Category: Movies

Films on the Green Festival Available Online!

With its theme “A Summer in Paris,” the Films on the Green offered a striking portrait of the City of Lights, its urban landscape, and its cultural diversity. A selection of classic, New Wave, and contemporary films by directors such as Agnès Varda, Céline Sciamma and Luc Besson, showcased the city’s aesthetic, cultural, and cinematic history from dramatically unconventional angles. Discover stories of love, adolescence, female identity, and urban life in Paris and its surrounding suburbs!

Below you will find the curated film descriptions as well as links to watch them on U.S. streaming platforms!

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Girlhood (Bande de filles)
Directed by Céline Sciamma, 2014, 1h52

Girlhood, which opened the Directors’ Fortnight section at the 2014 Cannes Film Festival, is Céline Sciamma’s third feature film (Water Lilies, Tomboy) to deal with female adolescence and identity.

Fed up with her abusive family situation, lack of school prospects and the “boys’ law” in the neighborhood, Marieme (Karidja Touré) starts a new life after meeting a group of three free-spirited girls. She changes her name, her style, drops out of school and starts stealing to be accepted into the gang. When her home situation becomes unbearable, Marieme seeks solace in an older man who promises her money and protection. Realizing this sort of lifestyle will never result in the freedom and independence she truly desires; she finally decides to take matters into her own hands.

Available on Hoopla | The Criterion Collection | Kanopy | YouTube | GooglePlay | Vudu | iTunes | Amazon Video

Subway
Directed by Luc Besson, R, 1985, 1h44

Subway is Luc Besson’s (Lucy, The Fifth Element) ultra-cool and stylized romantic adventure which won French Award César in 1986 for Best Actor (Christophe Lambert), Best Production Design (Alexandre Trauner) and Best Sound.

Fred (Christophe Lambert) is a hipster thief who falls in love with the bored and beautiful wife of the millionaire (Isabelle Adjani) he just robbed. She wants her stolen papers back and he wants her heart. With gangsters and Metro police on their tail, the two seek refuge in the wild labyrinth beneath the subway and team up with the strange characters who inhabit the subterranean world.

Available on Vudu | Amazon Video | iTunes

The Tall Blond Man with One Black Shoe (Le grand blond avec une chaussure noire)
Directed by Yves Robert, PG, 1972, 1h30

A frothy French farce, The Tall Blond Man with One Black Shoe is a classic madcap comedy about espionage, surveillance, and mistaken identity. When Francois (Pierre Richard), an unsuspecting violinist, is misidentified as a superspy by national intelligence, outrageous antics ensue. As everyone (including Mireille Darc, playing a knock-out henchwoman) falls over each other in their misguided attempts to discover the tall blond man’s secrets, his best friend complicates matters even further when he overhears a salacious recording of Francois with his wife. The whole merry-go-round comes crashing to a halt in one final showdown, pitting spy versus supposed spy with hilarious results. Elegantly filmed and accompanied by a memorable score, The Tall Blond Man with One Black Shoe is one of the most seminal comedies of the 1970s.

Available on Hoopla | Tubi| Kanopy | GooglePlay | YouTube | FandangoNow | Amazon Video | iTunes | FlixFling

 

Cléo from 5 to 7 (Cléo de 5 à 7)
Directed by Agnès Varda, 1962, 1h30

Agnès Varda eloquently captures Paris in the sixties with this real-time portrait of a singer (Corinne Marchand) set adrift in the city as she awaits test results of a biopsy. A chronicle of the minutes of one woman’s life, Cleo from 5 to 7 is a spirited mix of vivid vérité and melodrama, featuring a score by Michel Legrand (The Umbrellas of Cherbourg) and cameos by Jean-Luc Godard and Anna Karina.

Available on HBO Max | The Criterion Channel | Kanopy

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38 Movies That Will Transport You to Paris

Musicals, mysteries, and a whole lot of Audrey Hepburn.

Paris has inspired every type of artist over the years, from Impressionist painters to literary giants. But the city perhaps shines the brightest on the big screen, serving as the backdrop to countless movies over the past century. Even before French directors like Jean-Luc Godard and François Truffaut launched a cinematic movement in the 1960s, Hollywood showcased the beauty of Paris in breezy musicals and romances. And since then, we’ve seen the city shine in animated films, white-knuckle thrillers, gritty biopics, and more. Regardless of the genre, one thing’s for sure: The City of Light sure knows how to steal a scene. From Amélie to Ratatouille, here are 35 movies that will transport you to Paris—no plane ticket required

Amélie (2001)

When I think of Paris on film, I think of scenes from Amélie. The quirky 2001 romantic comedy follows the titular character, played by Audrey Tautou, as she flits around her hometown of Paris, observing strangers around her. Though she’s struggling with her own loneliness, she becomes fixated on improving the lives of others, often from afar and with no recognition. The feel-good film was supposedly filmed in over 80 locations throughout the city, so it alone is a whimsical trip through the City of Light. —Megan Spurrell, associate editor

Watch now: Buy from $16, amazon.com

Alphaville (1965)

The genius of Jean-Luc Godard’s hard-boiled dystopian sci-fi flick from 1965 is that it uses the Paris of its day to create a world that feels utterly unlike the place we think of as Paris, then and now. Shooting at night, Godard used the glassy Modernist high-rises of La Défense and other then-new developments on the outskirts of the city to depict the cold, computer-run autocracy of Alphaville, a Brave New World sort of place into which a Humphrey Bogart-ish American detective (played by Eddie Constantine) must go to seek the people’s freedom. The marriage between noir and science fiction that Godard achieved here is one that numerous other filmmakers would seek to replicate, with Ridley Scott in Blade Runner being perhaps the greatest example. —Jesse Ashlock, U.S. editor

Watch now: Rent from $4, amazon.com

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Film Review: “Summer of 85”

François Ozon revisits the romantic passions of adolescence with the accuracy and great rawness of emotion that are characteristic of his mature and masterful filmmaking approach

The exaggerated nature of desires and feelings, the sky-high intensity of the moment such that every single second assumes timeless dimensions, the clash of contradictory emotions, the shared secrets and pacts, the search for the other as a mirror of love, flirtation with risk and the electrified zone where Eros and Thanatos intermix, all set against the most banal daily life imaginable, composed of parents, high school, holidays and hesitant plans for the future. Adolescence is the age of plunging into the unknown, of nebulous transitions, of instinctive joy and deep, deep suffering; a time for romanticism par excellence Continue reading “Film Review: “Summer of 85”” →

French movies to stream: “Two Days, One Night

Two Days, One Night ★★★★☆

Masters of immersing you in other people’s grim predicaments whilst maintaining an essential lightness of touch, in 2014 Belgium’s Dardenne brothers teamed up winningly with the great French actress Marion Cotillard. The result was a fluid, Oscar-nominated drama that follows a desperate factory worker as she tries to persuade her colleagues to forgo their bonuses in order to save her job, in a highly unusual race against the clock. If you’ve yet to catch it, make it a must.
Watch now on iPlayer. | Source: The List

Marion Cotillard

Watch this: Dardenne brothers’ “Young Ahmet” is now streaming online

YOUNG AHMED (2020) Stream on Criterion Channel; rent on Amazon, Google Play, iTunes, Vudu and YouTube. 

A bespectacled Belgian teenager gets swept up by radicalism in this most recent film from the brothers Jean-Pierre Dardenne and Luc Dardenne. The teenager, a 13-year-old named Ahmed (Idir Ben Addi), falls under the influence of an extremist imam (Othmane Moumen). As Ahmed grows apart from his family, his attention falls on his math tutor, Inès (Myriem Akheddiou) — a fixation that leads to catastrophe. “The plot may hinge on Ahmed’s actions and motivations,” A.O. Scott wrote in his review for The New York Times, “but the film’s real drama revolves around a central moral and political conflict, between religious extremism and a humanist ethos that is more behavioral than doctrinal.”

NY Times
Dardenne Brothers