The 40th anniversary of the May 1968 riots in Paris has unleashed the inevitable stream of exhibitions and publications evoking that most extraordinary time. You can, for instance, see a free exhibition of photographs in the Place de la Sorbonne, … Read More
Passe-Passe, the title of this new movie directed by Tonie Marshall, means a conjuring trick or sleight of hand. Darry (Edouard Baer) is an out-of-work magician who for no particular reason steals his brother-in-law’s BMW. He then discovers Irène (Nathalie … Read More
Like most mystery writers, Cara Black is a sort of recidivist who continually relapses into describing criminal behavior. Her latest book, Murder in the Rue de Paradis, is another detective story set in Paris and starring Aimée Leduc, a sexy … Read More
After an effective and mysterious opening scene with masked robbers distributing fur coats to women in the Marseille housing projects and a first 45 minutes of entertaining, relatively fast-paced and exciting thriller action, Robert Guédiguian’s Lady Jane goes to pot. … Read More
Adapting the great 19th-century novelist Gustave Flaubert for the screen has always been a tricky process. Claude Chabrol’s 1991 version of Madame Bovary, for example, never manages to capture the mordant irony of the original text. And provincial boredom, while … Read More
Judging by the wildly diverse reviews that Il y A Longtemps que Je T ’Aime (I’ve Loved You So Long) has received, it seems likely that you will either love or hate it. As I tend to complain rather frequently … Read More
A new cult film has been born. Already, 12 million* spectators have seen Bienvenue chez les Ch’tis (Welcome to the Sticks), which was released on February 27. Like the three Bronzés films or La Vie Est un Long Fleuve Tranquille, … Read More
Although Eloïse (Elsa Zylberstein) cries a lot during La Fabrique des Sentiments, a new film about a single, clock-ticking woman (yes, another one!), it’s hard to feel the emotion behind her mask-like face (which the camera is closely trained on … Read More
Inspired by Albert Lamorisse’s celebrated 34-minute film dating from 1956, Le Ballon Rouge, the Taiwanese director Hou Hsiao-Hsien has made a considerably longer movie on the same subject: a small boy is followed through Paris by a mysterious red balloon. … Read More
Graham Robb, author of biographies of Balzac, Victor Hugo and Rimbaud, has now written what might be called a biography of France, The Discovery of France (Picador), which takes the reader back through time and into forgotten corners of the … Read More
