Paris In New York

Quai des Orfevres and King Lear at the New Yorker Festival

Next Saturday at the Festival, Anthony Lane film critic at the New Yorker will screen and discuss Henri-Georges Clouzot’s 1947 film “Quai des Orfèvres” in the series of “overlooked masterpieces.” 

In “5001 Nights at the Movies,” Pauline Kael, well-known movie critic, raved:

"A stunningly well-made entertainment, this detective film by Henri-Georges Clouzot features the master actor Louis Jouvet in the role of a police inspector. His world is contrasted with that of the music hall, represented by the full-blown, hypersexual Suzy Delair. When this voluptuous slut sings “Avec Son Tra-la-la,” she may make you wonder if the higher things in life are worth the trouble. With Bernard Blier as Delair’s worshipful-masochist husband, Charles Dullin in the role of a lecherous hunchback, and, as a lesbian photographer, Simone Renant, at the time said to be the most beautiful actress in Paris. The film took the top prize at Venice, but in this country it never got the audience it deserved."

Saturday, October 17th at 1.30pm

Then Richard Brody, movie editor, will host a screening and discussion of the 1987 film King Lear, starring Peter Sellars as a descendant of William Shakespeare who attempts to restore his plays in a post-apocalyptic world : "Godard’s 1987 adaptation of “King Lear” may well be his greatest film; it is, at least, the one that condenses the greatest number of his ideas, styles, and obsessions...The extravagant, tragicomic setup yields extraordinary results. For Godard, Shakespeare’s play offers a chance at nothing less than a cosmogony, the reinvention of the world by means of art. Beethoven, Jean Cocteau, Virginia Woolf, Joan of Arc, and a host of other luminaries, as well as the majestic Swiss landscape, with its luminous mountains, sky, and lake, are on hand to support Godard’s overwhelming aesthetic vision."

Saturday, at 5pm

Directors Guild Theatre

110 West 57th Street.

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French movies - this week

> now playing in Theatre :

Coco Before Chanel

The extraordinary journey of Gabrielle Chanel before becoming the legendary couturier who encouraged women of the Belle Epoque to break out of their corsets and slip into something more free and styly. 

Audrey Tautou plays the orphan Coco, named after a French ditty she performs in nightclubs. Arrogant and nakedly ambitious, Gabrielle seems destined for prostitution but her destiny changes when she becomes the kept woman of Etienne balsan (Benoit Poelvoorde) a rich gentleman farmer.

Shot in Paris and Normandy>

trailer

showtimes

> playing at the French Institute Alliance Francaise FIAF:

Colonel Chabert

A superior costume drama anchored by luscious cinematography and Gerard Depardieu’s arresting performance as the titular Colonel. Long thought dead, Chabert roams through France, ultimately discovering that his wife (Fanny Ardant) has remarried a wealthy Count and wants nothing to do with him. Fabrice Luchini delights as the lawyer who takes on Chabert’s case.

Tuesday, October 13th at 12.30 and 7.30pm

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Moliere

Virtually nothing is known of the months spent between the end of Molière’s prison sentence in 1645 and when he began touring with his troupe. Tirard offers an inspired vision of this time, with the wealthy Monsieur Jourdain (Luchini) bailing out the writer in exchange for lessons in performance and courtship.

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> Selection of French movies on Sundance Channel this week :

Diary of a Chambermaid / Le Journal d'une Femme de Chambre

Late in his long career, the great Spanish filmmaker and surrealist Luis Bunuel made six features in France that remain among his finest work. The first was this updated adaptation of Octave Mirbeau's celebrated novel examining the foibles and hypocrisy of the landed gentry as seen through the eyes of a newly installed chambermaid (Jeanne Moreau).

Saturday, October 10th at 12am, Wednesday, October 14th at 6pm, Thursday, October 15th at 6.15am and 1.15pm

 

Trivial

French cinema icon Sophie Marceau (Braveheart) co-wrote, directed and stars in this suspense noir about Jacques Renard (Christophe Lambert), a police veteran whose career and future have been precarious since his wife's death. A tip from a mysterious femme fatale sends Renard on a visit to Deauville's Hotel Riviera, where he learns the owner (Robert Hossein) has disappeared. The enigma expands as family secrets, a disfigured corpse and the hotelier's wheelchair-confined wife (Marie-Christine Barrault) contribute to the evolving mystery.

Thursday, October 15th at 10pm, Friday, October 16th at 12.15pm

Queen Margot

Patrice Chereau and Daniele Thompson adapt Alexandre Dumas's epic historical novel about Marguerite (Isabelle Adjani), who enters into an arranged marriage with Henri of Navarre (Daniel Auteuil) at the behest of her mother Catherine of Medici (Virna Lisi), to end the religious wars between the Catholics and the Protestant Huguenots.

Friday, October 16th at 1.40am

French Institute - Many interesting events in October

Among others, I would recommend:

. the Cross Cultural Workshop : Interesting in moving to France ? How to assimilate quickly...

Mondays, 6–9pm 
October 5 and November 2: Vivre en France / Living in France 
October 19 and November 16: Travailler en France / Working in France

. Theatrical event :

Fabrice Luchini : "Le Point sur Robert"

Wednesday & Thursday, October 7 & 8, 2009 at 8pm
Florence Gould Hall

The French actor, winner of multiple Cesar Awards, will also present the movie The Discreet. 

Tue, Oct 6

. For the kids:

Cook in French (5-11yrs)- Sat, Oct 3

Bookmaking (4-6yrs)- Sat, Oct 10

Bookmaking (7-10yrs)- Sat,Oct 10

L'Heure du Conte - Thu, Oct 1 (3-6yrs): storytime program with French stories and songs

A Petits Pas Story Hour (2-3yrs) - Thur,Oct 8 : French stories for toddlers

Cine-club des Frimousses (3-8yrs) - Thur, Oct 8 ; french movie club

More Info, go to www.fiaf.org

Juliette Binoche...everywhere in New York this month !

She will be dancing, exhibiting paintings, releasing a book and more. Many events will offer the american public an unique opportunity to discover a new facet of this multi-talented artist.

If you are nostalgic of Paris, don't miss the opening of the last movie from Cedric Klaplisch, "Paris", a kaleidoscopic letter to the City of Lights and its inhabitants, on Friday at the IFC Center.

From 09/10 to 10/09, 58 of her ink-wash portraits of herself and her co-stars of various films and poems will be on display at the Cultural Services of the French Embassy at 972 5th Avenue. Admission Free. From 1pm to 6pm.

Beginning of September, she also presented her book "Portraits. In-Eyes" at Barnes and Noble

From September 15 to September 26, she will be performing with Akram Khan a contemporary piece for two "In-l & Jubilations" at the BAM. Artist talk tonight.

And BAMCinematek will present Rendez-Vous With Juliette Binoche, a 14-film retrospective.

September 19, Damage

September 20, Flight of the Red Balloon

September 21, Blue, with Q&A and book signing with Juliette Binoche

September 22, Family Life

September 24, Mauvais Sang

September 25, Cache

September 26, Code Unknown

September 27, Summer Hours....

September 28, English Patient

September 29, Mary

September 30, Disengagement

The Red Balloon at IFC - July 2-5 at 11am

The thirty-four minute short, which follows the adventures of a young boy who one day finds a sentient, mute, red balloon, was filmed in the Ménilmontant neighborhood of Paris, France. The Academy Award–winning THE RED BALLOON has enchanted movie lovers for generations

Don't miss also Playing with White Mane, a beautiful short movie that takes places in the vast plain of Camargue.

IFC Center

Movie : Rashevski's Tango - opens July 17th

What does it mean to be Jewish? Three generations of the Rashevski family grapple with the question, after the death of Rose, the secular matriarch who believed that the tango would make all troubles disappear. Charming and endearing, the characters confront issues of relationships, family, religion, love, romance, and interfaith marriage

At Cinema Village

Film on the Green - Screening at Sunset at Tompkins Square - July 11-24

Following the success of Cinéma sur l’Herbe / Films on the Green in June, the Cultural Services of the French Embassy and the New York City Department of Parks and Recreation are proud to present a new series of French films for the month of July (July 11-25).

Friday, July 11|Tompkins square Park

Ma vie en l'air l Love is in the Air (2005), by Remi Bezancon.

Friday, July 17|Tompkins square Park

Travaux, on sait quand ca commence...|Works (2005), by Brigitte Rouan.

Friday, July 24|Tompkins square Park

Le genou de Claire| Claire's knee (1970), by Eric Rohmer.

Movie - Summer Hours, by Olivier Assayas

Two brothers (Charles Berling and Jeremie Renier) and a sister (Juliette Binoche) witness the gradual disappearance of their childhood memories when they must relinquish the family belongings to ensure their deceased mother's succession (the legendary Edith Scob of Eyes without a Face).

As they realize that their lives and desires have diverged completely, the three siblings grapple with the hard choice ahead of them and the difficulty of honoring their mother's wishes.

Critics are very harsh about the movie but according to the New York Times " a Masterpiece" ! Let me know what you think. I haven't seen it myself yet...

Rendez-Vous with French Cinema

Like every year, the film society of Lincoln Center presents some of the most interesting new French movies. This year, the aesthetic and stylistic spread of the program is perhaps more impressive than ever, anchored by two of the most active and creative octogenarians anywhere, Agnès Varda and Claude Chabrol. Impressive debuts by Samuel Collardey and Pierre Schoeller mingle with the shadow of master criminal Jacques Mesrine, long an enigmatic figure in French cinema and now brilliantly revived in a definitive, two-part epic by Jean-François Richet.

Finally, the 14th edition of Rendez-Vous marks The Film Society’s return to Alice Tully Hall, home of the New York Film Festival, with the Opening Night premiere of Christophe Barratier’s Paris 36 — a wonderful way to start sampling the choice cinematic vintage on offer at the Walter Reade Theater and IFC Center through March 15

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Mia and the Migoo - Opening night at the New York Int'l Children's Film Festival

France, Jacques-Remy Girard, 2008, 92mn
Recommended ages: 7 to Adult (subtitled)

The gorgeous second feature from French animator Jacques-Rémy Girard is a work of art, breathtaking to behold. Figures are outlined in pencil and then bathed in rustic watercolors, for a stunning, handcrafted look with backgrounds that burst at the seams with painterly detail, like a Miyazaki film painted by Van Gogh.
The story is an eco-adventure that pits a plucky, wild haired young heroine Mia against profit-hungry capitalists, with the future of life on earth in the balance. One night Mia has a premonition. So after saying a few words of parting at her mother's grave, she bids goodbye to her elderly aunt caretakers and, with lucky trinkets in hand, sets out on a cross-continent journey through cities, mountains and jungles to find her father, a laborer who has been trapped in a landslide at a disaster-plagued construction site on a remote tropical lake. In the middle of the lake stands the ancient, gnarled Tree of Life, watched over by stone-like forest spirits, called Migoo — innocent, almost bumbling creatures who can grow and change shape as they please, morphing from small childlike beings to petulant giants. It is the Migoo who have been sabotaging the construction to protect this sacred site — and now together with Mia, they join in a fight to find Mia's father and save the Tree from destruction.

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