In 1985, Charlotte Gainsbourg (Lemming, The Science of Sleep) was just thirteen and cute as a button. L’Effrontée is only her third movie, and she owns it. The French vacation coming-of-age tale is a venerable subgenre (we’re fans of Girls Can’t Swim and Pauline at the Beach but not Fat Girl)–and this is a very [...]
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"A fast, complex, exhilarating roadster ride through history and time.... Kino is an intoxicating Euro-brew, written with enormous skill and dedication." — Frederick Barthelme
"Jürgen Fauth's deft mashup of genre and historical period is both a full-throttle literary thriller of ideas and a contemplative examination of film and fascism. Kino is a debut of great intellectual force."– Teddy Wayne
"A surprising alternative history. Kino brings the golden age of German cinema to light with loving, sometimes gritty, detail and great precision." – Neal Pollack, author of Jewball.
"A delirious melange of conspiracy, magic, sex, history, bad behavior, and cinema, Kino is a stellar entertainment, and Jürgen Fauth is a writer of rare, sinister imagination." – Owen King, author of Reenactment
"A light-hearted romp that leads straight into darkness and back through the shadows on the wall."– Ben Loory, author of Stories for Nighttime and Some for the Day
"Movie nuts arise! A happy and felicitous debut."– Terese Svoboda
All posts tagged french
Angel-A
Luc Besson returns to Paris with a little movie that begins as playful comedy about a crook who meets a beautiful woman — and ends as dreadfully dumbed-down remake of Wings of Desire. André (Jamel Debbouze) is a scam artist who’s run out of luck, ready to hurl himself into the Seine when Angela (Rie [...]
Posted by Jürgen on March 8, 2007
http://jurgenfauth.com/2007/03/08/angel-a/
Into Great Silence
Philip Gröning lived in a monk’s cell in the French Alps for six months to make this — you guessed it — very quiet documentary about the hermits’ lives. According to the press notes, the Carthusians are among the world’s most ascetic orders. (They also make the sticky herb liqueur Chartreuse). But you wouldn’t know [...]
Posted by Jürgen on February 24, 2007
http://jurgenfauth.com/2007/02/24/into-great-silence/
Mouchette
A new disc from the Criterion Collection can feel a little bit like trying a new vegetarian dish. Sometimes it’s juicy and delicious, sometimes you feel like you ought to like it just because it’s oh-so-healthy (and then you’re glad you did), and sometimes it’s broccoli rabe. Robert Bresson’s final black-and-white film, an adaptation of [...]
Posted by Jürgen on January 15, 2007
http://jurgenfauth.com/2007/01/15/mouchette/
Backstage
The amazing Isild Le Besco plays the smitten fan of a pop diva (Emmanuelle Seigner) who stalks the star after a misbegotten reality TV encounter and ends up as her maniac mascot in the hotel room where Seigner is gobbling pills and hiding from the cruel, cruel world. Hothouse passions & overripe desire make this [...]
Posted by Jürgen on November 28, 2006
http://jurgenfauth.com/2006/11/28/backstage/
My Wife is an Actress
Yvan Attal, Charlotte Gainsbourg, and Terence Stamp in a romantic comedy from France: Yvan’s jealous of his successful actress wife Charlotte, who’s making a movie in London. It’s all very pleasant, Gainsbourg is beautiful, and favorite Ludivine Sagnier has a minor part. But in the end it gets way too goofy, and there’s a dreadful [...]
Posted by Jürgen on October 31, 2006
http://jurgenfauth.com/2006/10/31/my-wife-is-an-actress/
Renaissance
Curious high-contrast b&w 3-D animation can’t save derivative and cliché-laden cyberpunk script. Thanks, but we’ve already seen Blade Runner, Ghost in the Shell, Sin City and A Scanner Darkly. Opens in a couple of weeks. Renaissance, Christian Volckman. 2006. *
Posted by Jürgen on September 13, 2006
http://jurgenfauth.com/2006/09/13/renaissance/
Banlieue 13
Bald people and people with tatoos talk tough, run, jump, shoot, and drive cars through locked gates. Parisian Escape from New York setting, Eastern acrobatics, and Euro techno soundtrack. Written by Luc Besson. There’s a bomb and a kidnapped sister and a villian who does too much cocaine for his own good. Banlieue 13, Pierre [...]
Posted by Jürgen on September 11, 2006
http://jurgenfauth.com/2006/09/11/banlieue-13/
Tulpendiebe
