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Monsieur Hulot’s Holiday
It’s August and M. Hulot sets off on holiday in his ancient Amilcar. He arrives in Brittany at the beachfront hotel, where an unsuspecting assortment of holiday-makers is unaware of the impending havoc. The charm of this film lies in its benign humour: there are no victims. M. Hulot is oblivious of the trail of…
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Three Colours: Blue
Three Colours Blue is the first part of Kieslowski’s trilogy examining the meaning to contemporary French society of the concepts behind the three national colours blue, white, and red. These represent liberty, equality and fraternity. The director gives us the story of Julie who loses her husband and daughter in a car crash. Blue manifests…
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All About My Mother
Esteban, an aspiring young writer, runs to get the autograph of an actress, with tragic results. His mother, Manuela, goes to Barcelona to find Esteban’s transvestite father and her dislocated life begins to take a very different shape. Self -parody is part of Almodovar’s approach and the effectiveness of his story-telling comes partly from the…
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Hidden
Professional couple Georges (Auteuil) and Anne (Binoche) appear to have it all, but when they start to receive secretly filmed footage of their movements as well as disturbing drawings, their cooling relationship and comfortable life begin to unravel. Dreams help Georges make links with a half-forgotten past, yet why wont he share his thoughts with…
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Central Station
In a cut-throat world Dora (Fernanda Montenegro) earns a living writing letters for illiterate people in Rio de Janieros Central Station. Fate gives her the responsibility of looking after newly orphaned Josue (Vinicius de Oliveira). Initially she rejects the task but then changes her mind. On the surface, the rest of the story is a…
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Kirikou and the Sorceress
omewhere in Africa south of the Sahara, Kirikou is born. Imbued with supernatural precocity he talks to his mother in the womb, is more knowing than adults at birth and braver and faster than the men in the village. And this is just as well because the village needs Kirikou to save them from an…
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Tell No One
In this taut thriller, the case of a woman’s (Marie-Josee Croze) brutal murder is reopened years after the event and her husband (Francois Cluzet) becomes prime suspect. However the widower starts to receive emails which suggest his wife may still be alive. Based on American author Harlan Coben’s best-seller, this intricately plotted multi-award winning film…
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Three Times
In three 45 minutes segments the director takes us through three love stories set in three different times, 1911, 1966 and 2005. In a fascinating approach each couple is played by the same two actors, Qi Shu, one-time soft porn actress (she is far from alone in following this route to recognition as an actress)…
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Aprile
Morreti casts himself, wife and friends in a documentary lampoon about Italian politics. What could be irritatingly self-indulgent turns out to be a funny, charming perspective on Italian life. Following the general election of 1994, won by the centre-right coalition led by Silvio Berlusconi, Moretti is encouraged by a journalist friend to make a documentary…
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The Singer
In the multi award-winning The Singer (aka When I Was a Singer, “Quand j’étais chanteur“) Gerard Depardieu returns to excellent form following a few mediocre roles where people were being to wonder how bettable he was at the box office. Giannoli’s direction brings out the best in Depardieu and the film is an engaging, reflective…