Rosalie Blum (2015)
Rosalie Blum is an unashamed crowdpleaser, offering mystery, broad comedy and a buoyancy that prompts post-film recommendations.
Things to Come (2016)
Things to Come is grounded in the personal, but it’s also deeply invested in the philosophical and the political.
La Belle Saison (2016)
The premise reads like arthouse erotica: a French farmgirl moves to Paris, falls in love with another woman, has a lot of sex.
Marguerite (2015)
Marguerite seems like an odd choice to make the move from the Alliance Français French Film Festival to a general Australian release. Granted, it did well at the Cesars, but its pedigree is paired with a lacklustre, sluggish heap of a movie, ambling through half-assed farce and undercooked politics while finding little of merit beyond…
Microbe & Gasoline (2015)
French director Michel Gondry is back for another misadventure full of charm, humour and heart. Microbe & Gasoline – screening at the upcoming French Film Festival – is a tale of two teens searching for their place in the world while realising their own independence. Microbe, a.k.a Daniel (Ange Dargent), is the film’s protagonist. He struggles with…
Gemma Bovery (2014)
I must confess I know essentially nothing about Gustave Flaubert’s Madame Bovary. What I do know is gleaned pretty much entirely from this film, in which elderly baker Martin (Fabrice Luchini) becomes convinced that his new neighbour, Gemma (Gemma Arterton), is reliving Madame Bovary’s tragic character arc (specifically: sleeping with some dudes and then committing…
Samba (2014)
Samba (Omar Sy) and Alice (Charlotte Gainsbourg) are two people on the edge. Samba, an illegal immigrant whose spent the past decade in France, lives with the perpetual threat of deportation, while Alice, his caseworker, lives with a mental illness that recently culminated in a breakdown which put her career in jeopardy. Each of them…
Girlhood (2014)
The original French title of Girlhood is Bande de filles – roughly, “girl gang” – and the difference between the two titles is illustrative of the dualism of director Céline Sciamma’s approach to the film. Centring on sixteen year old girl Marieme (Karidja Touré), the film provides an individual-centric portrait of her experience – friendship,…
It Boy (2013)
Romantic comedies aren’t known for their unconventionality. There’s the meet-cute, the (often ridiculously contrived) premise to get the two leads together, the last act reveal, the grand romantic gesture. It Boy is no different in this regard; David Moreau’s rom-com ticking all the boxes. Its two-pronged premise – that late-thirties magazine editor Alice Lantis is…
Stranger by the Lake (2013)
Beneath the quietly sparkling waters of this lake is something dark and terrible. The lake is the focal point for a cruising spot for gay men. A rumour circulates that a 30-foot predatory fish lurks in the water. This alleged silurus may not exist, but when Franck (Pierre Deladonchamps) watches Michel (Christophe Paou) murder his…
ccpopculture 