French

Giffnock Ivy

7 Aug 2008

For the price of a £5 train ticket, Glaswegians can enjoy a dining experience to rival those found in the stylish restaurants of Paris. Well, according to the new management of the Giffnock Ivy, that is, which aims to ‘bring the tastes, smells and…

A Comedy of Power

31 Jul 2008

THRILLER (PG) 110min (ICA DVD retail) Veteran French filmmaker Claude Chabrol takes on the story of magistrate Eva Joly’s ceaseless investigation into France’s leading oil company Elf Aquitaine. The inquiry led to a national scandal in 1994 which The…

Summer Hours

17 Jul 2008

DRAMA (12A) 102min In summer sunshine in the countryside north of Paris it’s the 75th birthday of widowed matriarch Helene (Edith Scob), and attending the celebrations are her three children, university economist Frédéric (Charles Berling)…

Intimate Enemies

3 Jul 2008

WAR (15) 100min (Contender DVD retail) Will the Algerian war turn the humanist lieutenant at the centre of Florent Emilio Siri’s film into a monstrous shadow of his former self? After being posted to Algeria, Terrien (Benoît Magimel), the…

Jules et Jim

3 Jul 2008

NEW PRINT/ROMANCE (PG) 105min French New Wave filmmaker Francois Truffaut’s third film, made in 1962, was undoubtedly his masterpiece. Set in the 1910s and 20s it is the story of a freewheeling love triangle between alpha female Catherine (Jeanne…

Mes amis, mes amours

3 Jul 2008

COMEDY/ROMANCE (15) 106min Mes Amis, Mes Amours resembles a Gallic version of a Richard Curtis movie, set in an affluent, quarter of London and peopled by French expats: it’s less a romantic comedy than a sentimental fantasy of city living among an…

Paris Lockdown

3 Jul 2008

GANGSTER (18) 143min (Momentum DVD retail/rental) This brutally efficient, thoroughly gratuitous French gangster film from Frédéric Schoendorffer, director of Scene de Crime and Spy Bound, explores the lives of various gangsters on the make.

Couscous (La Graine et le mulet)

19 Jun 2008

DRAMA (15) 154min Filmmaker Abdel Kechiche builds on the promise that he displayed with 2003’s L’Esquive by creating a drama similar in style and spirit to Vittorio De Sica’s 1951 neorealist fantasy Miracle in Milan. The man in need of a miracle in…

Female Agents (Les Femmes Des Ombres)

19 Jun 2008

WAR/THRILLER (15) 116min Spring 1944, the lead up to the Normandy landings, and the technical planning and manufacture of a floating dock has been going on since January. When a British geologist ends up in a French hospital, the plan is thrown into…

Un Secret

5 Jun 2008

DRAMA (15) 106min Veteran French writer-director Claude Miller (Garde à Vue, La Petite Voleuse) revisits France’s traumatic experiences under German Occupation during World War II in this polished and suspenseful melodrama. Adapted from Philippe…

Chez Pierre

5 Jun 2008

Sometimes we get a bit too serious about food. But then it is a serious business, it’s what keeps us upright, but like any realm of human interest some folk, among them food journalists and chefs, become just a bit too earnest about the whole subject.

Summer Film Special - Audrey Tautou - Priceless

22 May 2008

She scurries into the opulent embrace of the Grand Hotel in Paris, leaving behind the hubbub of the city, and plonks herself down in a capacious settee, legs decorously crossed, for a morning of interviews. The arresting brown eyes still exude a…

Terror’s Advocate

22 May 2008

DOCUMENTARY (12A) 137min Filmmaker Barbet Schroeder starts his engrossing documentary with a written statement claiming that this is his view of Jacques Vergès and that the opinion of those interviewed may be different. He then proceeds to show an…

Barbet Schroeder

22 May 2008

‘I don’t like being called an auteur’, explains the 67-year-old maverick filmmaker Barbet Schroeder. ‘I just like jumping between different projects.’ Certainly the Iranian-born Schroeder has enjoyed a richly varied cinematic career, starting out in the…

Change of Address

22 May 2008

COMEDY/DRAMA (12A) 85min French horn teacher David (Emmanuel Mouret) is improbably picked up by impulsive Anne (Frédérique Bel). She convinces him to come and live in her small Parisian flat. These oddballs are obviously perfect for each other but in…

Playlist

22 May 2008

The latest PlayList invites you to investigate the past, present and future through the remarkable reality tunnels detailed in the work of French film artist Chris Marker. Marker is due to celebrate his 87th birthday this year. If you recognise the…

Heartbeat Detector

8 May 2008

DRAMA (12A) 135min Visually spare, leisurely in pace, wordy and featuring an eclectic, occasionally jarring soundtrack, this French corporate thriller is demanding and rewarding in equal measure. Adapted from François Emmanuel’s novel La Question…

Mathieu Amalric

8 May 2008

It’s quite fitting that on the seat next to Mathieu Amalric is his motorbike helmet. Having dashed across London from Pinewood Studios, where he is currently shooting the new James Bond film Quantum of Solace, the French actor knows that come the autumn…

The Last Mistress

8 May 2008

DRAMA (15) 114min Despite suffering a cerebral haemorrhage in 2004, the French filmmaker Catherine Breillat has returned with her most entertaining and accessible work to date. Based on the 19th century novel by the controversial writer Jules-Amédée…

Welcome to the Sticks

8 May 2008

COMEDY (12A) 106min Dany Boon’s box-office hit is the most successful French movie of all time. In just seven weeks on release, it broke 1966 comedy La Grande Vadrouille’s record for the highest ever attendance for a French film on home soil with 17…

La Vallée Blanche

27 Mar 2008

When rationalising business-speak began to creep into the way things were run at étain restaurant in Princes Square a couple of years back, chef Neil Clark knew it was time to pack up his pans. Not one to compromise on his creativity, he left the…

Coup De Torchon

27 Mar 2008

THRILLER (15) 123min (Optimum DVD retail) Adapted from a Jim Thompson novel by Bertrand Tavernier, this loose adaptation shows local police officer Lucien Cordier (Philippe Noiret) in an African colony in 1938 inefficiently doing his job while being…

French Flm Festival Round-up

11 Apr 2007

It’s that time of year again when the great and the good who coordinate the national French Film festival unleash their wares on those Francophiles among us. Taking in four Scottish cities (Glasgow, Edinburgh, Dundee and Aberdeen) this three week…

Justice

PROFILE

1 Sep 2006

Name Justice Occupation Your summer-soundtracking ‘Friends’. Who are they? French duo Gaspard Augé and Xavier de Rosnay, who toiled in electro-producing obscurity until getting their big break as remixers/cut-up auteurs with one of the summer’s…