Jean Cosmos Movies

Laetitia Casta stars in director Gilles Legrand's drama concerning an Edwardian-era girl whose fate becomes permanently intertwined with that of the last wolf pack on Mont Blanc. Angele (Casta) is a child who lives in a French Alpine town with her taxidermist father Leon (Patrick Chesnais). Shortly after Leon receives a pile of wolf corpses that he plans to stuff, Angele notices an orphaned black cub descending from the mountains in search of his family. Angele realizes that trappers will kill the cub if they find him, so she quietly releases him back into the wild. Years later, following World War I, a local family named The Garcins have struck it rich from business at their foundry; Leon named the Garcin patriarch, Albert, Angele's godfather. A benevolent and generous soul, Albert has given a local gypsy and her developmentally disabled son Guiseppe (Stefano Accorsi) a lifetime lease on a nearby mountain shack. Giuseppe guards several surviving wolves with his life, taking a special shine to the black pack leader he names Carbone. Meanwhile, Angele - who is now a young woman - longs to become a veterinarian specializing in undomesticated animals. Though the local men scoff at the idea of a female veterinarian, Angele ignores these naysayers. In order to gain some professional veterinary experience, she recruits circus owner Zhormov (Miglen Mirtchev) to fly her into the mountains that tower above her hometown, where she hopes to find wild animals. During the course of their journey, however, the plane crashes and Angele must wait as Zhormov searches for help. But sometimes help arrives in the most unexpected of forms, such as the black wolf that recognizes Angele's scent from the days when he was just a frightened pup. ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide

Jean Becker's Effroyables Jardins (Strange Gardens) is a tale of survival during WWII. At the beginning of the 1960s, French teenager Lucien (Damien Jouilleot) is deeply embarrassed by the quirky behavior of his father Jacques (Jacques Villeret), as well as Jacques' ongoing performances as a clown at public celebrations. Lucien's mother, Louise (Isabelle Candelier), does nothing to stop her husband. Jacques' friend Andre (Andre Dussollier) tells Lucien about Jacques' experience during the war, a time when both Jacques and Andre were in love with Louise. After doing their part for the French resistance, Jacques and Andre are captured by the Nazis and informed that they may well be executed in less than twenty-four hours. Their unusual relationship with a Nazi guard makes all the difference, and reveals to Lucien the motivation behind his father's actions. ~ Perry Seibert, All Movie Guide

During the Nazi occupation of France during World War II, the nation's movie studios continued to operate; some filmmakers and technicians simply went along with what their new leaders demanded in hopes keeping themselves and their families safe, while others sought to subvert the messages of their captors through their work. Safe Conduct, directed by Bertrand Tavernier, is a fact-based period drama which examines two men working for a Parisian film company during 1942 and 1943, as well as their friends, family, and loved ones. Jean Devaivre (played by Jacques Gamblin) is an assistant director for Continental Pictures, a studio which has recently been taken over by the Germans and is headed by Dr. Greven (Christian Berkel), a self-styled aficionado of French filmmaking. With a wife (Marie Desgranges) and a newborn son to support, Devaivre feels he has little choice but to continue with his work, though as he rises from assisting to becoming a full fledged director thanks to the efforts of Maurice Tourneur (Philippe Morier-Genoud), he struggles to work his own views into his pictures as much as he can. Screenwriter Jean Aurenche (Denis Podalydes), a man who lives for wine, women and song (not necessarily in that order), refuses to work for Greven, and as he bounces between his many lovers - actress Suzanne Raymond (Charlotte Kady), no-nonsense streetwalker Olga (Marie Gillain), and soft-hearted Reine (Maria Pitarresi), a struggles to find a way to make a living with his words. Both Devaivre and Aurenche were real-life figures in the French film industry during the occupation, as were many of Safe Conduct's supporting characters; the real life Aurenche went on to write the screenplay for Bertrand Travernier's first feature film. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

This period swashbuckler, set during the years 1699 to 1716, is the seventh screen adaptation of Paul Feval's 1857 serialized novel. Trained in circus stunts and fencing, Lagardere (Daniel Auteuil) becomes the bodyguard of the Duke of Nevers (Vincent Perez), whose cousin is the greedy Gonzague (Luchini). Nevers learns he is a father and plans to marry Blanche de Caylus (Claire Nebout) in order to raise an heir. Gonzague dispatches assassins to kill Nevers, Blanche, and their baby. Dying, Nevers turns the child over to Lagardere, asking him to gain revenge on his killers. The infant is a girl, and Lagardere and the child hide amidst an Italian troupe of actors. Years pass, and the young Aurore (Marie Gillain) grows up believing Lagardere is her father. When the actors arrive in Paris 16 years after Nevers death, Lagardere at last sets the stage for revenge. Swordfight choreography by Michel Carliez, son of the fight expert who trained Jean Marais for the 1959 film of Le Bossu. Shown at the 1997 Acapulco French Film Festival and the 1997 Bastia Festival of Mediterranean Cinema. ~ Bhob Stewart, All Movie Guide

This metaphorical drama, about the changes brought to French society by revolution, stars Gérard Depardieu as Chabert, a French soldier who served under Napoleon in 1807 and was thought to have died in battle. In fact, Chabert was nearly buried in a mass grave with a large number of deceased soldiers, but he managed to crawl from the pile of corpses and has been wandering through the French countryside ever since. In the ten years since his "death," Chabert's wife (Fanny Ardant) has spent his fortune and gone on to marry Count Ferraud (Andre Dussolier), which has made her a woman of wealth and power. When Chabert, now a lumbering tramp, confronts the Countess, she refuses to admit that he was once her husband, and Chabert takes her to court to recover his money and property. Colonel Chabert was based on a novella by Honoré de Balzac, and it marked the directorial debut of Yves Angelo, previously one of France's top cinematographers. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

The grim post-World War I era in Europe is grist for director Bertrand Tavernier's mill in Life and Nothing But. Philipe Noiret portrays a French major who is supervising the gruesome task of counting and identifying the corpses still strewn over the battlefield. Noiret is obsessed with the notion that, by doing his job above and beyond the call of duty, he can somehow make up for the carnage in which he participated a few years earlier. The major's mission is intercut with short vignettes involving the families and loved ones of the dead, and with the efforts by another officer to find a suitable candidate for an Unknown Soldier testimonial. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Hi, Doc! was the flippant English-language title bestowed upon the French seriocomedy Bonjour Toubib. That splendid comic actor Noel-Noel stars as a seemingly bumptious physician, regarded as an object of ridicule by his superiors, and not a few of his patients. In true Capraesque fashion, it turns out that the doctor has a lot more on the ball than his so-called brilliant colleagues. A subplot concerns the leading character's son, who has the qualifications but none of the desire to follow in his father's footsteps. Bonjour Toubib was a curiously lightweight choice for the Cannes Film Festival of 1957. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide