> 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>
> 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
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.
> 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