The Official French Film/SBS Movie Thread (1 Viewer)

[chepas]

Et bien alors...

I thought I'd consecrate a new thread to this blessèd topic, not really specific to a single movie in the title of the thread, and hopefully this shall be kept to topic, without too many tangents and spaaaam (*winking at people, including myself*). There is a special thread for that purpose already, 'Parlons-nous le francais ici' (sic)...

GRANDES NOUVELLES:

Amélie will be shown Sunday, 5 September at 8.30pm on SBS!!! Strong suggestion for all those who have not seen it, and yes. Very good.

I'll transport the movie titles from the other thread, that people liked and mentioned:

Auberge espagnole, L'
Brève traversée
Children of the Marshlands
Dîner de cons, Le
Etre et avoir
Marie-Jo et ses deux amours
Papillon, Le
Placard, Le
Prince du Pacific, Le
Taxi
Touching the Void
Triplettes de Belleville, Les

 

[malkin86]

Isn't there one about an accountant who discovers he has an unexpected son who lives in the jungle?

Hollywood got a hold of it, remade it, and the bloke who plays Tim the Toolman played the accountant/father. Can anyone think of the name of the french version? It's slipped my mind...

 

[chepas]

That sounds sort of famliiar but I can't think of the original French title atm! Argh...

At any rate...

N'oubliez pas de regarder Amélie demain soir! 20h30, SBS

Pour ceux qui ne parlent pas le français: Don't forget Amelie tomorrow night, 8.30, SBS!!!

Qch a` ne pas manquer!

 

[Sugar]

I've seen Amelie before on video, but I can't wait to watch it again tomorrow night. I don't try listening to the French though, I read the subtitles.

Hooray for the SBS showcase.

 

[iambored]

yes that's excellent!!

so are they only doing french films on a sunday night?

 

[chepas]

Nah it seems that it's like a best-films-from-around-the-world thing, but so far they have shown quite a few French films, so there is hope Especially good French humour...

 

[frenchie]

Yes! Le Fableux Déstin d'Amélie Poulain is absolute amazing. I have watched it countless times....and even got the script off the net simply to learn some more french. I truley work hard for my french nerdiness title.

Apart from that,

Belleville Rendez-vous is okay...i wouldn't rave about it. Impressive animations...almost no dialogue...it's purpose is genuine but not my cup of tea.

Seul Contre Tous - the main character hates life so much it is at times hilarious. If you think life is bad watch this and realise hey...maybe it really isn't.

Irréversible - this movie would have to be the most vile and repulsive thing on film. The violence cannot be described. Monica Belluci, Vincent Cassel...only watch it if you aren't shocked easily and feel you can stomach a 9minute continuous rape scene. Strangly i didn't hate the film even though it kicks you in the stomach a hundred times.

A la folie...pas du tout - wonderful Audrey Tautou again. This time she plays a dark version of Amélie...a real wackjob.

Etre et avoir - I challenge anyone not to love this movie. Jojo...anyone that has seen it should be smiling with fond memories right now.

Tanguy - not bad. Has it's moments.

Le Libertin - repeated several times on SBS. 17thC philospher challenges almost all morals with a "If it's natural it must be good for you" belief and practices what he preaches! Never a dull moment.

Harry, un ami qui vous veut du bien - pretty dark, thriller, comedy, does anyone have a friend who just tries to do to much for you?...see this.

That's just a sampling of some good french movies to see.

A plus tard!

Frenchie

 

[Kazuya]

You know I've had the World Movies channel on Foxtel for several years now and I haven't been watching it as much as I should have. I usually stick to Asian films but I like to watch French ones when I can.

I like

La gloire de mon père
Maelstrom
Hiroshima
Sexy Boys (I think that's what it was called)
Un coeur en hiver

Also has anyone seen Le Pacte des Loups/Brotherhood of the Wolf, because that looks really good. I should rent that someday.

 

[Hippy La-Laa]

Jojo...anyone that has seen it should be smiling with fond memories right now.

Awww. HE WAS ADORABLE! Totally cute! Especially when he was kept back to complete his work and had a strop about it....

Looking forward to Amelie this evening. I only saw it fot the first time at the begining of this year, now I've seen it around seven times... Not bored of it yet....

I like the music in it- there's something appealing about the background music...sorta whimsical, infused with a french vibe.... yet strangely comforting...

 

[frenchie]

Are there any good films out of Québec that are worth watching?

I remember Les Boys. The one about the hockey team, and being completely frightened by the Québecoise accent. Even 'oui' and 'non' evaded my ears. Lol. Normally I can string together something without looking at les sous-titres, but yeah the french canadian accent is different.

 

[omg_a]

^^ i adore amelie, its so cute!! and the music i know what you mean, it's so montmartre, i have the soundtrack and its fabulous. has anyone seen the three colours movies? red, white and blue?? white was boring i thought, but i liked red and blue. uncoeur en hiver was really good to. and if i hadn't studied au revoir les enfants i'd love it too, but i recommend it....very poignant film set in wwII.

 

[welshi]

totally agree about the music a... how long did i have ur copy for? squee! can't wait til tonight...hope i have enough eng done to watch.
what was that other one we watched on that french movie night? Le Placard (the closet). it has those three stalwarts of french cinema - daniel auteuil, thierry lhermitte and gerard depardieu. fairly silly sex comedy but funny.
my second fav french movie ever has to be La fille sur la pont. so gorgeous, shot in b&w with daniel a and vanessa paradis. si belle.
also:

marius et jeanette
brotherhood of the wolf (vincent cassell - gorgeous. also does the voice for robin hood in shrek.)
and another one by jean-pierre jeunet (amelie guy) - le cite des enfants perdus. creepy and nothing like amelie but worth a look.

 

[chepas]

Le cinéma québécois (oooh que j'adore le Québec, même si j'y suis pas encore allé ): I adore the accent too. A bit hard at times, but some Americans are hard to listen too... their dish - la poutine - if I can ever figure out what 'fromage en grains' is, I want to make it. It looks disgusting but sooo intriguing. Potatoes in odd shapes, a brown sauce of indescribable nature and this cheese 'en grains'...

The guy who did Les invasions barbares is Québécois, so theres some of cinema from Québec. In fact, that movie uses the same people from it's 80s predecessor Le déclin de l'empire americain (I think that's the title). Also another movie by the same guy, at least another Québécois, Jésus de Montréal.

marius et jeanette

ARGH! The three most evil words in the French language!!! Nah, I swear I thought I'd be sick of that movie by now, but not really. I'm sort of over tearing it to shreads.

 

[Hippy La-Laa]

Okay. This relates to the Amelie that was shown on SBS last night. I've seen this quite a few times now on a DVD which I hired from the video store, but I noticed that last night, on the SBS version, the scene where Amelie phones the Sex shop and they ask her if she is 'shaved' the dialogue straight after it was slightly different to the DVD version I saw. I'll try and remember it...

SBS: "The punters don't like fur"
DVD: "Fur pie doesn't sell well"

.....Okay. So it's completely trivial and the only reason I remember it is because I thought it was rather amusing that they referrerd to it as 'fur pie'....But don't ya think it's weird that they have two different versions...?

 

[chepas]

Yer SBS do their own translations of movies and stuff, so even though a movie might come with its own subtitles I think they do one as well... conforms with their lovely yellow typeset I suppose. But yeah. The two are different (the one at the movies was white... ), a bit odd but I suppose for reasons of that font conformity lol...

 

[omg_a]

re the different subtitles...i've noticed that before. we're studying au revoir les enfants, and i have two tapes, one with the whole film, one with just the extracts. but the extract tape has different subtitles to the film tape. very odd. i think they must have been made off different recordings or something........and in some places the translations are quite different, and different again from the french in the script. ah... the oddities of language...

 

[Hippy La-Laa]

Yer SBS do their own translations of movies and stuff, so even though a movie might come with its own subtitles I think they do one as well... conforms with their lovely yellow typeset I suppose

Ahh.... That makes sense. Cool.

It must be fun for the translators. Coming up with the appropriate translations more suited to the lingo of the society...

Interesting....

 

[chepas]

08:30 pm SHOWCASE MOVIE - ACTION - CROUCHING TIGER, HIDDEN DRAGON

When a politician's daughter steals a legendary warrior's precious sword, a sequence of events is triggered to recover it, which leads to an encounter with the thief's witch like minder. A masterpiece from renowned director Ang Lee, watch for the startlingly impressive visual effects that see people defying gravity by bouncing up walls and bounding onto rooftops. Stars Chow Yun Fat, Michelle Yeoh, Zhang Ziyi and Chang Chen. (From Hong Kong, in Mandarin, English subtitles) (2000) M (V,S,A) (Rpt) WS

And for those who interest themselves at cinema from Québec, you have luck. Two films québécois will be shown soon ...

11.00 pm MOVIE - COMEDY - ICE CREAM, CHOCOLATE AND OTHER CONSOLATIONS (CREME GLACEE, CHOCOLAT ET AUTRES CONSOLATIONS)

Suzie (Isabelle Brouillette), Samuel (Danny Gilmore) and Judith (Jacynthe René) are a trio of childhood friends who have shared a common history and now, as adults, they continue to share the ups and downs of their lives together. As twenty-somethings they are still recovering from the effects of having dysfunctional parents, but they find solace in each other, and as they title suggests, in ice cream, chocolate and other consolations. The story centres on the close friendship between Suzie and Samuel, a friendship that is too good to risk by becoming lovers and yet their romantic relationships always seem to go awry. Written and directed by Julie Hivon. (From Canada, in French) (2001) M (A) WS

11:00 pm MOVIE - DRAMA - CHAOS AND DESIRE (LA TURBULENCE DES FLUIDES)

This film opened the Montreal World Film Festival in 2002 and follows a young Quebecoise seismologist, Alice Bradley (Pascale Bussieres) who investigates a strange occurence in her home town of Baie Comeau, Quebec. One day, the tides of the small North Shore town receded for no obvious reason, leaving dry sandbanks on which the locals started to play golf. Despite being convinced that there are scientific reasons for the phenomenon, Alice becomes increasingly more intrigued by the locals' insistence on magical or paranormal events that are somehow linked to the disappearance of the tides and also to the strange disappearance of a local woman. Helped by local journalist Catherine (Julie Gayet), Alice's investigation takes her further and further into strange incidents like when an adopted Chinese girl starts to sleepwalk whenever there should be a high tide. This evocative film intelligently negotiates the inclusion of the supernatural in the plot, without reverting to either clichéd plotlines or predictability. Written and directed by Manon Briand, this film also stars Jean-Nicolas Verreault. (From Canada, in French, English subtitles) (2002) WS

Finally we return to France...

10:00 pm MOVIE - DRAMA - LULU

Set in the scenic village of Les Saintes-Maries-de-la-Mer, a sea-side village not far from Marseilles, the film centres on Lulu (Elli Medeiros), an attractive woman in her 40s who runs the most popular bar in town. When Fabio (Tony Gatlif), an extortionist pimp, appears from her past and starts making trouble for her, he is murdered. Lulu is then implicated as the prime suspect in the murder investigation. However, the case is not as simple as it seems. There are a few surprises in this film, one of which is that Lulu is revealed as a transsexual ex-prostitute with an unconventional past. Beautifully shot and luminous in its portrait of an enigmatic, complex character, this film was both written and directed by Jean-Henri Roger, also known for his 1981 film Neige. (In French, English subtitles) (2002) WS

Phew. That should set us up for the next decade and a half!

Chépas .

 

[chepas]

Salut la marmaille...

One of the movies is on tonight! It's sort of 1/2 hour into it, but yeah... should have posted a reminder earlier lol! Hope it still managed to grab your attention!

Alors, the Québécois comedy tonight. I haven't watched the whole thing yet - taping it.

Bon, je vous laisse,
Chépas .

 

[Hippy La-Laa]

I think I taped it. Well, I set the VCR, but whether it actually recorded anything is another matter.

I hope it worked. I'll check when I get home...

What was it like Chepas? Did ya watch it?