Features

• NTSC

Reviews (5)

chivalry is dead
Bertrand Tavernier's indictment of knighthood and chivalry gone sour-- is a must-see to anyone who thinks the 12th century was a time of saintly knights on a quest to make the world safe for Christianity.
Powerful Recreation of the Middle Ages
Beatrice awaits her father and brothers return from war. The family fortune has dwindledbut Beatrice looks after the castle and its surrounding farmlands the best she can. These early scenes have a beauty and magic to them and Julie Delpy's etheral beauty seems perfectly at home in this setting. Her world is charmed with wonder and she looks destined to live the romantic life of princess. It seems all that is missing is a father to restore the castle to its former glory. The longer he is gone the more Beatrice idealises this man she never knew. When word reaches her that he is on his way back she is ecstatic. Meanwhile we see what kind of man he is. From the first glimpse Tavernier gives us of him we know he is not what Beatrice imagines him to be.As they welcome the father and his band of soldiers into the castle and feed him someone asks to hear of his exploits...a silence fills the room. Reluctantly he begins to tell a tale quite different than the one the listeners expected to hear. We soon realize a more disillusioned man never walked the earth than this man. He paces the halls of the castle like an animal hungry for prey. Nothing is sacred to him, nothing safe from him. Religion nor family hold any sway over him, he takes what he wants & the biggest prize in the castle is Beatrice. This homecoming begins to feel like a state of seige. It is not long before the prize is forcibly claimed. It's not all Prince Charmings and Happily Ever Afters
This movie disturbed me but was still unbelievably compelling to watch as the three main characters, the father, the son, and the daughter wage an internal war upon each other.Read more

Subjects:  1. Foreign Film - French   

Features

• Color
• Compilation
• NTSC

Reviews (3)

an authentic feel for the the blues
I saw this years ago on late night German TV and rang the station to get details the next day. They wanted to sell me there own copy for 200 Deutschmarks. This was about 8 years ago but I cannot forget the impressions of that night from this film. I am keen to have this and am overwhelmed to find it offered here.

Pass the grits and gravy
A French film crew travels in Mississippi seeking the roots of the blues.There are elements of travelogue (small town/rural) and historical documentary (interviews that focus largely on the role of the black church in the social and political fabric of the south), but the rest is performance footage of some amazing musical performances, almost half gospel, the rest blues, gospel's secular cousin.The performances are all for small groups (some only for the film crew) and are not slick and commercial--some are rather rough hewn.The filming made me feel "right there" but it was not an immediacy acheived with jerky, blurry images and fuzzy sound.This is quality film work that lets the quality and deep expression of the musical perfomances shine through. Some of my favorite segments: an all female choir, a young man with two drums keeping a furious rhythm at a church celebration, a harmonica player backed up by guitar and drums, and a man playing blues on a cane fife, first solo sitting on his mule drawn wagon while the filmmaker holds the reins, then in a procession accompanied by two drums.Almost all in English with only a few subtitles.

mississipi blues
I'm a brazilian painter.I saw that film years ago in international show of cinema in sao paulo.I liked very much,since that time i've been looking to buy a copy. ... Read more

Subjects:  1. Delta Blues    2. Documentary   

Editorial Review

Like the music it celebrates, Read more

Features

• Color
• NTSC

Reviews (43)

Nice Story Even For Non-Jazz Fans
This is jazz-fan's delight: tons of jazz, featuring tenor saxophone with some bebop thrown in. Most of the music is nice mellow stuff and interesting to hear, even to a non-jazz buff like me.
It's more than a movie about jazz.
Round Midnight is the most delicate, sensitive and deep movie I've ever watched.
An authentic showcase of bebop jazz in a perfect setting.
This review is for the 2001 Warner Brothers DVD.
Read more

Subjects:  1. Drama    2. Foreign Film - Spanish/Misc Sa    3. Movie   

Editorial Review

Bertrand Tavernier tranforms Jim Thompson's pulp novel Read more

Features

• Color
• Widescreen
• NTSC

Reviews (4)

An excellent but difficult film - Coup de Torchon
Philippe Noiret's character, quintessentially French, sardonic, funny and witty is sometimes overwhelmed by the pace and setting of this film.The underlying themes and metaphors ultimately, if uneasily, resolve but the hugely funny slapstick elements superimposed on the murderous mayhem is a difficult balance.

Chilling, Funny Neo-Noir Masterpiece
This is the film version of Jim Thompson's dark comedy "Pop. 1280" transplanted from Texas to French-colonial Africa.Noiret is the secretly-smart sherriff who slowly goes insane from the brutality and backwardness of the life he is forced to endure.Huppert is dang sexy as the woman who helps triggers the violence.Brilliant film switches back and forth from dark humor to horror: it keeps you guessing and on edge.Yes, you could say it is a mix of Kafka, Beckett, and good old-fashioned American madness, with a Gallic accent.Over the years this sly but scarifying movie has become one of my favorites.

best movie in the world
just as in Shakespeare, everybody dies, and we are very happy about it. Noiret and Eddy Mitchel are excellent, disturbing ... Read more

Subjects:  1. Comedies    2. Drama    3. Foreign    4. Foreign Film - French    5. International    6. Movie   

Features

• Color
• NTSC

Reviews (2)

A chamber opera of a film dealing with mortality and family
This film was a quietly moving and wrenching film about the ties of family sharing a moment of grief, all the more devastating for being an undercurrent, rarely articluated. A father is dying and his daughter and wife attempt to build a barrier of denial concerning his true conditiom.Slowly we are witness to the tragedy of human life in all of its mystery and beauty.Each of the performances are a marvel of subtle emotion, and expression. The film explores the meaning of a person's life and attempts to suggest ways of accepting the inevitable, that is death.

A rare gem
I was browsing the video section and picked up this movie on a lark.It is a beautiful movie about the complex family relationships of a terminally ill father, his daughter and his wife.This thought provoking film is setin the Cote D'Azur.Dirk Bogarde is marvelous as the dying patient whosneaks out with his daughter to have a glass of whiskey for old times sake. This is not one of the depressing emanicated man - on the contrary, hisoutlook on life is a lesson to us all. ... Read more

Subjects:  1. Drama    2. Foreign Film - Spanish/Misc Sa    3. Foreign Film [Dub Or Subtitle]    4. Movie   

Editorial Review

Like the music it celebrates, Read more

Features

• Closed-captioned
• Color
• HiFi Sound
• NTSC

Reviews (43)

Nice Story Even For Non-Jazz Fans
This is jazz-fan's delight: tons of jazz, featuring tenor saxophone with some bebop thrown in. Most of the music is nice mellow stuff and interesting to hear, even to a non-jazz buff like me.
It's more than a movie about jazz.
Round Midnight is the most delicate, sensitive and deep movie I've ever watched.
An authentic showcase of bebop jazz in a perfect setting.
This review is for the 2001 Warner Brothers DVD.
Read more

Subjects:  1. Drama    2. Feature Film-drama    3. Movie    4. Musical Features   

Features

• Color
• NTSC

Reviews (5)

"The newspapers want only lies and official idiocy."
In post WWI France, Major Delaplane (Philippe Noiret) is given the grisly task of identifying dead soldiers. There are still 350,000 soldiers unaccounted for--a figure that Delaplane marvels over from time to time as he speculates how so many bodies could just disappear. In spite of the gruesome nature of Delaplane's work, he manages to keep sight of his goal, and in just two months, he's put names to 51,000 bodies. He keeps a scrupulous filing system inside his ad hoc headquarters--with drawers full of details of the dead.
Great!
Wonderful movie, a real page of history in the IWW postwar France. Not to miss at all.

Looking for love
Major Delaplane has been comisioned by the French government to find a body to be buried under L'Arc de Triounph. It must be the body of a soldier not claimed by his family. Meanwhile Irene de Courtil, a lady form a wealthy family is looking for her husband's remains.
Read more

Subjects:  1. Foreign Film - French   

Features

• Color
• Letterboxed
• Widescreen
• NTSC

Reviews (2)

Technically competent
Bertrand Tavernier, who directed this 1992 policier, is an interesting guy who used to be a film critic before turning to film directing in 1974 with The Clockmaker starring Philippe Noiret.In this film, L.627, he turns to the policier, the French crime film, with mixed results.
The Real French Connection
This is one of the best police dramas to come out of France in years. Charlotte Kady has a small gem of a role as an undercover cop in DEA style crime unit. Strong performance and great directing make this a foreign film buff's dream. ... Read more

Subjects:  1. Foreign Film - French   

Features

• Closed-captioned
• Color
• Subtitled
• NTSC

Reviews (10)

"What's nice about hemorrhoids is, you forget the rheumatism."
I've only ever seen Sophie Marceau in English-speaking roles before, and, while I thought she was a fine actress, it wasn't until I saw her in her native French milieu that I duly became impressed. REVENGE OF THE MUSKETEERS is a Sophie Marceau vehicle all the way; the scenes are never more delightful than when she graces the screen. I enjoyed her infectious enthusiasm as she threw herself fully into the role of the headstrong, adventurous Eloise D'Artagnan. Philippe Noiret was also noteworthy as the grizzled D'Artagnan, father of Eloise, now retired in disgrace from the ranks of the Musketeers. The rest of the cast was excellent, as well, with special mention going out to Sami Frey (Aramis), Gigi Proietti (Cardinal Mazarin), and Claude Rich (Duke of Crassac).
A Blade With No Edge
Note: French with English subtitles.
D'Artagnan's Daughter In A Wonderful Swashbuckler
La Fille de D'Artagnan was a success in Europe but never got much of a release in the U.S. When the American DVD came out it had a new name, Revenge of the Musketeers. Too bad more people didn't see it. It's a great swashbuckling movie with lots of sword play, shrewd comedy, a clever story and fine acting.
Read more

Subjects:  1. Foreign Film - French    2. Foreign Film [Dub Or Subtitle]    3. Movie   

Features

• Color
• HiFi Sound
• Subtitled
• NTSC

Subjects:  1. Foreign Film - French    2. Foreign Film [Dub Or Subtitle]    3. Movie   

Editorial Review

This was the film debut of critic-turned-director Bertrand Tavernier, an outstanding 1973 thriller based on the Georges Simenon novel. Read more

Features

• Color
• Letterboxed
• Widescreen
• NTSC

Reviews (4)

A clever film that goes far beyond the policial aspect !
Since his son is arrested due a political murder, his father-a watchmaker who lives in Lyon is mortified to learn this awful new.
another french political film
i saw this film as a simple, if somewhat homoerotic love story between a lonely father and a sympathetic police officer. reading the two other reviews up here i realize that perhaps i was wrong. the film features good acting by phillipe noiret as the father, although a cynic would argue that his sad-eyes did all the work. the moral of the film is that that acts of violence against deserving bad guys can repair strained father-son relationships. hey bertrand, we already saw indiana jones and the last crusades. NEXT!

Critics CAN make good movies.
Former film critic Bertrand Tavernier's debut film from 1973, *The Clockmaker*, still stands as one of the best French films of the Seventies -- a decade that saw some pretty damn good French films.(The two intervening decades between then and now cannot make that claim.)Based on a novel by Simenon, the screenplay was written by Tavernier along with New Wave veterans Jean Aurenche and Pierre Bost -- hence the occasional New Wavey jump-cuts and mannerisms, especially early in the film.But Tavernier -- a writer, after all -- soon calms down and does what all good writers do, which is to focus on character.He's helped considerably with this by two tremendous performances from Philippe Noiret as the titular clockmaker and Jean Rochefort as Lyons'chief police detective.Transplanted from the New York setting of Simenon's book to Lyons during"the last days of De Gaulle"(to quote the review below mine), the story is about the befuddlement of the town's widowed clock repairman whose grown son has apparently murdered a man.The son is on the lam with his girlfriend, leaving the father with no comprehension of why they did it.We soon learn that he has no comprehension of his son, period, despite the fact that the son still lives at home and that they are on relatively good terms.But"good terms"are not the same thing as involvement, knowledge, or caring.(Deftly, Tavernier makes a political parallel to the main plot with an interweaving theme about France's government during this period:French citizens are, according to the radio, "89% happy", but at the same time there are leftist insurgents and terrorists burning cars and striking factories.)The most interesting conflict in this character study is between Noiret and Rochefort's compassionate detective on the case:Rochefort, having an adult son of his own that he hardly knows, latches onto Noiret, perhaps hoping that the clockmaker's experiences in this awful situation might provide some insights for his relationship with his own kid.The main suspense in this"thriller"is whether or not Noiret will allow himself to be taken under the cop's wing.His son may get a lighter prison sentence as a result, but the compromises entailed in not standing by the kid will only widen the distance between them.So . . . an action-adventure about lovers on the lam?Hardly.Tavernier is interested in the deeper stuff.*The Clockmaker*is a difficult, thoughtful, emotional film that deserves wider recognition on this side of the pond.This DVD release from Kino will hopefully get that process started. ... Read more

Subjects:  1. Drama    2. Foreign    3. Foreign Film - French    4. International    5. Movie   

Features

• Compilation
• NTSC

Reviews (3)

an authentic feel for the the blues
I saw this years ago on late night German TV and rang the station to get details the next day. They wanted to sell me there own copy for 200 Deutschmarks. This was about 8 years ago but I cannot forget the impressions of that night from this film. I am keen to have this and am overwhelmed to find it offered here.

Pass the grits and gravy
A French film crew travels in Mississippi seeking the roots of the blues.There are elements of travelogue (small town/rural) and historical documentary (interviews that focus largely on the role of the black church in the social and political fabric of the south), but the rest is performance footage of some amazing musical performances, almost half gospel, the rest blues, gospel's secular cousin.The performances are all for small groups (some only for the film crew) and are not slick and commercial--some are rather rough hewn.The filming made me feel "right there" but it was not an immediacy acheived with jerky, blurry images and fuzzy sound.This is quality film work that lets the quality and deep expression of the musical perfomances shine through. Some of my favorite segments: an all female choir, a young man with two drums keeping a furious rhythm at a church celebration, a harmonica player backed up by guitar and drums, and a man playing blues on a cane fife, first solo sitting on his mule drawn wagon while the filmmaker holds the reins, then in a procession accompanied by two drums.Almost all in English with only a few subtitles.

mississipi blues
I'm a brazilian painter.I saw that film years ago in international show of cinema in sao paulo.I liked very much,since that time i've been looking to buy a copy. ... Read more

Subjects:  1. Blues    2. Delta Blues    3. Pop    4. V/a Compilations   

Editorial Review

A rueful epic, Bertrand Tavernier's superb French-language feature, Read more

Features

• Color
• Letterboxed
• Subtitled
• Widescreen
• NTSC

Reviews (8)

Only 3000 Men Won The War
Bertrand Tavernier's 1997 film on the tensions of war in a time of 'peace.'Set primarily in Bulgaria and the Balkans, the film explores the psyche of the elite soldiers and commandos who fought in the Great War and how the coming of the peace took a toll on the hardended souls of such men.
Warriors after the war
It took a second viewing for me to really 'get' Bertrand Tavernier's Capitaine Conan, which I found very underimpressive the first time (not helped by the fact this transfer is in the wrong ratio - 1.85:1 instead of 2.35:1). With lowered expectations, I was actually surprisingly impressed second time around.
Unknown Classic of WW1
This little known movie deserves greater noteriety.For one thing it shows a different aspect of WW1.The Balkan Front.Here was a somewhat more fluid campaign and the fact that it is depicted shows that the director wanted to provide a different perspective of the war.Everything as far as equipment and uniforms goes is super-accurate.Even the French Infantry uniforms are shown to be khaki-green instead of the standard blue-grey that they wore on the Western front.Read more

Subjects:  1. Foreign    2. Foreign Film - French    3. Foreign Film [Dub Or Subtitle]    4. International    5. Movie   

Features

• Color
• Original recording reissued
• NTSC

Reviews (5)

"The newspapers want only lies and official idiocy."
In post WWI France, Major Delaplane (Philippe Noiret) is given the grisly task of identifying dead soldiers. There are still 350,000 soldiers unaccounted for--a figure that Delaplane marvels over from time to time as he speculates how so many bodies could just disappear. In spite of the gruesome nature of Delaplane's work, he manages to keep sight of his goal, and in just two months, he's put names to 51,000 bodies. He keeps a scrupulous filing system inside his ad hoc headquarters--with drawers full of details of the dead.
Great!
Wonderful movie, a real page of history in the IWW postwar France. Not to miss at all.

Looking for love
Major Delaplane has been comisioned by the French government to find a body to be buried under L'Arc de Triounph. It must be the body of a soldier not claimed by his family. Meanwhile Irene de Courtil, a lady form a wealthy family is looking for her husband's remains.
Read more

Subjects:  1. Foreign Film - French   

Features

• Color
• Subtitled
• NTSC

Reviews (2)

A tribute to the courage and commitment of teachers
Daniel Lefebvre (Philippe Torreton) is teacher and director of the �cole maternelle, a pre-school open to children ages 2 to 6 in northern France. In Bernard Tavernier's deeply moving film, It All Starts Today, the children are the stars. Their faces and loving smiles shine through the grimness of their circumstances. Based on the notebooks of Tavernier's son-in-law Dominique Sampiero, a provincial teacher, the film is about the difficulties and challenges of children but is also a tribute to the courage and commitment of teachers. Lefebvre is a poet whose voice-over narration adds a touching lyricism to the film. "We'll tell our children it was hard", he writes. "Piles of stones placed one by one. We'll tell the children it was hard but their fathers are lords and this is their legacy. A pile of stones and the courage to lift them".
Required Viewing!
Now and then brave directors and producers gather their courage and create a film that carries a profound message and seem to be concerned not about the glitz and glamour of their product, but about the impact it has on its audience.The French film IT ALL STARTS TODAY is such a movie.Read more

Subjects:  1. Foreign    2. Foreign Film - French    3. Foreign Film [Dub Or Subtitle]    4. Movie   

Features

• Color
• Dolby
• Enhanced
• Subtitled
• Widescreen
• NTSC

Reviews (6)

Triumph of the Human Spirit: Artists in a Time of War
'Laissez-passer' (Safe Conduct) is an epic film not of the giant battlefield scenes type, but of the inner humanity placed in jeopardy during war times.Director Bernard Tavernier has been making important films since the 1960s and here directs a story by Jean Cosmos and Jean-Devaivre that explores the survival of writers and actors and filmmakers during the German occupation of Paris in World War II.The result is an intensely rich examination of that period of time when the French Resistance successfully and bravely struggled against the Nazi invaders: yet another result is a film that is so long that it calls for an entire evening's concentration on a story that begs to be edited.
Safe Conduct
If you like movies about movies, this one delivers the goods, and so much more. Literate and atmospheric, "Safe Conduct" portrays the many small, quiet acts of bravery undertaken throughout occupied France, weaving an inspiring story about the necessity of art, even in the midst of insanity- and also about a country occupied, but never conquered. Another Tavernier triumph.

Human Heroes of the French Film Community
Albeit a lengthy film, Laissez-passer (aka Safe Conduct) is indeed a beautiful film that significantly shows a crucial time and history of WWII.While most films that we watch dealing with war and battles happen between troops with artillery flying everywhere, there are not many that devote themselves to the unsung battles.Laissez-passer takes a chance and tells two detailed stories of men that were willing to give up their lives for not just their country, but also their own personal beliefs.In this film we follow two members of the French film community as they decide for themselves how they will help their country survive this terrible nightmare.