Anne Canovas Movies

Cesar award-winning actor Jean-Pierre Darroussin makes his feature directorial debut with this satirical tale about a well-to-do Parisian lawyer who takes flight from the middle class. Charles Benesteau (Darroussin) is a forty seven year old lawyer who has grown tired of bourgeois hypocrisy. The husband of a terminally pretentious art maven, Charles leaves behind his marriage and comfortable house for a modest apartment on a multi-ethnic, working class neighborhood. Though at first his new, low-rent lifestyle brings Charles a level of happiness never achieved in his posh old neighborhood, things quickly turn chaotic when his feuding neighbors stick him with their troubled teenage daughter as they wage World War 3 behind paper-thin walls. ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide

Acclaimed and controversial French filmmaker Jean-Francois Richet directed and co-wrote this bleak look at a young woman whose first missteps in life take her farther than she ever expected along a dangerous path. Maria (Virginie Ledoyen) is a bright and attractive but not especially responsible young woman who is used to having things go her way in life. Out of school and with no clear career path, Maria ends up taking a job putting together cushions for chairs. But after a single day on the job she quits, claiming the work hurts her hands and she'd rather start her own restaurant. As Maria plots her next move, she impulsively swipes a piece of lingerie from a store, then tries to lie her way out of the situation when she's caught. But Maria finds that words can't get her out of this bind, and soon she's in jail and dealing with much deeper trouble than she ever imagined possible. De L'Amour also features French hip-hop artist Stomy Bugsy as a drug dealer who is friendly with Maria's boyfriend, played by Yazid Ait. Ait also contributed to the film's screenplay. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

The relationship between the obsessive, brilliant painter Vincent Van Gogh and his more practical brother Theo is at the center of director Robert Altman's well-received biography, originally produced as a miniseries for European television. Now universally acknowledged as masterpieces, Vincent Van Gogh's works were ignored in his lifetime, despite the best efforts of Theo, a struggling gallery owner. When he fails to make a profit from his brother's work, Theo finds himself torn between art and commerce, a conflict deepened by Vincent's increasing emotional neediness. Soon, the situation worsens, and both brothers are forced to struggle with depression and madness. Altman's distinctive directorial approach avoids clichés, allowing his leads to create contradictory and sometimes unlikable characters. Tim Roth captures Vincent's devotion to his art, his difficult personality, and his descent into mental illness without resorting to histrionics, while Paul Rhys provides equally proficient work as the more repressed Theo. The cinematography by Jean Lepine illuminates the links between Altman's trademark wandering camera and Van Gogh's impressionistic painting style. ~ Judd Blaise, All Movie Guide

An international collection of well-known directors contributed to this compilation film, each fashioning a short film inspired by an aria from a famous opera. The approaches vary broadly, from the playful abstraction of Jean-Luc Godard's segment, which illustrates Armide with exercising body-builders, to the more literal approach of Franc Roddam, who transports Tristan und Isolde's story to modern-day Las Vegas. A particular stand-out is Julian Temple's take on Rigoletto, which recasts Verdi as the accompaniment to a contemporary Southern California sex farce. ~ Judd Blaise, All Movie Guide

Based on the real-life assassination of a judge in Marseilles in 1981, this fictionalized account of how he came to die lacks the substance and drama that must have characterized the actual story as it happened. Judge François Müller (Jacques Perrin) was transferred from Vosges in northwest France to preside at the court in Marseilles, and when he arrives, he soon finds out what everyone else already knows: a certain Antoine Rocca (Daniel Duval) is the head of a large drug cartel centered in the city. The judge joins forces with a local police inspector, and manages to arrest Rocca for a short time for carrying an unlicensed weapon. Intent on eliminating the drug lord, Judge Müller goes to Palermo to search out evidence. With more dramatic build-up and an in-depth probing of the judge's own fears and motivations, this re-creation of a recent tragedy would have had more of an impact on audiences, especially in France where the details of the story were already known. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide

In this inventive psychological horror story from Italian director Pupi Avati, an aspiring novelist named Stefano (Gabriele Lavia) receives an old portable typewriter as a gift from his girlfriend Alessandria (Anne Canovas). One day while playing with the machine, he notices the impressions on the ribbon left behind by the previous owner and becomes curious enough to copy them down and find out what had been written on the typewriter in the past. Stefano is startled to discover that it was once owned by a noted scientist named Paolo Zeder (Luigi Costa), and that Zeder was working on a report on his theories about "K Zones" -- places where supernatural energy is concentrated so heavily that the newly dead will rise from the grave and walk among the living. Stefano sets out to find out the facts about the K Zones, and he discovers that the truth is horrifying indeed. Zeder was originally released in the United States as Revenge of the Dead, and it was marketed as a standard-issue zombie movie, where it predictably failed to find an audience until more thoughtful genre enthusiasts rediscovered the original Italian version several years later. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide