Straight to the Heart (1969)
Genre : Comedy
Runtime : 1H 33M
Director : Jean Pierre Lefebvre
Synopsis
An unemployed man with individualist and pacifist values is inevitably brainwashed by society and the mass media to conform to the dominant ideology and embrace war. His soul is destroyed but his heart cannot be conquered.
After the war, in Bucharest, a young Romanian poet arrested for having written an article denouncing Stalinist crimes, will save his life by accepting to become a hostage of the regime.
Imprisoned by an illness, a young country girl decides to leave for Quebec City in order to study piano and discover an animated and enthralling lifestyle.
Tragicomic portrait of a bar's owners and patrons in a poor Montreal neighbourhood.
In a poor neighborhood, teenagers plot an assassination while a party is being organized for the local usurer.
Six stories about Montreal. 1: A young housewife from Toronto samples the nightlife using basic French. 2: The tale of a painting of Montreal's first mayor, Jacques Viger. 3: During a hockey game, Madeleine tries to tell Roger she wants a divorce after forty years of marriage. 4: A visitor to a conference on pictographs arrives at the airport, where the female customs officer steals a momento from each person. 5: As she is being driven to the hospital in an ambulance after an auto accident, Sarah recalls her life. 6: At a diplomatic reception, an older woman reminisces about her grand love in Montreal.
Caught in the tensions of the returning Pierrot, an ex-con, and the neighboring outlaws, Coralie attempts to distance herself from an ambiguous if not tormented past. Set against a busy highway, the butting houses dominated by a boss loosing sight of his operation are suspended as an anarchic surge approaches.
A young journalist is unhappy with society and contemplates what he can do about it.
In this French Canadian thriller, an actress wins the role of a murder victim in a film based on the true story of an unsolved crime. She discovers her neighbor was the lover of the woman who was murdered in real life -- and is still a suspect.
In 1952, an Inuit hunter named Tivii with tuberculosis leaves his northern home and family to go recuperate at a sanatorium in Quebec City. Uprooted, far from his loved ones, unable to speak French and faced with a completely alien world, he becomes despondent. When he refuses to eat and expresses a wish to die, his nurse, Carole, comes to the realization that Tivii's illness is not the most serious threat to his well-being. She arranges to have a young orphan, Kaki, transferred to the institution. The boy is also sick, but has experience with both worlds and speaks both languages. By sharing his culture with Kaki and opening it up to others, Tivii rediscovers his pride and energy. Ultimately he also rediscovers hope through a plan to adopt Kaki, bring him home and make him part of his family
Two old friends and small-time crooks embark on a crime spree, but take an unexpected detour that could lead them down the road to redemption.
The lives of the average Quebecois Plouffe family during the final years of the depression and through World War II.
The unexpected return of his ex-wife and the assembly of a group of protesters both threaten to wreck a corrupt contractor's inauguration party for his new superhighway.
Manon, is obsessed with famous writer Chester Celine, who hails from Wyoming. Manon learns Chester is coming to town and becomes a slinky, svelte temptress
Claire Weygand, a thirty-year-old young woman who is about to defend her anthropology thesis, unfortunately not only feels bad but even worse and worse with each passing day. The migraine attacks she suffers from indeed keep her from working as hard as she should and in despair she decides to consult Doctor Fish. When the medicine the physician prescribes for her fails, Claire, who can't take it any more, asks him to hospitalize her. In hospital, Claire shares her room with Odette, a young woman who has lost the use of her legs and Eléonore, a frightening old woman. The third episode from "The Blindfold" by Siri Hustvedt.
Triggered by the death of a family member a young woman embarks on a singular journey of helping people who are about to die. The dying have nothing to lose and need lasting moments of intimacy that Simone finds herself willing to give at no cost. But Boris won't let her get away with it quite that easily. He realizes how well she hides behind those intense but short lived relationships. He won't hesitate to provoke her in a violent burst.
After the death of her father, Anne — a brilliant but emotionally unstable painter/sculptor — returns from Switzerland to her home town in Quebec. Setting up a studio, she becomes obsessed with her work, to the extent that she grows farther and farther from her Swiss lover.
Brazilian native Priscilla Paredes is intent on staying in Montreal, despite the expiration of her student visa. Out of desperation, she takes a job as an exotic dancer at the Elixir, a downtown strip club, where she meets Milagro, a headstrong Quebecoise and fellow dancer who, ironically, longs to move to Brazil. Priscilla is welcomed into Milagro's secret family life, and introduced to her young daughter Chloé; Milagro in turn teaches Priscilla how to fight for what she wants, for what she needs.
Sylvain Berg, a "professional" unemployed who spends his time hiking and mountain climbing, and "model" bank employee Benoît Constant, who has just been fired and does not want his wife to find out, both find themselves in Françoise Duru's office at an employment agency. Françoise is secretly in love with Sylvain, so in order to keep him close she convinces her employer to give Sylvain a job he doesn't want, instead of Benoit who not only wants it but also has the right qualifications.
A twenty year old Anouk Aimée stars as Albertine, the daughter of a bourgeois couple who house a young officer during the Napoleonic wars. Newly promoted, the officer (Jean-Claude Pascal) is quartered by a dull bourgeois couple who treat him with a cold politeness bordering on indifference.
With an enthralling central performance by Gilbert Sicotte, this masterful debut feature examines the life of the top car salesman in a fading Quebec town as events challenge the 67-year-old’s sense of identity and the meaning of life at the most profound level.