78% (3) How I Killed My Father 98 min, [Drama, Thriller] [Anne Fontaine] [19 Sep 2001]Ratings & Reviews: IMDb Reviews: 69%, Rotten Tomatoes: 89%, Metacritic: 78%, External Reviews
Awards: 2 wins & 1 nomination.
Actors: Amira Casar, Charles Berling, Michel Bouquet, Natacha Régnier
Writer: Jacques Fieschi, Anne Fontaine
External Links: Wikipedia Rotten Tomatoes IMDb Language: French Country: Spain, France
Plot: Jean-Luc is an established gerontologist who can do no wrong; he runs a private clinic specialising in anti-ageing treatments. Honoured for his work in this field, he throws a garden party at his home. It is during this social event that his father suddenly reappears, back after a long exile. A physician, he had left decades earlier without any apparent reason to practice in Africa. He moves into his son's home for several days, phlegmatically observing everything with an enigmatic smile. He peruses Jean-Luc's life and environment with cruel objectivity. The arrival of this interloper father, who everyone thought had disappeared for good, shatters the family microcosm: Jean-Luc doesn't know how to take him, as if the memory - or the resentment - was nothing but lost time; his wife becomes fond of this highly unconventional man; after first refusing to deal with him, Jean-Luc's younger brother strikes up a modest bond with him.
Rotten Tomatoes: This French drama from acclaimed director Anne Fontaine highlights a wealthy, upper-class family's involvement with each other after their father figure passes away. Versailles gynecologist Jean-Luc (Charles Berling) is first seen treating an age-fearing patient as he receives word of his father's death. Told in teasing flashback style, the characters relate to their dead father as if he were still alive. The father, Maurice (Michel Bouquet), reappears to expose the family's insecurities, especially in courting Jean-Luc's classy, beautiful wife Isa (Natacha Regnier), who is charmed by him, and she begins to confess her innermost thoughts, such as her desire for children and her husband's affair with his Syrian assistant (Amira Casar). Patrick (Stephane Guillon), Jean-Luc's younger brother, also frets his career as a stand-up comedian while acting as Jean-Luc's chauffeur. But the most rigid conflict exists between Jean-Luc and Maurice, the latter once also a successful physician, who threw it all away to work in a distant country. Jean-Luc's rejection begins to grate on him, but his bourgeois existence prevents him from making any changes to it. The film also features Hubert Kounde, Francois Berleand, and Karole Rocher in supporting roles.
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84% (2) Toto the Hero 91 min, PG-13, [Comedy, Drama, Fantasy] [Jaco Van Dormael] [19 Jun 1991]Ratings & Reviews: IMDb Reviews: 77%, Rotten Tomatoes: 91%, External Reviews
Awards: Nominated for 1 BAFTA Film Award. Another 16 wins & 2 nominations.
Actors: Gisela Uhlen, Jo De Backer, Michel Bouquet, Mireille Perrier, Thomas Godet
Writer: Didier De Neck (collaborator), Pascal Lonhay (collaborator), Jaco Van Dormael, Laurette Vankeerberghen (collaborator)
External Links: Wikipedia Rotten Tomatoes IMDb Language: French Country: Belgium, France, Germany
Plot: Thomas and Alfred were born around the same time; a fire in the nursery had nurses scrambling to save the newborns. Because he felt that he deserved Alfred's good fortune at being born into a wealthy family, Thomas conceives the idea that he and Alfred were switched at birth, and he can't help seeing that his unhappiness should be Alfred's, from the loss of his sister to his inability to have a relationship with the woman Evelyne. So, as his life is ending, he formulates a plan of revenge against his bitter enemy, his lifetime adversary, the man who stole his existence.
Rotten Tomatoes: Former circus performer Jaco Van Dormael made his feature-film directing bow with the Belgian/French/German coproduction Toto Le Héros. The title character is an fictional supersecret agent, idolized by a young boy named Thomas. The lad aspires to become Toto when he grows up; but thanks to a kaleidoscope of flashbacks and flashforwards, we know that he'll end up ordinary and unfulfilled. The film hopscotches between the Three Ages of Thomas: wide-eyed youngster, mediocrity-mired adult, bitter old man. The elder Thomas has never gotten over his childhood traumas and hatreds. He was always jealous of his wealthy boyhood friend Alfred, fantasizing that he and his chum were switched at birth. At the end, the aged Thomas escapes from a senior citizens' home -- an act which leads to Fate dealing its final ironic blow.
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77% (2) The Bride Wore Black 107 min, Unrated, [Crime, Drama, Mystery] [François Truffaut] [25 Jun 1968]Ratings & Reviews: IMDb Reviews: 73%, Rotten Tomatoes: 81%, External Reviews
Awards: Nominated for 1 Golden Globe. Another 1 win & 1 nomination.
Actors: Charles Denner, Jean-Claude Brialy, Jeanne Moreau, Michel Bouquet
Writer: Cornell Woolrich (from the novel by), François Truffaut (adaptation), Jean-Louis Richard (adaptation)
External Links: Wikipedia Rotten Tomatoes IMDb Language: French Country: France, Italy
Plot: After trying to commit suicide, the widow Julie Kohler (Jeanne Moreau) pretends to her mother that she will leave her town. Actually she stays, chases and assassinates the five men that accidentally killed her beloved husband in the stairs of the church immediately after their wedding ceremony.
Rotten Tomatoes: Julie (Jeanne Moreau) is the young widow who seeks revenge for the death of her husband. She targets her victims for demise and sets out to knock them off one by one. The first victim is pushed from a balcony, the second is poisoned in his own home. She poses as Diane the Huntress and shoots the artist with her bow and arrow. A pretentious man is locked in a closet and sealed off to die. Julie willfully confesses her murders to a priest who is helpless to break the silence by his religious vows of the sanctity of confession. When the last man is found to be locked in jail, Julie conspires to get herself arrested to gain access to the unfortunate prisoner.
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75% (1) The Unfaithful Wife 98 min, M, [Drama, Thriller] [Claude Chabrol] [10 Nov 1969]Ratings & Reviews: IMDb Reviews: 75%, External Reviews
Awards: 1 win & 3 nominations.
Actors: Maurice Ronet, Michel Bouquet, Michel Duchaussoy, Stéphane Audran
Writer: Claude Chabrol (original scenario), Claude Chabrol (dialogue), Sauro Scavolini (dialogue)
External Links: Wikipedia Rotten Tomatoes IMDb Language: French Country: France, Italy
Plot: Charles Desvallées has good reasons to believe that his wife is cheating on him and hires a P.D. in order to prove himself right. Once he knows the lover is writer Victor Pégala, he drives to his apartment, calmly presents himself as the husband, starts a conversation and then kills him cold-bloodedly. The police trace the wife but when she discovers by accident a picture that could incriminate her husband she decides to remain silent.
Rotten Tomatoes: Claude Chabrol wrote and directed this tale of a cuckold (Michel Bouquet) who kills his wife's lover. Stephane Audran, Maurice Ronet. Duval: Michel Duchaussoy. Bignon: Serge Bento.
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75% (1) The Breach 124 min, [Thriller] [Claude Chabrol] [26 Aug 1970]Ratings & Reviews: IMDb Reviews: 75%, External Reviews
Awards: 1 nomination.
Actors: Annie Cordy, Jean-Pierre Cassel, Michel Bouquet, Stéphane Audran
Writer: Charlotte Armstrong (novel), Claude Chabrol
External Links: Wikipedia Rotten Tomatoes IMDb Language: French Country: France, Italy, Belgium
Plot: Helene Regnier's husband Charles, who is mentally ill, injures their son Michel in a rage. Charles moves back in with his wealthy and manipulative parents, who blame Helene for their son's condition and vow to win custody of Michel. While the boy is in hospital, Helene rents a room in a boarding house nearby. The Regniers hire Paul Thomas, a family acquaintance who needs money, to find dirt on Helene before the court hearing on custody. Paul moves into the boarding house and, with the help of his girlfriend Sonia, who rarely wears clothes, plots to ruin Helene's reputation and then her very life.
Rotten Tomatoes: This bizarre thriller opens with a violent argument in which a husband is hit with a frying pan by his wife in self defense. His rich father hires a blackmailer, but the latter fails to find any transgressions despite the fact the wife was a nude dancer onetime. He slips her some LSD in an effort to make her lose her mind. The father-in-law and the blackmailer make plans to discredit her reputation, but the scheme backfires on them. Director Claude Chabrol's admiration for the work of Alfred Hitchcock is evident.
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73% (1) Les Misérables 220 min, Unrated, [Drama] [Robert Hossein] [20 Oct 1982]Ratings & Reviews: IMDb Reviews: 73%, External Reviews
Awards: 2 wins & 5 nominations.
Actors: Evelyne Bouix, Jean Carmet, Lino Ventura, Michel Bouquet
Writer: Alain Decaux (adaptation), Alain Decaux (dialogue), Robert Hossein (adaptation), Victor Hugo (novel)
External Links: Wikipedia IMDb Language: French Country: France, West Germany
Plot: The story of Jean Valjean, a Frenchman convicted of minor crimes, who is hounded for years by an unforgiving and unrelenting police inspector, Javert.
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71% (1) Malpertuis 125 min, [Drama, Fantasy, Horror] [Harry Kümel] [01 Jan 1971]Ratings & Reviews: IMDb Reviews: 71%, External Reviews
Awards: 1 win & 1 nomination.
Actors: Mathieu Carrière, Michel Bouquet, Orson Welles, Susan Hampshire
Writer: Jean Ferry (screenplay and dialogue), Jean Ray (novel)
External Links: IMDb Language: Dutch Country: Belgium, France, West Germany
Plot: Malpertuis is a labyrinth where characters issued from the Greek mythology are made prisoners by Cassavius. He manages to keep them (as well as his nephew and niece) as prisoners even after his death, through a binding testament. As the nephew unravels the mystery, we find out he cannot escape the house because Malpertuis is far more significant than we were led to believe.
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