August 8, 1998
Mauvais genre (1998) **
Romantic misadventures of a young Parisian writer. One of those French films where the hero lives with one woman, chases after another, sleeps with a third and hides under the bed of a fourth. Occasionally entertaining, but mostly just plain weird.
Marie Baie des Anges (1998) **
Erotic adventures of a beautiful adolescent girl on the French Riviera.
La Femme assassin (1998) *
Bizarre black comedy about a female terrorist who shoots her teammate instead of a target, and is forced to hide from cops. At first, the plot seems incoherent. Gradually, everything falls into place narratively, through the characters' motivations and modus operendi remain as baffling as ever.
En plein coeur (1998) *
Directed by Pierre Jolivet. With Virginie Ledoyen, Carole Bouquet et Gerard Lanvin. What happens when a sexy-young-girl-in-trouble (Ledoyen) meets a horny-middle-aged-lawyer (Lanvin)? He tells her to get out of his office, that's what. But what happens when she tries to lift her skirt? Ah, then he falls hopelessly in love with her and unceremoniously dumps his beautiful wife (Bouquet). Watching such films one could get an impression that all French women spend their youth as mistresses and their mature years as cheated wives.
L'Ecole de la chair (1998) *
Boring pic about an older woman (Isabelle Huppert) falling in love with a young gigolo.
L'Homme est une femme comme les autres (1998) *
Under this non sequitur title hides a fairly ordinary, tender film about a gay man who marries a woman in order to get ten million franks from his homophobic uncle. But he falls in love with his wife and serious complications ensue.
Hasards ou coincidences (1998) *
Words can hardly describe the utter worthlessness and the painful wretchedness of this monumental disaster. The incoherent plot involves an Italian ballet dancer (Martines), her brief affair with a painter (Arditi), and her encounters with hockey players in Montreal, polar bears in Churchill, Manitoba, and divers in Acapulco. Actors appear bored and indifferent, as if waiting for the director to return to the set.
Paris (1998) **
Un réalisateur décide de faire un film à Paris. Il cherche son héroïne et s'adjoint les services d'une jeune professionnelle du casting. Ils rencontreront des jeunes comédiennes ou des jeunes femmes, respirant l'air du temps.
A French film director interviews several young girls for his documentary. Directed by Raymond Depardon.
A French film director interviews several young girls for his documentary. Directed by Raymond Depardon.
L'Age de braise (1998) *
A middle-age woman (Girardot), who spent most of her life in Africa as a humanitarian aid worker, re-examines her values and commitments. Interesting subject, fascinating characters, boring film. It's slow, ponderous and full of pointless symbolism.
Les Visiteurs 2: Les Couloirs du temps (1998) *
A knight (Reno) and his servant (Clavier) are time travelling again, trying to find some missing jewels. This sequel is bad. The pacing is too fast; gags are repetitive and dumb.
Sitcom (1998) **
Under the influence of a little lab rat, a middle-class family sinks into debauchery and perversity. A sequel of sorts to Marina De Van's short gem "Bien sous tous rapports" (1996). Unfortunately, its mix of misantropy, dadaism and depravity doesn't quite work in a feature-length format. After a while, the shock value wears off, and we're left with an empty shell of a movie.
Mondo (1998) **
Plotless film about a little boy wandering around Nice, encountering many nice people. Those who won't fall asleep, will discover a nicely crafted, snail-paced and heartwarming piece of humanist cinema. It's not a documentary, but many scenes were clearly filmed with a hidden camera on busy streets. From the director of Latcho Drom.
Taxi (1998) *
A speed-loving cabbie will loose his licence, unless he helps a police detective catch a gang of Teutonic bank robbers in Marseilles. But can his French Peugot (or is it a Renault?) outrun their cameleon-like Mercedeses? Plenty of car chases and anti-Kraut slurs in this bizarre action flick penned by Luc Besson. Never boring, but incredibly dumb, and numbingly eager to imitate the very worst in Hollywood cinema.
Irma Vep (1998) **
Interesting French film starring Maggie Cheung. She plays herself - a Hong Kong actress who comes to France to appear in an artsy remake of Louis Feuillade's "Vampires".
Sucre amer (1998) *
A mixed jury of white soldiers, black rebels and ordinary tourists, is asked to judge the actions of a Guadaloupean revolutionnary, Ignace, who led a rebellion against the French in 1802. An unnecessarily didactic, badly paced movie. The treatement is extremely heavy handed.
Le Demenagement (1998) *
It's Moving Day for a young couple, and their friends come to help, but everything that can possibly go wrong, does go wrong. It's a comedy of frustrations, not particularly funny, but painful only to those who take it seriously. A warning to Romanians - offensive ethnic stereotypes ahead (it's your turn this time).
Douce France (1998) **
A film about the lives of Algerian immigrants in Paris. It's a slice-of-life drama full of revealing vignettes. There is hardly any plot, but the picture succeeds as an ensemble character study. Unlike some other French films about Arab refugees (like "Bye Bye"), this one avoids racist stereotypes.
Dis-moi que je reve (1998) **
Curious film about a poor peasant family in France. One of their sons is mentally-challenged, spending most of his time playing with a cow. But one day he learns that he has an older brother, even more seriously ill, who lives in an institution. What at first appears as a weird black comedy of questionable taste, soon turns into a touching, very intelligent human drama.
Le Gone du Chaaba (1998) **
Directed by Christophe Ruggia. With Bouzid Negnoug, Mohammed Fellag and Nabil Ghalem. A neo-realist drama about Algerian immigrants in France, adapted from an autobiographical novel by Azouz Begag, who grew up in a miserable slum near Lyon in the 1960's. It's a powerful social chronicle of a small community already alienated from their old culture, and struggling (often unsuccesfully) to integrate into a new one.
Dieu seul me voit (1998) **
Directed by Bruno Podalydes. With Denis Podalydes, Isabelle Candelier and Jeanne Balibar. Quirky, very pleasant comedy about a bumbling French playboy (closer to Jacques Tati than Alain Delon) and his wacky amorous pursuits. Episodic and constantly surprising, it has a very understated charm unique to the French cinema. Rohmer, Tati (and even Pierre Carles) serve as inspirations for this gentle, very sophisticated comedy of manners.
Fred (1998) **
Fred (Lindon) is an unemployed worker who finds himself in the middle of a dangerous affair involving murder, blackmail and illegal construction materials. A successful mixture of love story, thriller, social drama and detective film. Coureau is excellent as Fred's loyal girlfriend.
Ceux qui m'aiment prendront le train (1998) *
To prove their love for a deceased painter, his friends and family members take a train to Limoges. The reason: the painter had once said "those who love me can take the train". A painfully uwatchable film consisting of countless boring conversations.
100% Arabica (1998) *
Rai (i.e. Arabic rap) music sweeps across an immigrant neighbourhood in Paris, much to the chagrin of fundamentalist clerics from a local mosque. It's hedonism versus religious fanaticism, manichaen style. Predictably, the film praises the former, strongly condemns the latter, but offers no fresh insights. Director Zemmouri is probably hiding now under Salman Rushdie's bed.
Si je t'aime, prends garde a toi (1998) **
Directed by Jeanne Labrune. With Nathalie Baye, Daniel Duval and Jean-Pierre Darroussin. A respectable woman (Baye) meets a thugish man (Duval) who abuses her throughout the film. What happens to brutal men in American movies? They are shot (though usually only after many rapes or beatings). What happens to them in French films? They always find a masochistic woman who falls in love with them. A gentle little love story from the land of marquis de Sade.
XXL (1998) *
A nice Ashkenazi girl (Zylberstein) cheats on her Sepharadi boyfriend (Boujenah) with a goyim stud (Depardieu). Unexplicably, the guys quickly become the best of friends, ultimately forming a successful business venture. If there are any jokes in this alleged comedy, they are amazingly well hidden.
Secret Defense (1998) *
Directed by Jacques Rivette. With Sandrine Bonnaire, Jerzy Radziwillowicz and Gregoire Collin. A young woman (Bonnaire) wants to kill a man (Radziwillowicz) whom she suspects of having caused the death of her father. A long, boring, pointless, pretentious, convoluted, but nonetheless quite intriguing psychological thriller moving at a snail's pace towards a rather unexpected conclusion. There are worse ways of spending three hours of your life.
Post Coitum animal triste (1998) *
Boring pic about a married woman who has an affair with a younger man and becomes so overwhelmed with lust and desire that she goes insane. I am not kidding - that's the plot ! We need a strictly enforced embargo on French films about adultery. UN inspection teams should be dispatched from Bagdad to Paris and air strikes might be needed to destroy the stockpiles of these films.
Petits desordres amoureux (1998) *
French cinema's unhealthy obsession with sex reaches another low point with this bizarre comedy/drama about a nymphomaniac determined to seduce an impotent playboy. A limpy effort (if you know what I mean), redeemed somewhat by good acting and a clever ending.
Le Pari (1998) *
Dumb and tedious comedy about two relatives who decide to quit smoking. Deprived on nicotine, they soon freak out, annoying everyone in sight. The film tries hard to be clever and satiric, but those lame attempts at humor only make it more bizarre. Surgeon General's warning: don't inhale.
La Vie revée des anges (1998) **
Seriously overrated French drama about two young girls (Bouchez and Regnier) sharing a small appartment together. They're cute to be sure, but it's really hard to give a damn about their problems. With lousy jobs and even lousier boyfriends, they only inspire pity and irritation.
De l'autre cote du periph' (1998) *
Responding to a letter from a right-wing government's minister, left-wing French filmmaker Bertrand Tavernier visits a Parisian suburb of Montreuil.
La Magie Melies (1998) **
A well-researched and nicely crafted documentary about the famous turn-of-the-century pioneer of French cinema. The movie lets us discover a unique filmmaker, whose style marked an important stage in the developpment of the cinematic language.
Comme elle respire (1998) *
A compulsive liar with a history of mental problems (Trintignant) finds herself kidnapped by dangerous thugs, who mistakenly believe her parents to be wealthy. Guess who gave them that idea. The film is quite remarkable for its vertigo-inducing switcheroos from black comedy and tender romance to disease-of-the-week antics and torture & exploitation thrills. Unfortunately, the result is one big pointless mess.
La Classe de neige (1998) *
Directed by Claude Miller. With Clement van den Bergh, Lokman Nalcakan and Francois Roy. What makes Miller tick? The genius behind L'Effronte (1985), also responsible for such wretched turkeys as Le Sourire (1996), now comes up with a bizarre little drama about a young boy with a very fertile imagination. The film belongs to the venerable French tradition of Grand Guignol, with bloody limbs scathered around and organs being harvested from living people. It got some minor award at Cannes, but all it deserves is a mop and a bucket of water.
Le Ciel est a nous (1998) *
French drug dealers are double crossing each other, while shooting at anything that moves. A pathetic attempt to imitate Quentin Tarantino. The delusional young hack who directed this turkey apparently thought that by emptying a few guns, adding some one-liners and throwing a couple of profanities, he could somehow make another Pulp Fiction.
Une Chance sur deux (1998) *
Plenty of big explosions, gunfights, chases and last-minute rescues in this French action comedy that imitates the very worst in Hollywood cinema. The plot (something about a delinquent young girl trying to find out which one of her mother's lovers is her real father) is chock-full of the most stupid clichés. It's very sad to see two screen legends embarrass themselves in such a stinker.
La Premiere nuit de ma vie (1998) *
Set on the last night of 1999, it's a wacky, but singularly unfunny film about people driving around, carjackings, a pregnant woman about to give birth, etc.
Pour rire (1998) **
This French comedy about marital infidelities takes a while to get started - the first half an hour is really boring - but stick with it because later it becomes very interesting and quite hilarious - only to end quite abruptly without delivering any punchlines. A very uneven film - if you come late, and leave before the end, you might mistake it for a comic gem.
A vendre (1998) *
A young woman (Kiberlain) can't decide if she wants to be a prostitute, a cleaning lady or a dutiful housewife.
Assassin(s) (1998) *
A really vile film about a professional killer (Michel Serrault) who wants to take on an apprentice.
L'Arriere pays (1998) *
Directed by Jacques Nolot. With Jacques Nolot, Henri Gardey and Eloise Mignot. A well-known French actor (Nolot) returns to his native town to visit his dying mother. He also meets old friends and relatives. Stay clear from this plotless film unless you're particularly interested in all the minute details of funeral customs and procedures in rural France.
Arlette (1998) *
A really bad comedy about an American gigolo (Lambert) seducing a French waitress (Balasko) who doesn't know that she'll soon inherit a casino in Las Vegas. This is Gallic humor at its most cruel and unpleasant. Anyone poking fun at fat and ugly old maids, should at least try to make it funny. But this film is both offensive and boring.
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