The local French Film Festival -- the best-attended in America, they say -- has just announced their slate of films, and most of the films (as usual) are North American premieres. Regardless, if anyone has seen any of the following works of cinema, or if anyone has seen films by the mentioned directors, I'd be happy to hear their opinions.

À la petite semaine, Sam Karmann

• Effroyables jardins (Strange Gardens), Jean Becker
  
• Filles uniques, Pierre Jolivet
  
• La Petite Lili, Claude Miller (whose Alias Betty I somewhat liked)
  
• La Prophétie des grenouilles, Jacques-Remy Girerd
  
• Le Bison (et sa voisine Dorine), Isabelle Nanty (who was the cigarette counter girl in Amelie)
  
• Monsieur N., Antoine de Caunes
  
• Petits arrangements avec les morts (Coming to Terms with the Dead), Pascale Ferran
  Dale

Luc Besson.

:twisted:


To the poll that is.

Most, if not all of those, haven't shown commercially here (or even in festivals, I would have to check that again). I envy your chance here Prins, most of these have only been reviewed in French too. That almost may be worth the drive for me.

DanBuck beat me to it.

('Cept I didn't care for 'The Messenger', but hey...)

However, I have to say Jeunet and Carot edge him out in my book.

(M):

: I envy your chance here Prins, most of these have only been reviewed
: in French too. That almost may be worth the drive for me.

Before your skin turns the color of Kermit's over the loveliness of my hometown festival -- and of course, were you to attend, you could share a bed with Kermit and my wife's other stuffed animals -- an explanation of this gala's raison d'être: Unlike nearly every other film festival in the world, the VCU French Film Festival is pitched not toward film lovers, but toward (a) native French-language speakers and ( French-language students and © community members that are adventurous enough to watch foreign language films as long as they are in every other way like American films. After seeing more than 10 films at VCUFFF over the last few years, I'd argue that the festival programs the French equivalents of Double Jeopardy, Anger Management, and Runaway Bride, making the festival -- not withstanding aberrations like last year's To Be and To Have -- more of a cultural experience than a cinematic one, at least for me. (And it is interesting as a cultural experience to see the foreign genre films that would otherwise never play in the States [since the audience most likely to enjoy them would be scared away by the subtitles].)

In short: If you are going to dream about driving to the mid-Atlantic to go to a film festival, dream a week later and go to the best East Coast festival south of New York.

Dale

So you're saying NO subtitles? Just the French in all its glory?

Cool sig, Leary!

: So you're saying NO subtitles? Just the French in all its glory?

Oh no no no no no. The films have subtitles, but what the subtitlers are subtitling is mainstream, middlebrow French movies. That's all I'm saying.

Dale

Hmmm, this, I'd like to see sometime. I've seen some "middlebrow" French stuff in my time. I sometimes prefer it to full artsy French stuff.

Ditto Rich's comment: 'Wasabi' and 'The Closet' have been recent guilty pleasures of mine.

QUOTE

(And it is interesting as a cultural experience to see the foreign genre films that would otherwise never play in the States [since the audience most likely to enjoy them would be scared away by the subtitles].)

Bingo. And French pop-comedies tend to be a lot wittier than the American equivalent, but this may just be my francophilia showing itself again.

Hmmm, guess there's no real overlap between your festival, M. Dale, and this one coming to the Cinematheque in April?