, black-and-white version. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

In this drama, a young wife stays alone in her opulent apartment after her husband and her maid leave. Suddenly the doorbell rings. She opens it to find a strange gun-toting man who bursts in and chloroforms her. She later awakens and finds herself tied to the couch. The stranger warns her not to scream. They begin talking and the man implies that her husband is in danger. The phone rings occasionally and he answers it telling the caller that all is well. Later he frees her so she can cook for them. She tries to call the police and he nearly kills her. Because she finds her enigmatic captor attractive and intelligent, the woman goes to bed with him. Later her husband calls and says he will be home soon. The stranger says his job is finished and he leaves. She then begins getting the house ready for the party she and her husband had planned. Among the guests is the mysterious stranger. After the party, the wife finds she is unable to sleep. The doorbell rings. The stranger has come again. But why? ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

Pierre Clementi plays the title role in the French-filmed Benjamin. A callow teenager of the 18th century, Benjamin spends a summer with his worldly relatives on their summer estate. An orphan girl (Catherine Deneuve) living on a neighboring estate, inaugurates an affair with Benjamin. In true La Ronde fashion, the girl then sleeps with a landed-gentry (Michel Piccoli), who sleeps with a countess (Michelle Morgan), who ends up in the sack with her nephew Benjamin. Benjamin has also been released under the faintly misleading title The Diary of an Innocent Boy. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Jacques Demy directed this frothy tribute to the Hollywood musicals of the 1940s, a follow-up to his earlier success The Umbrellas of Cherbourg (1964). Twin sisters Delphine and Solange (played by real-life sisters Catherine Deneuve and Françoise Dorleac) live in the small coastal town of Rochefort, where they run a school teaching dancing and music. Both feel frustrated in Rochefort, and they dream of travelling to Paris, where they believe romance and opportunity awaits them. Meanwhile, their single mother, Yvonne (Danielle Darrieux), who runs a cafe in town, pines for her lost love, Simon (Michel Piccoli). One day, one of Yvonne's regular customers, a sailor with an artistic bent named Maxence (Jacques Perrin), shows her a painting of the imaginary girl of his dreams, and she looks just like Delphine, whom he's never met. Meanwhile, Simon has returned to Rochefort, bringing with him a close friend, American pianist Andy Miller (Gene Kelly); Simon has made friends with Solange and introduces her to Andy, who immediately falls in love with her. Sadly, Les Demoiselles de Rochefort was Françoise Dorleac's last film; she died in an auto accident shortly after completing the picture. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

Robert Bresson's acclaimed Au Hasard, Balthazar presents an unfettered view of human cruelty, suffering and injustice, filtered through the eyes of a donkey over the course of his long life. The burro at the film's center begins life peacefully and happily, as the unnamed play-object of some innocent children in bucolic France, but his circumstances change dramatically when he becomes the property of a young woman named Marie - who christens him Balthazar. As she grows up and encounters tragedy and heartbreak, so does Balthazar; he passes from owner to owner, who treat him in a variety of ways, from compassionately to cruelly. The donkey, of course, lacks the capacity to comprehend the motivations of each individual but accepts whatever treatment (and role) is handed him, nobly and admirably. Bresson ultimately uses the story as a heart-rending allegorical commentary on human spiritual transcendence. ~ Nathan Southern, All Movie Guide

Jacques Demy's 1964 masterpiece is a pop-art opera, or, to borrow the director's own description, a film in song. This simple romantic tragedy begins in 1957. Guy Foucher (Nino Castelnuovo), a 20-year-old French auto mechanic, has fallen in love with 17-year-old Geneviève Emery (a luminous Catherine Deneuve), an employee in her widowed mother's chic but financially embattled umbrella shop. On the evening before Guy is to leave for a two-year tour of combat in Algeria, he and Geneviève make love. She becomes pregnant and must choose between waiting for Guy's return or accepting an offer of marriage from a wealthy diamond merchant (Marc Michel, reprising his role from Demy's masterful debut, Lola). A completely sung movie, The Umbrellas of Cherbourg is closest in form to a cinematic opera. Composer Michel Legrand composed the score, modeling it around the patterns of everyday conversation. Umbrellas was re-released in 1997. ~ Jason Ankeny, All Movie Guide