Gilles Quéant

Les inconnus de la terre starts like a traditional feature film: in the beginning of the film all the leading roles are given a short introduction. This is followed by a number of interviews, in which the makers unashamedly appear themselves. They include an interview with a lonely shepherd and one with three unmarried brothers who try to run the parental farm for better or worse. Notwithstanding the fact that this mode of interviewing has now become classical, les inconnus de la terre works rather refreshingly. The film is more than just an enumeration of problems. In an honest way it shows the ties of those involved to the land and to nature, in addition to being a plea for the modernization of French agriculture.

Julie Kohler is prevented from suicide by her mother. She leaves the town. She will track down, charm and kill five men who do not know her. What is her goal? What is her purpose?

Six vignettes set in different sections of Paris, by six directors. St. Germain des Pres (Douchet), Gare du Nord (Rouch), Rue St. Denis (Pollet), and Montparnasse et Levallois (Godard) are stories of love, flirtation and prostitution; Place d'Etoile (Rohmer) concerns a haberdasher and his umbrella; and La Muette (Chabrol), a bourgeois family and earplugs.

In a busy, noisy neighborhood, a frustrated young wife in a failing marriage is offered her freedom by her indifferent husband, but has second thoughts after meeting an intriguing stranger.

One of four film sketches on the problems of adolescents facing the adult world in the 1960s. The three other sketches were directed by Michel Brault, Hiroshi Teshigahara, and Gian Vittorio Baldi.

Twelve episodic tales in the life of a Parisian woman and her slow descent into prostitution.

男が、整然とシンメトリックに設計された庭を持つ城館にまぎれこむ。そこでは社交界のお歴々が集まり、退屈なパーティに興じている。男は誰の気にもかけられずに館内を歩き回り、女を見つける。女とは去年に会っていた、マリエンバートで。しかし女にはその記憶がなく、男を拒絶し続けるのだったが…。

In a small fishermen's village in the Azores, an enormous whale is being jointed, carved and stocked. Once this task is over, the whalers ready themselves for another hunt, a fascinating but trying and dangerous experience...

"Poisoner" - After her fiancé is arrested Claire finds herself alone and forced to find work. She is hired by a country squire, Etienne de Montenoy, as the tutor of his goddaughter. It does not take long before Montenoy falls for her but a little longer before the young woman, reluctant at first, understands Etienne loves her truly and then requites his love. Etienne lives so happily with her that he decides to make her his heir. Shortly after, he is murdered by poison...

Director Chris Marker begins by recounting his childhood dream of visiting the city of Peking - a city he was once only able to admire in books. The viewer is taken on a journey through this city, as if experiencing it from the mind and through the eyes of Marker. His thoughts and observations about the traditions, history, and banalities of everyday life in Peking are woven together in elegant fashion.

Representing the French authority in Morocco, Captain Ardant is the target of the bloodthirsty rebel leader Malek. In order to appropriate himself in arms, he does not hesitate to take the captain's collaborator hostage and to do despicable blackmail.

It all begins with the discreet romance between the Creole maid Lea Mariotte and her young boss, George Brissac, an amoral bourgeois who plans to inherit his uncle's fortune and marry a young woman from a good family. After an incident where she kills a man, she is saved from the gallows by Fabian, a ship's captain, who has personal reasons for antagonizing the Brissacs. He takes care of her and falls in love with her, but doesn't tell her. She, in turn, takes the opportunity to return to her lover Brissac's arms, forcing him to marry her after seeing him murder his uncle.

A partially blind Englishman retires to the French Riviera. He meets and falls for the Widow of a French Resistance fighter but is horrified when he discovers she is involved with smugglers and murderers.

The film is based on the true story of Special Operations Executive French-born agent Odette Sansom, who was captured by the Germans in 1943, condemned to death and sent to Ravensbrück concentration camp to be executed. However, against all odds she survived the war and testified against the prison guards at the Hamburg Ravensbrück Trials. She was awarded the George Cross in 1946; the first woman ever to receive the award, and the only woman who has been awarded it while still alive. (From Wikipedia, licensed under CC-BY-SA)

Anne seeks revenge on Jacques who betrayed her trust. She decides to poison him and the people close to him.

Goethe's drama and Gounod's opera "Faust" is treated here like a movie rather than the usual photographed-opera from a stage method. Faust is a man who sells his soul to Mephistopheles in exchange for eternal youth, and the latter, with guileful glee, leads Faust to disaster along the paths of pleasure. Marguerite falls in love with Faust, and suffers as a consequence.

A chronicle of the life of Bertrand du Guesclin, grand officer of the French army in the 14th century.

Political intrigue and psychological drama run parallel. The queen is in seclusion, veiling her face for the ten years since her husband's assassination, longing to join him in death. Stanislas, a poet whose pen name is Azrael, is a suicidal anarchist, his imagination haunted into hate by longing for this queen who's drawn apart. He enters her private quarters intent on killing her then himself, but they fall in love, in part because he looks like the king. Stanislas wants her to regain political power by appearing to the public, and she tries to convince him to find hope and escape. All the while, the queen's enemies plot to keep the lovers together but to thwart their plans.

One of Alexandre Dumas's most popular adventure novels is "The Count of Monte-Cristo". What is little known is that the famous writer made up neither its plot nor its characters. Dumas actually heard the true story of a man named François Picault during a stay at a private mansion and only adapted it into the novel everybody knows . Picault (who in the book would become Edmond Dantès) was about to marry the beautiful Marguerite (Mercédès in the novel) when he was denounced by three jealous friends who falsely accused him of being a spy for England. Picault was placed under a form of house arrest. In his prison, he made friends with an Italian abbot. When the man died, he left his fortune to Picault whom he had begun to treat as a son. On his release, Picault, who had become wealthy, was able to pursue his ruthless revenge on the three men who were responsible for his misfortune.

Exiled from the court of Spain, Don Salluste, the chief of police, wants to take revenge on the Queen. One day he meets Ruy Blas, a young student who happens to be a lookalike of Don Cesar, his nephew. Salluste disguises Ruy Blas and presents him as Don Cesar. It doesn't take long before Ruy Blas, intelligent, virtuous and generous as he is becomes popular and the Queen, who has fallen in love with him, appoints him Prime Minister. All seems for the best in the best of worlds but Salluste has not forgotten his revenge, far from that ...

Ｒ・ブレッソンの第二作で、後の研ぎ澄まされた話法から比べれば流麗と呼んでいいスタイルながら、少ない登場人物の心理をえぐる描写力は、この頃より既に具わっていた。原作は哲学者ディドロの小説『運命論者ジャック』だが、その監督自身による脚色に、詩人コクトーが古いタイプの美しい台詞をつけ、日常性から快く乖離した、ロマンティックな彼特有の作品世界に仕立てている。観劇の帰りのタクシーの中で男友達はしきりに、エレーヌ（カザレス）の恋人ジャンの冷淡さをあげつらい、自分を売り込むが、彼女は“ジャンを愛している”と決然と言い放ち、車を降りた。しかし、屋敷で待っていた当のジャンに彼女は、一緒にいても胸がときめかない、と言う。するとジャンは、自分も同じ気持ちでいた、と予想外の返事をし、人に悟られぬようしばらく別れて暮らしてみて、なお惹かれ合う気持ちがあれば、その時こそ結婚しよう--と告げて、彼女の許を去るのだった。裏切られた心境のエレーヌは彼への復讐に燃える。かつてバレリーナ時分にパトロンをしていたアニエスを場末の小屋に見つけた彼女は、その後を追い、マネージャー役のその母親に計略に乗ってくれれば、再び経済的な面倒を見ようと言う。彼らがかつてどんな結びつきにあり、会わない間に何が起きたかは詳らかにされないが、娼婦の生活に墜ちた彼女は、次々に住み家も変えている状態だった。エレーヌはそんな彼女をジャンに引き合わせる。案の定、彼は彼女を娼婦とは気づかず夢中になる。からくりを知らないアニエスも、苦悩しながらも彼を受け入れ、遂には結婚となるのだが、果たして、エレーヌの思惑通りには運ばず、アニエスの過去も二人の愛情の妨げとはならないのだった。 ＜allcinema＞

A plucky businesswoman agrees to receive love letters to a prefect’s wife from a young official, and soon finds herself embroiled in a scandal that inflames a town’s class tensions.

Cora Pearl, a demi-mondaine under the Second Empire, falls in love with a legitimist while she is the mistress of Jérôme Bonaparte, the cousin of Napoleon III.

Micheline Chevassu is a young, naive woman living in an orphanage. Through classified ads, she has a date with an unknown man. She escapes from the orphanage to go to it, dreaming of the Prince Charming. But comes Nicolas Rougemont, an unattractive middle-aged man... He pretends not to be the author of the letters, who could not come...