86% (2) Celine and Julie Go Boating 193 min, Unrated, [Comedy, Drama, Fantasy, Mystery] [Jacques Rivette] [18 Sep 1974]Ratings & Reviews: IMDb Reviews: 77%, Rotten Tomatoes: 96%, External Reviews
Awards: 1 win.
Actors: Bulle Ogier, Dominique Labourier, Juliet Berto, Marie-France Pisier
Writer: Juliet Berto (scenario), Dominique Labourier (scenario), Bulle Ogier (scenario), Marie-France Pisier (scenario), Jacques Rivette (scenario), Eduardo de Gregorio (dialogue), Henry James (Film-within-film based on stories by)
External Links: Wikipedia Rotten Tomatoes IMDb Language: French Country: France
Plot: A mysteriously linked pair of young women find their daily lives preempted by a strange boudoir melodrama that plays itself out in a hallucinatory parallel reality.
Rotten Tomatoes: A story about story-telling, Jacques Rivette's self-referential classic centers on the fanciful world of two women literally lost in the stories they tell each other. Celine (Juliet Berto) and Julie (Dominique Labourier) go from sharing a story about a haunted house to being part of a story about a haunted house -- or is it a real haunted house that has been called up by the story? The film blurs the line between the telling of the story and the story itself, as Celine and Julie, like Alice in Wonderland, become part of a surreal, drug-induced parallel universe; also like Alice, they ultimately become the heroines of the story that first imprisoned them. Rivette celebrates the magic of stories, and more broadly of imagination, adventure, and friendship, as essential elements of life; the themes are familiar from his other movies, but the tone is more playful. This enigmatic and fanciful film is not for all tastes, but, for its many devotees, it is one of the most distinctive and imaginative movies ever made. ~ Leo Charney, Rovi
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86% (2) La Chinoise 95 min, Not Rated, [Comedy, Drama] [Jean-Luc Godard] [04 Mar 1968]Ratings & Reviews: IMDb Reviews: 72%, Rotten Tomatoes: 100%, External Reviews
Awards: 1 win & 1 nomination.
Actors: Anne Wiazemsky, Jean-Pierre Léaud, Juliet Berto, Michel Semeniako
Writer: Jean-Luc Godard
External Links: Rotten Tomatoes IMDb Language: French Country: France
Plot: A small group of French students are studying Mao, trying to find out their position in the world and how to change the world to a Maoistic community using terrorism.
Rotten Tomatoes: Director Jean-Luc Godard, whose advocacy of Maoism bordered on intoxication, infuriated many traditionalist critics with his swiftly paced satire La Chinoise. Godard's then-wife Anne Wiazemsky plays a philosophy student who commiserates with the four members of her campus Maoist group. They are so taken by the external trappings of their cause--the posters, the Little Red Books, the by-rote chantings--that they seem not to grasp the true meaning of their political persuasion. Nor do they give any thought to the long-range ramifications of their terrorist activities. Godard is obviously on the students' side throughout, though he balances their fanaticism with the comparative gentility of old-style revolutionaries. Nonfans of Godard were given migraines by the director's perverse refusal to film even the simplest sequence in a linear, logical fashion. La Chinoise quickly gained the reputation of a "head film", best appreciated when the viewer is stoned. In these PC days, the audience for this sort of film is generally "straight"...which may be why it has seldom been shown in recent years. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi
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76% (1) Mr. Klein 123 min, [Crime, Drama, Mystery, Thriller, War] [Joseph Losey] [23 Sep 1976]Ratings & Reviews: IMDb Reviews: 76%, External Reviews
Awards: 3 wins & 5 nominations.
Actors: Alain Delon, Francine Bergé, Jeanne Moreau, Juliet Berto
Writer: Franco Solinas, Fernando Morandi (collaborator on screenplay)
External Links: Wikipedia Rotten Tomatoes IMDb Language: French Country: France, Italy
Plot: Paris, 1942. Robert Klein cannot find any fault with the state of affairs in German-occupied France. He has a well-furnished flat, a mistress, and business is booming. Jews facing discrimination because of laws edicted by the French government are desperate to sell valuable works of art - and it is easy for him to get them at bargain prices. His cosy life is disrupted when he realizes that there is another Robert Klein in Paris - a Jew with a rather mysterious behaviour. Very soon, this homonymy attracts the close - and menacing - attention of the police on the established art trader.
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71% (1) Family Life 95 min, [Drama] [Jacques Doillon] [13 Feb 1985]Ratings & Reviews: IMDb Reviews: 71%, External Reviews
Actors: Juliet Berto, Juliette Binoche, Mara Goyet, Sami Frey
Writer: Jacques Doillon (scenario and dialogue), Jean-François Goyet (scenario and dialogue)
External Links: Wikipedia IMDb Language: French Country: France
Plot: This is an affecting story about a father's attempts to mend the breaches in the relationship between himself and his 10-year-old daughter. Emmanuel (Sami Frey) is the father of Elise (Mara Goyet) by his first marriage, and the stepfather of an older daughter by his second marriage. He tries to make the best of both family relationships by taking off to visit his young daughter on the weekends, but that only makes his new family a little jealous - especially his stepdaughter. She herself is confused about her own relationship with him. After a particularly emotional send-off one weekend, Emmanuel and Elise take a trip from the south of France into Spain, working on a film project. Through a series of round-about conversations, Emmanuel manages to open up a few channels of communication with Elise - channels that expand even wider when he uses the technique of talking into her video camera to express thoughts and feelings that otherwise would have remained hidden.
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71% (1) The Middle of the World 115 min, [Romance, Drama] [Alain Tanner] [11 Sep 1974]Ratings & Reviews: IMDb Reviews: 71%, External Reviews
Actors: Denise Péron, Juliet Berto, Olimpia Carlisi, Philippe Léotard
Writer: John Berger, Alain Tanner
External Links: Wikipedia IMDb Language: French Country: France, Switzerland
Plot: Paul is married, a successful engineer, and a conservative candidate in an upcoming local election. He falls in love with Adriana, a café waitress from Italy. Paul's party is very critical of foreign labour and wants to keep Switzerland to the Swiss. Where Paul falls deeper and deeper into the relationship and is ready to leave his wife, Adriana feels the social pressure growing and has to make her own decision.
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71% (1) Mur murs 80 min, [Documentary] [Agnès Varda] [20 Jan 1982]Ratings & Reviews: IMDb Reviews: 71%, External Reviews
Awards: 1 win & 1 nomination.
Actors: Arno Jordan, Judy Baca, Juliet Berto, Mathieu Demy
Writer: Agnès Varda
External Links: IMDb Language: French, English, Italian, Spanish Country: France, USA
Plot: Agnes Varda's documentary on murals in Los Angeles.
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61% (1) Vladimir et Rosa 103 min, Not Rated, [Drama] [Groupe Dziga Vertov, Jean-Luc Godard, Jean-Pierre Gorin] [16 Apr 1971]Ratings & Reviews: IMDb Reviews: 61%, External Reviews
Actors: Jean-Luc Godard, Jean-Pierre Gorin, Juliet Berto, Yves Afonso
External Links: IMDb Language: French Country: France, West Germany
Plot: In Godard and Gorin's free interpretation of the Chicago Eight trial, Judge Hoffman becomes Judge Himmler (who doodles notes on Playboy centerfolds), the Chicago Eight become microcosms of French revolutionary society, and Godard and Gorin play Lenin and Karl Rosa, respectively, discussing politics and how to show them through the cinema.
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