Jacques Gamblin Movies

Two leading figures in the French cinema, actor Gérard Depardieu and director Claude Chabrol, collaborate for the first time in this breezy whodunit. Paul Bellamy (Depardieu) is a French police detective whose wife, Françoise (Marie Bunel), has managed to persuade him to take a vacation for the first time in years. While she's enjoying the sights in Nimes, he's itchy to get back to work, but as it happens crime follows him to the hotel where he's staying. A fellow guest, Noël Gentil (Jacques Gamblin), confesses to a very unusual murder -- Gentil has had plastic surgery to heighten his resemblance to a homeless man, whom Gentil and his wife planned to murder as part of an insurance scam. However, the scheme fell apart when Gentil's wife discovered he was having an affair, and now he's responsible for the death of an innocent man. While Gentil admits his guilt, Bellamy thinks something isn't right about his story, and he sets out to uncover the truth. Meanwhile, Bellamy has to deal with an unwanted distraction in the form of his half brother, Jacques (Clovis Cornillac), who is addicted to booze and gambling, and is a constant thorn in the cop's side. Bellamy received its British premiere at the 2009 BFI London Film Festival. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi

Follow Dutch postimpressionist painter Vincent van Gogh and two of his most devoted fans as they take us on a tour to the source of the artist's inspiration in this IMAX documentary from directors François Bertrand and Peter Knapp. Become immersed in the work and life of van Gogh as the filmmakers explore the vitality and freedom of the world's greatest artists. ~ Jason Buchanan, Rovi

Director Martin Valente weaves this elaborate tale of intersecting lives that originally screened at the 2007 Montreal World Film Festival. Unemployed Sara is down in the dumps, but her best friend Isa is determined to liven things up by taking her downsized friend on a weekend holiday in Portugal. Meanwhile, disgruntled filmmaker Paul packs his bags for Lisbon in order to support his latest cinematic misstep as pharmacist Yves contends with a troublesome neighborhood dog, touring musician Nina makes a pit stop to visit her seven year old son, tone def police captain Vince continues to strum his guitar, and youthful grandmother Hélène is forced to face reality after being asked to babysit her grandson Ross. ~ Jason Buchanan, Rovi

As World War I looms ever closer on the horizon, an elite police task force organized by Minister of the Interior Georges Clemenceau (aka "The Tiger") mobilizes to apprehend the gang responsible for the first motorized hold-up in French history. The year is 1912, and despite operating in the shadow of the guillotine French gangsters continue to flourish. In order to ensure the safety of the public Minister of the Interior Clemenceau creates a dozen "mobile brigades" consisting of policemen with automobiles and fingerprinting equipment and deploys them nationwide. One such unit, fronted by straight-arrow cop Valentin (Clovis Cornillac, and consisting of sardonic brute Pujol (Edouard Baer), badge-toting pugilist Terrasson (Oliver Gourmet), and Italian immigrant Achille (Stefano Accorsi), is assigned the task of tracking down the gang led by notorious anarchist Jules Bonnot (Jacques Gamblin). An ambitious criminal mastermind whose recent heist involving a getaway car set a new standard in armed robbery, Bonnot has grown dangerously emboldened while establishing himself as France's most wanted. Meanwhile, as the Paris opera prepares to stage a new version of Ivan the Terrible and Russian princess Constance Bolkonski (Diane Kruger) embarks on an affair with Bonnot behind the back of her unsuspecting husband (Alexandre Medvedex) - who is furtively attempting to establish a self-serving three way alliance between Russia, England, and France - crack journalist Jean Jaures (Andre Marcon) struggles to bring it all together in the headlines as World War I and the Russian Revolution loom heavy on the horizon. Director Jerome Cornuau collaborates with screenwriters Xavier Dorison and Fabien Nury to resurrect the popular French television series of the 1970s with a multi-layered period thriller that is likely to evoke memories of the similarly themed Untouchables for stateside audiences. ~ Jason Buchanan, Rovi

Director David Oelhoeffen's French-language picture Nos retrouvailles - a resolutely disturbing psychological drama with an added element of crime - explores the damage wrought by an über-dysfunctional father on his straight-laced son. Jacques Gamblin stars as Gabriel, a thuggish character harboring an irrepressible grudge over money that someone allegedly swiped from him. With bitterness in his heart, this thoughtless and slimy brute cajoles his innocent son, the dishwasher Marco (Nicolas Giraud) into first tailing a night watchman (Jacques Spiesser) and then breaking into a warehouse to reclaim the "funds" - despite the inherent dangers posed by this scheme. Oelhoeffen co-authored the script with Antoine Lacomblez. ~ Nathan Southern, Rovi

One man finds himself pulled in three directions at once by his family and a chance acquaintance in this breakneck comedy. Miguel (Jacques Gamblin) is a single parent and Spanish expatriate living in Belgium who has to deal with a young daughter, Laura (Raphaelle Molinier), his busybody mother, Abuelita (Carmen Maura), and his pushy brother, Juan (Pedro Romero). Miguel works for Juan's travel agency as a courier and errand boy. Shortly after sending Laura off to school, Juan gets an urgent call from Miguel and he has to head to the airport. En route, Miguel gets caught in a traffic jam and encounters Sonia (Ingeborga Dapkunaite), an illegal alien from the Ukraine who is on the run from police after being freed from custody by a group of activists. Sonia has been searching for her boyfriend who disappeared in Belgium a year ago, and after much haranguing Miguel agrees to help her, but that's before he gets word from Abuelita that an accident has sent his daughter to the hospital. Fortunately Laura's injuries are minor, but once Laura and Abuelita hear Sonia's story, they decide to drop everything to help her find her man with Miguel along for the ride, regardless of Juan's feelings about the matter (or Miguel's, for that matter). 25 Degres en Hiver was the first feature film from writer and director Stéphane Vuillet. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi

French filmmaker Sam Karmann directs the crime drama A La Petite Semaine (Nickel and Dime), co-written with actual ex-con Desir Carre. When fiftysomething Jacques (Gerard Lanvin) gets released after serving five years in prison, he goes right to his local hangout and reunites with his old hoodlum friends in a working-class section of Montmarte. His friend Francis (Jacques Gamblin) has been taking acting classes, living with his mother (Liliane Rovere), and dating the waitress Camille (Julie Durand). His other friend, small-time crook Didier (Clovis Cornillac),has been gambling a lot, event though he and his wife Josiane (Sarah Haxaire) are expecting a baby. To the dismay of head criminal Marcel (Etienne Chicot), Jacques doesn't want to continue with a life of crime. A La Petite Semaine also stars Philippe Nahon as the bartender. ~ Andrea LeVasseur, Rovi

Carnage, an example of what the French call un film chorale, tells several intertwining stories. In the central tale, a young second-generation bullfighter, Victor (Julien Lescarret), is gored, and is rushed to the hospital in critical condition. A little girl, Winnie (Raphaëlle Molinier), sits next to a massive Great Dane and watches the fateful bullfight on television, and becomes obsessed with the bull. A university researcher, Jacques (Jacques Gamblin of Safe Conduct), cheats on his massively pregnant wife, Betty (Lio), who hides a critical fact about her pregnancy from him. Jacques' brother, Luc (Bernard Sens), an amateur taxidermist, lives with their mother, Rosie (Esther Gorintin), who loves him, but withholds a family secret. Winnie's teacher, Jeanne (Lucia Sanchez), struggles to understand her neurotic mother, Alicia (Ángela Molina), when she visits. When her car is dented by a shopping cart, Carlotta (Chiara Mastroianni), a struggling actress, meets Alexis (Clovis Cornillac), a suicidal philosopher/skater who offers to lead her to the culprits. Carnage, the debut feature from writer/director Delphine Gleize, won the Sutherland Trophy at the 2002 London Film Festival and Best Screenplay at the 2002 Stockholm Film Festival. It was also shown at the 2002 Cannes Film Festival and at Lincoln Center in New York as part of their 2003 Rendez-Vouz with French Cinema. ~ Josh Ralske, Rovi

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, Rovi

This thriller from veteran director Claude Chabrol is a tense suspense drama, leavened with sly humor, about the fallout from a shocking crime in a small town. Frederique Lesage (Valeria Bruni-Tedeschi), the new chief of police in a cozy and fashionable seaside community in Brittany, soon finds her job more eventful than she expected when a ten-year-old girl is found raped and murdered. The last person to see her alive was René Sterne (Jacques Gamblin), a cynical and once-famous artist who has fallen on hard times and gives drawing lessons to children to make ends meet. René, who is passionately devoted to his wife (Sandrine Bonnaire), a nurse whose perpetual good cheer is the polar opposite of his personality, quickly becomes the prime suspect in the absence of any real clues. Meanwhile, Frederique becomes better acquainted with the eccentric residents of the town, including a self-important TV journalist (Antoine de Caunes), a small-time crook who fences stolen goods (Pierre Marlot), and a curious pair of married shopkeepers (Bulle Ogier and Noel Simsolo). Chabrol's son Matthieu Chabrol composed the score for this film. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi

Following up on his acclaimed and Cannes Grand Prix-winning Unagi, veteran iconoclast Shohei Imamura directs this gleefully ragged tale about one very dedicated, though defiantly eccentric, doctor during the waning days of the Second World War. Dr. Akagi (Akira Emoto) is a small-town physician who sports a prim white suit and straw hat as he runs at full gallop from one case to the next. His diagnosis is always the same no matter the symptom: hepatitis. Along the way, he enlists the help of a young lass named Sonoko (Kumiko Asou) whose mother is a prostitute. Before she leaves home, mom gives her this kernel of maternal wisdom: give your physical devotion away to only your true love, make everyone else pay. She decides that the lucky recipient will be Dr. Akagi. Unfortunately, he has little interest in anything other than finding a cure for hepatitis. One day he happens upon a bruised and battered Dutch soldier (Jacques Gamblin) who escaped from the local POW camp. Realizing that returning to the camp would spell death for the lanky escapee, the doctor hides him with the aid of drug-addled fellow doctor (Kotsuke Sera) and an alcoholic Buddhist priest (Juro Kara). In gratitude to Dr. Akagi's kind act, the Dutchman, a lens crafter in quieter times, helps to fashion him a microscope so that the doctor may look at the very hepatitis germ itself. This film was intended as Imamura's swansong, but in 2001 he came out of retirement to direct the surrealist romance Akai Hashi Noshitano Nurui Mizu. ~ Jonathan Crow, Rovi

The film's title is a pun, the double meaning referencing both the "wrong genre" and a person with distasteful motives. Insecure novelist Martial Bok (Jacques Gamblin) promotes his new sexy novel La Fille de Dos ("Girl Observed From the Rear") with a round of book-signings and talk-shows. When beautiful hat designer Camille (Monica Bellucci) buys the book, Martial follows her and spies on her as she reads his book and removes her clothing. It's the beginning of his obsession and also an inspiration. After Martial's live-in girlfriend Lucie (Elina Lowensohn) establishes contact with Camille for real, Martial is able to type out another sexy manuscript. ~ Bhob Stewart, Rovi