Alain Sarde Movies

After sharp-witted 17-year-old Emma (Elise Perrier) sends a screenplay outline to filmmaker Paul (Lambert Wilson), she's invited to work with him at his mountainside country house where he lives with his second wife Margot (Alexia Stresi) and teenager Camille (Lou Doillon), his daughter from his first marriage. Emma and Paul begin work on a script about a teen who threatens to seduce and destroy a household. At the same time, Emma creates similar disruptions among Paul's family. Shown at the 1998 Berlin Film Festival. ~ Bhob Stewart, All Movie Guide

Especially made for fans of arthouse fare, this intellectually challenging work from writer/director Anne-Marie Mieville offers a heady mixture of ancient and modern philosophical conversation and humor. The film is comprised of three segments. The first is an updated rendition of Plato's dialogues in which Socrates and Callicles discuss the qualities that make one man superior to another; they also explore which endeavors have the greatest value in the world. The joke of the segment is that the modern Socrates is portrayed as a suburban housewife who discusses these matters while redecorating her home. The second segment is set upon a stage. Mieville's husband, distinguished filmmaker Jean-Luc Godard steps out and recites passages from 20th-century philosopher Hannah Arendt's "The Nature of Totalitarianism." The film's final section was written entirely by Mieville and offers wry musings on the effects of romance upon creativity as seen from the view of a couple who have spent most of their lives together. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

This French-Spanish drama depicts a flat marriage that picks up a few new wrinkles. Nicole (Miou-Miou) and Jean-Marie Kunstler (Charles Berling) have run their small-town dry-cleaning shop for 15 years. When they visit a local night club, they see the brother-sister act of Loic (Stanislas Merhar) and Marilyn (Mathilde Seigner), who perform under the name Queens of the Night, and the four soon become friends. Later, the Kuntslers visit Basel, Switzerland, where the siblings are appearing. They learn the team is splitting up and invite the bisexual Loic to help at their shop. He accepts, and his presence alters their outlook on life. Shown at the 1997 Venice and Toronto film festivals. ~ Bhob Stewart, All Movie Guide

For Ever Mozart is an episodic film that follows a theater troupe from France attempting to put on a play in Sarajevo. Along their journey they are captured and held in a POW camp, and they call for help from their friends and relations in France. Director Jean-Luc Godard presents stories about this troop to ask how one can make art while slaughters like the one in Bosnia are taking place, and he throws in a strong critique of the European Union. For Ever Mozart is one of Godard's most disjointed and difficult films. Its stories sometimes seem to form a whole and at other times the links among them are unclear. One gets the impression that in each episode Godard attempts to start a film only to come to the conclusion that it is impossible to continue. It features some of the most beautiful shots of tanks in the cinema. ~ Louis Schwartz, All Movie Guide

This hilarious French farce puts a whole new spin on the menage-a-trois as it tells the story of a sperm donor who develops patriarchal feelings for the unborn child of his best friend's wife. The tangled mess begins when Jerome and Delphine, his wife of five years, learn that Jerome is sterile. Though Jerome is willing to adopt, Delphine wants to experience the birthing process. They decide to use a donor to impregnate her and choose Jerome's womanizing best friend Salim, an Arab. This could cause problems in their bourgeoisie, white breaded families, but the husband and wife don't care. Salim agrees to do the job and so the three go to Switzerland (in France all sperm donors remain anonymous). It is successful and the return to France. A few months later trouble ensues when Delphine runs into Salim's girl friend Sophie in a department store. She accidentally hears that Delphine is carrying Salim's baby and goes over the edge thinking he cheated upon her. Salim ends up homeless and so moves in with his best pal. Now the three must somehow work out the jumble of conflicting emotions as both men feel quite fatherly towards poor Delphine's baby. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

As part of an intergalactic coalition, a well-meaning space alien volunteers to bring a message of self-actualization and harmony with nature to the one planet rejected by all her peers as incorrigible--Earth. This family-oriented French sci-fi comedy chronicles her adventures on the chaotic planet. Mila is 150 years old and has five children; encoded in her brain are two telepathic programs designed to restructure the thinking of destructive humans. The first is a fairly mild program designed to inspire the humans to rethink their world and begin asking some difficult questions. The other is far stronger and rapidly indoctrinates subjects with lofty utopian ideals and makes them deeply aware of themselves. Mila lands in Paris and is unnoticed but for the sudden, inexplicable power surges and outages that occur whenever she sends a telepathic message to her alien cohorts. Instead of eating, Mila draws energy from holding newborn babies. It is while holding an orphan infant in an obstetrics ward that her Earthly troubles begin. Feeling deeply for the baby's plight, she confronts the ward's head doctor and when logic fails, looses her programs upon him. Instantly the unsympathetic brute sees the light and begins helping her save the babe from wicked welfare workers. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

This drama examines three amoral young people living in Paris. 18-year-old Nathalie (Marie Gillain) works in a clothing store and dreams of opening her own boutique in the United States. She shares an apartment with her boyfriend Eric (Olivier Sitruk) and his slow-witted pal Bruno (Bruno Putzulu); she pays the rent while they stay home and watch crime movies on television. All three are looking for a fast and easy way to make some money, so together they devise a plan. Nathalie will hang out in nightclubs, meet prosperous-looking men, and go home with them. Once she's inside their apartments, she'll let in Eric and Bruno, and they'll rob the place of cash and valuables. The plan works well at first, before things go wrong one night and Eric commands Bruno to kill their victim. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

A successful prostitute attempts to fashion a homeless man into her ideal pimp in this unconventional, darkly humorous French drama. Marie (Anouk Grinberg) has no real need for a pimp, being a self-reliant, unabashed woman so fond of her job as a hooker that she is able to convince strangers to try it themselves. Indeed, her financial success allows her to take care of Jeannot (Gérard Lanvin), an impoverished vagrant whom she finds on the streets. She provides him with a bath and a place to sleep, and the two rapidly become lovers. Nevertheless, Marie is soon imploring Jeannot to act as her pimp, begging him to slap her around and take her money. He takes to his new role and soon decides to talk a manicurist (Valeria Bruni Tedeschi) into becoming the next member of his stable. The newcomer's inexperience proves to be his downfall, however, as the manicurist lands him in trouble with the law. Director Bertrand Blier attempts to create a controversial look at sexuality by combining black comedy with scenes of smoky sensuality, though many critics found the central premise and the presentation of Marie's contradictory, masochistic character too unconvincing for the film to be fully successful. ~ Judd Blaise, All Movie Guide

A young teenaged girl tries to get affection from her cold-hearted mother in this gentle French drama. 14-year old Rosine lives somewhere in northern France where the cold rain continually falls. It is a metaphor for her life. Her mother Marie had her when she was only 16 and now wants little to do with her. She spends most of her nights out on the town. Rosine hungers for her mother's love. She is almost obsessed with getting it. She is frustrated because she never does. One day Pierre, her father shows up from the blue and Mare gladly takes him in. Rosine is a good sport and likes that he takes an interest in her. The brief respite from gloom doesn't last as Pierre soon begins to beat Marie and eventually rapes Rosine. The traumatized girl tries to get her mother to admit the incident, to pay attention to the hurting child, but Marie just doesn't care. Marie has no choice but to run away from home and make her own way. Marie is a spirited young woman and though not shown in the film, stands a good chance of making it in life. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

This film follows the exploits of a young middle-class girl obsessed with love. The viewer will either love or hate the protagonist as she struggles through her confusion to find true love. Neurotic Nathalie wants love, but cannot make up her mind. She throws her nice boyfriend Antoine out while simultaneously stalking Eric, the hospital orderly who rejected her. Nathalie then tries to sleep with her best friend Christine's boyfriend Fabrice. Fabrice almost gives in, but suddenly rejects Nat. Nathalie is broken hearted and subsequently becomes more depressed and morally bankrupt. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

In this French drama, an irresponsible man is forced by circumstances beyond his control to communicate with the family he's kept at a distance. Jean-Paul (Gerard Lanvin) is the manager of a hotel in Nice whose shady business practices have put him seriously into debt; he needs to raise 300,000 francs in three days, or the loan sharks who've been keeping him afloat will come after him. Desperate for help, he approaches his younger brother Philippe (Jean-Marc Barr), whom he hasn't spoken with in ten years; Philippe stole Jean-Paul's girl from him, and subsequently married her. Jean-Paul also contacts his older brother Francis (Bernard Giraudeau), a schoolteacher who was disowned by their father when he admitted to the family that he was homosexual. Neither Philippe nor Francis can help him, so Jean-Paul tries to visit his father Raphael (Roberto Herlitzka) in Italy, hoping to put a large insurance policy on his father's life, naming himself as beneficiary. When it turns out that Raphael has gone missing, the three brothers must come together to find their father and keep him out of danger. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

French critic and filmmaker André Téchiné directs the intense family drama Ma Saison Préférée (My Favorite Season), which he co-wrote with screenwriter Pascal Bonitzer. Family matriarch Berthe (Marthe Villalonga) is advancing in years and developing health problems, so she goes to live with her daughter Emilie (Catherine Deneuve). Emilie is a cold, fiftysomething professional who lives in a large upper-class home in Toulouse. She also lives with her husband Bruno (Jean-Pierre Bouvier), her daughter Anne (Deneuve's real-life daughter Chiara Mastroianni), and her adopted son Lucien (Anthony Prada). When Christmas arrives, Emilie's troubled brother Antoine (Daniel Auteuil) arrives at the house for a visit. He and Emilie have not spoken since their father's funeral three years ago. Despite his attempts to maintain control, Antoine quickly comes into conflict with Bruno. Painful emotional realities from the past return and cause violent conclusions. My Favorite Season was shown in competition at the 1993 Cannes Film Festival. ~ Andrea LeVasseur, All Movie Guide