22 Bullets (aka L’Immortel)
Stars: Jean Reno, Marina Foïs, Kad Merad | Written by Eric Assous, Richard Berry | Directed by Richard Berry
Inspired by the real-life events in the world of the Marseilles Mafia, 22 Bullets tells the story of former mafia member Charly Mattei who, after giving up his shares in all mafia business and turning his back on the lifestyle, has spent the past three years leading a peaceful life with his wife and two children. Then one morning when out with his son he is shot 22 times and left for dead in a Marseilles parking lot. Only against all odds, Charly doesn’t die… and then all hell breaks loose.
You know, I seem to say this over and over again, but damn it, if the French aren’t making some of the best action (and horror) films out there today. 22 Bullets continues the EuropaCorp’s tradition of making...
Stars: Jean Reno, Marina Foïs, Kad Merad | Written by Eric Assous, Richard Berry | Directed by Richard Berry
Inspired by the real-life events in the world of the Marseilles Mafia, 22 Bullets tells the story of former mafia member Charly Mattei who, after giving up his shares in all mafia business and turning his back on the lifestyle, has spent the past three years leading a peaceful life with his wife and two children. Then one morning when out with his son he is shot 22 times and left for dead in a Marseilles parking lot. Only against all odds, Charly doesn’t die… and then all hell breaks loose.
You know, I seem to say this over and over again, but damn it, if the French aren’t making some of the best action (and horror) films out there today. 22 Bullets continues the EuropaCorp’s tradition of making...
- 1/19/2011
- by Phil
- Nerdly
A day following the announcement of the 81st Academy Awards' nominees, the French Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences have uncovered their official selections for the 34th Cesar Awards. On Friday, January 23, gangster movie "Mesrine" has been given ten nominations for the France's top awards, including Best Picture and Best Director for Jean-Francois Richet.
Apart from the two mentioned gongs, "Mesrine", which is the third highest grossing French film in 2008, also garnered a Best Actor nod for leading actor Vincent Cassel. It also collected two more counts in the category of Adapted Screenplay for Abdel Raouf Dafri and Jean-Francois Richet, and of Cinematography for Robert Gantz.
In the foreign film nominations, Sean Penn's "Into the Wild" and Paul Thomas Anderson's "There Will Be Blood" were put in competition with Bouli Lanners' "Eldorado", Matteo Garrone's "Gomorra", Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne's "Lorna's Silence", James Gray...
Apart from the two mentioned gongs, "Mesrine", which is the third highest grossing French film in 2008, also garnered a Best Actor nod for leading actor Vincent Cassel. It also collected two more counts in the category of Adapted Screenplay for Abdel Raouf Dafri and Jean-Francois Richet, and of Cinematography for Robert Gantz.
In the foreign film nominations, Sean Penn's "Into the Wild" and Paul Thomas Anderson's "There Will Be Blood" were put in competition with Bouli Lanners' "Eldorado", Matteo Garrone's "Gomorra", Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne's "Lorna's Silence", James Gray...
- 1/24/2009
- by AceShowbiz.com
- Aceshowbiz
EuroCorp. Distribution
FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. -- This sophomore directorial effort from veteran French actor Richard Berry ("La Balance") charmingly mixes humor and pathos in its depiction of the life of its title character, a 10 1/2-year-old, 4-foot-7-inch-tall boy named Cesar. Shoring up the slender, episodic narrative with stylistic virtuosity, the director beautifully conveys the inner turmoil of his protagonist, played to hilariously deadpan comic effect by child actor Jules Sitruk. "Moi Cesar" served as a genuinely crowd-pleasing opening-night film for the Fort Lauderdale International Film Festival.
Cesar, who also humorously narrates the proceedings, is your typical schlumpy adolescent, slightly overweight and ill at ease at anything having to do with sports or girls. The latter is a particular problem, as he has developed a strong crush on the beautiful Sarah (Josephine Berry, the director's daughter), though he must compete for her affections with his raffish and self-confident best friend, Morgan (Mabo Kouyate).
Cesar's home life is equally unsettled. His mother, Chantal (Maria de Medeiros), though loving and attentive, is distracted by her current pregnancy, while his father, Bertrand (Jean-Philippe Ecoffey), is rather quick to indulge in physical discipline. When the father, an import-export dealer, must leave on a business trip, Cesar wrongly comes under the impression that he's gone away to prison, with predictable but amusing results.
Both Sarah and Morgan have fractured home lives: Sarah's parents are divorced, and her father has taken up with a much younger and disarmingly exhibitionist woman, while Morgan, the product of a brief affair between his mother and a British journalist, has never met his dad.
The film's main plot element revolves around a surreptitious trip to London undertaken by the trio in search of Morgan's father, resulting in the inevitable complications, including their being befriended by a flighty, over-aged punk rocker coffee shop owner (played by Godard veteran Anna Karina).
Shooting much of the proceedings from his main character's height-challenged perspective, Berry, working from a screenplay he co-wrote with Eric Assous, delivers a hilarious and unsentimental portrait of adolescent angst, mixing ribald humor and genuine emotion to skillful effect. He also has extracted highly appealing performances from his youthful cast, with Sitruk a true natural in the central role and his own daughter a charmer as the vixenish Sarah. While the film is ultimately as insubstantial as the sugary desserts with which Cesar is endlessly preoccupied, it is a low-key delight that should well appeal to international audiences.
FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. -- This sophomore directorial effort from veteran French actor Richard Berry ("La Balance") charmingly mixes humor and pathos in its depiction of the life of its title character, a 10 1/2-year-old, 4-foot-7-inch-tall boy named Cesar. Shoring up the slender, episodic narrative with stylistic virtuosity, the director beautifully conveys the inner turmoil of his protagonist, played to hilariously deadpan comic effect by child actor Jules Sitruk. "Moi Cesar" served as a genuinely crowd-pleasing opening-night film for the Fort Lauderdale International Film Festival.
Cesar, who also humorously narrates the proceedings, is your typical schlumpy adolescent, slightly overweight and ill at ease at anything having to do with sports or girls. The latter is a particular problem, as he has developed a strong crush on the beautiful Sarah (Josephine Berry, the director's daughter), though he must compete for her affections with his raffish and self-confident best friend, Morgan (Mabo Kouyate).
Cesar's home life is equally unsettled. His mother, Chantal (Maria de Medeiros), though loving and attentive, is distracted by her current pregnancy, while his father, Bertrand (Jean-Philippe Ecoffey), is rather quick to indulge in physical discipline. When the father, an import-export dealer, must leave on a business trip, Cesar wrongly comes under the impression that he's gone away to prison, with predictable but amusing results.
Both Sarah and Morgan have fractured home lives: Sarah's parents are divorced, and her father has taken up with a much younger and disarmingly exhibitionist woman, while Morgan, the product of a brief affair between his mother and a British journalist, has never met his dad.
The film's main plot element revolves around a surreptitious trip to London undertaken by the trio in search of Morgan's father, resulting in the inevitable complications, including their being befriended by a flighty, over-aged punk rocker coffee shop owner (played by Godard veteran Anna Karina).
Shooting much of the proceedings from his main character's height-challenged perspective, Berry, working from a screenplay he co-wrote with Eric Assous, delivers a hilarious and unsentimental portrait of adolescent angst, mixing ribald humor and genuine emotion to skillful effect. He also has extracted highly appealing performances from his youthful cast, with Sitruk a true natural in the central role and his own daughter a charmer as the vixenish Sarah. While the film is ultimately as insubstantial as the sugary desserts with which Cesar is endlessly preoccupied, it is a low-key delight that should well appeal to international audiences.
EuroCorp. Distribution
FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. -- This sophomore directorial effort from veteran French actor Richard Berry ("La Balance") charmingly mixes humor and pathos in its depiction of the life of its title character, a 10 1/2-year-old, 4-foot-7-inch-tall boy named Cesar. Shoring up the slender, episodic narrative with stylistic virtuosity, the director beautifully conveys the inner turmoil of his protagonist, played to hilariously deadpan comic effect by child actor Jules Sitruk. "Moi Cesar" served as a genuinely crowd-pleasing opening-night film for the Fort Lauderdale International Film Festival.
Cesar, who also humorously narrates the proceedings, is your typical schlumpy adolescent, slightly overweight and ill at ease at anything having to do with sports or girls. The latter is a particular problem, as he has developed a strong crush on the beautiful Sarah (Josephine Berry, the director's daughter), though he must compete for her affections with his raffish and self-confident best friend, Morgan (Mabo Kouyate).
Cesar's home life is equally unsettled. His mother, Chantal (Maria de Medeiros), though loving and attentive, is distracted by her current pregnancy, while his father, Bertrand (Jean-Philippe Ecoffey), is rather quick to indulge in physical discipline. When the father, an import-export dealer, must leave on a business trip, Cesar wrongly comes under the impression that he's gone away to prison, with predictable but amusing results.
Both Sarah and Morgan have fractured home lives: Sarah's parents are divorced, and her father has taken up with a much younger and disarmingly exhibitionist woman, while Morgan, the product of a brief affair between his mother and a British journalist, has never met his dad.
The film's main plot element revolves around a surreptitious trip to London undertaken by the trio in search of Morgan's father, resulting in the inevitable complications, including their being befriended by a flighty, over-aged punk rocker coffee shop owner (played by Godard veteran Anna Karina).
Shooting much of the proceedings from his main character's height-challenged perspective, Berry, working from a screenplay he co-wrote with Eric Assous, delivers a hilarious and unsentimental portrait of adolescent angst, mixing ribald humor and genuine emotion to skillful effect. He also has extracted highly appealing performances from his youthful cast, with Sitruk a true natural in the central role and his own daughter a charmer as the vixenish Sarah. While the film is ultimately as insubstantial as the sugary desserts with which Cesar is endlessly preoccupied, it is a low-key delight that should well appeal to international audiences.
FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. -- This sophomore directorial effort from veteran French actor Richard Berry ("La Balance") charmingly mixes humor and pathos in its depiction of the life of its title character, a 10 1/2-year-old, 4-foot-7-inch-tall boy named Cesar. Shoring up the slender, episodic narrative with stylistic virtuosity, the director beautifully conveys the inner turmoil of his protagonist, played to hilariously deadpan comic effect by child actor Jules Sitruk. "Moi Cesar" served as a genuinely crowd-pleasing opening-night film for the Fort Lauderdale International Film Festival.
Cesar, who also humorously narrates the proceedings, is your typical schlumpy adolescent, slightly overweight and ill at ease at anything having to do with sports or girls. The latter is a particular problem, as he has developed a strong crush on the beautiful Sarah (Josephine Berry, the director's daughter), though he must compete for her affections with his raffish and self-confident best friend, Morgan (Mabo Kouyate).
Cesar's home life is equally unsettled. His mother, Chantal (Maria de Medeiros), though loving and attentive, is distracted by her current pregnancy, while his father, Bertrand (Jean-Philippe Ecoffey), is rather quick to indulge in physical discipline. When the father, an import-export dealer, must leave on a business trip, Cesar wrongly comes under the impression that he's gone away to prison, with predictable but amusing results.
Both Sarah and Morgan have fractured home lives: Sarah's parents are divorced, and her father has taken up with a much younger and disarmingly exhibitionist woman, while Morgan, the product of a brief affair between his mother and a British journalist, has never met his dad.
The film's main plot element revolves around a surreptitious trip to London undertaken by the trio in search of Morgan's father, resulting in the inevitable complications, including their being befriended by a flighty, over-aged punk rocker coffee shop owner (played by Godard veteran Anna Karina).
Shooting much of the proceedings from his main character's height-challenged perspective, Berry, working from a screenplay he co-wrote with Eric Assous, delivers a hilarious and unsentimental portrait of adolescent angst, mixing ribald humor and genuine emotion to skillful effect. He also has extracted highly appealing performances from his youthful cast, with Sitruk a true natural in the central role and his own daughter a charmer as the vixenish Sarah. While the film is ultimately as insubstantial as the sugary desserts with which Cesar is endlessly preoccupied, it is a low-key delight that should well appeal to international audiences.
- 12/10/2003
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. --The tale of a passionate adulterous affair told visually through the eyes of one of its main characters, "La Femme Defendue" spends most of its running time with the camera focused on a close-up of its female lead. Fortunately, that makes for no problem, since Isabelle Carre is one of the most exquisite creatures to emerge from French cinema in a long time, and that's saying something.
Philippe Harel's feature was recently showcased at the Fort Lauderdale International Film Festival.
Carre plays Muriel, a sophisticated 22 year old who accepts a ride home from a party from Francois (Harel, doubling as an actor, although mostly in voice-over), a successful businessman who doesn't let the fact that he's got a wife and children prevent him from hitting on his beautiful guest. She is initially resistant but ultimately agrees to meet him for lunch, strictly as a "friend."
Through a lengthy process of verbal seduction, the smooth-talking Francois ultimately gets Muriel to accede to a series of compromises. Claiming that he wants to simply see her "naked" without actually touching her, he gets her to join him in a hotel room, and the affair eventually occurs. It's casual at first, but Muriel falls in love and becomes increasingly frustrated with her limited role in his life. She begins playing mind games that rival Francois' in their complex psychology -- from trying to get him jealous by seeing a younger man to lying about the results of an HIV test she makes Francois undergo.
The film basically consists of a series of extended verbal encounters between the two tortured lovers, who constantly switch roles in terms of who has the power in their relationship. Eric Assous' astute screenplay mines every emotional nuance and detail of the affair, dissecting it in the sort of talky fashion that is the specialty of French cinema. The characterizations and dialogue are consistently compelling, taking a familiar story and rendering it fresh through acute observation.
Harel has made the bold choice of using the camera to tell the story through Francois' eyes (in the many scenes when he is driving, for example, we see the road through the car's windshield), so we only get the rare glimpse of his character. Although it sounds like a gimmick, it mainly works, thanks to the elegance of the writing and the peerless beauty of Carre, who also delivers an affecting and utterly truthful performance.
LA FEMME DEFENDUE
President Films
Les Productions Lazennec
Director: Philippe Harel
Screenplay: Eric Assous
Cinematography: Gilles Henry
Editor: Benedicte Teiger
Color/stereo
Cast:
Elle: Isabelle Carre
Francois: Philippe Harel
Secretaire: Nathalie Conio
Femme: Sophie Niedergang
No MPAA rating...
Philippe Harel's feature was recently showcased at the Fort Lauderdale International Film Festival.
Carre plays Muriel, a sophisticated 22 year old who accepts a ride home from a party from Francois (Harel, doubling as an actor, although mostly in voice-over), a successful businessman who doesn't let the fact that he's got a wife and children prevent him from hitting on his beautiful guest. She is initially resistant but ultimately agrees to meet him for lunch, strictly as a "friend."
Through a lengthy process of verbal seduction, the smooth-talking Francois ultimately gets Muriel to accede to a series of compromises. Claiming that he wants to simply see her "naked" without actually touching her, he gets her to join him in a hotel room, and the affair eventually occurs. It's casual at first, but Muriel falls in love and becomes increasingly frustrated with her limited role in his life. She begins playing mind games that rival Francois' in their complex psychology -- from trying to get him jealous by seeing a younger man to lying about the results of an HIV test she makes Francois undergo.
The film basically consists of a series of extended verbal encounters between the two tortured lovers, who constantly switch roles in terms of who has the power in their relationship. Eric Assous' astute screenplay mines every emotional nuance and detail of the affair, dissecting it in the sort of talky fashion that is the specialty of French cinema. The characterizations and dialogue are consistently compelling, taking a familiar story and rendering it fresh through acute observation.
Harel has made the bold choice of using the camera to tell the story through Francois' eyes (in the many scenes when he is driving, for example, we see the road through the car's windshield), so we only get the rare glimpse of his character. Although it sounds like a gimmick, it mainly works, thanks to the elegance of the writing and the peerless beauty of Carre, who also delivers an affecting and utterly truthful performance.
LA FEMME DEFENDUE
President Films
Les Productions Lazennec
Director: Philippe Harel
Screenplay: Eric Assous
Cinematography: Gilles Henry
Editor: Benedicte Teiger
Color/stereo
Cast:
Elle: Isabelle Carre
Francois: Philippe Harel
Secretaire: Nathalie Conio
Femme: Sophie Niedergang
No MPAA rating...
- 11/18/1998
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
Evidently soaked by the French New Wave as a boy on the beach at Cannes, director Philippe Harel focuses on form more than substance with his competition entry "La Femme Defendue".
A simple story about adultery, Harel shoots this film almost exclusively from the subjective perspective of the married man who betrays his wife. It's fatuous and facile, but it works.
The affair begins when Francois, the married man played by Harel, offers Muriel, a woman he met at a party, a ride home. He is 39; she is 22. He is married; she is not. He seduces; she resists but then relents. They break up, only to make up. He becomes jealous of her other beaus; she remains jealous of his wife. The affair finally ends.
Translated, the title means "The Forbidden Woman", but the film is not about her as it is about his view of her. "She" (the credits do not even refer to her as "Muriel" but as "Elle") is the focal point of every shot, either by voice or by presence. They arrange their rendezvous via telephone, and the story develops with each encounter. He (referred to as "Moi" in the credits) appears only twice: in the reflection of a window near the beginning and in the reflection of a mirror near the end.
What is striking about "La Femme Defendue" is that it succeeds despite, or perhaps because of, its calculated simplicity. It looks and feels like a home movie, as if the director documented a tryst of his own. The excessive use of the subjective camera, typically employed to draw the audience into the perspective of a protagonist, has the opposite effect here. As the director does with Muriel in the opening sequence, he drives the audience home in the end to the fact that all footage is fictional inasmuch as it is all a matter of the point of view.
Because of the director's choice of perspective, the film required a strong actress and script to succeed. Isabelle Carre meets the challenge as the naive and intoxicating Muriel. Screenwriter Eric Assous also conquers his appointed task with a script that brings humor and life to the intrigue. With only voice-overs and two cameo appearances, it is difficult to predict an acting future for Harel, but he will surely get another opportunity to direct with the success of his latest film.
LA FEMME DEFENDUE
Les Production Lazennec
and President Film
Director Philippe Harel
Screenwriter Eric Assous
Director of photography Gilles Henry
Editor Benedicte Teiger
Design Fran‚ois Emmanuelli
Color/stereo
Cast:
Elle Isabelle Carre
Moi Philippe Harel
Running time - 100 minutes
No MPAA rating...
A simple story about adultery, Harel shoots this film almost exclusively from the subjective perspective of the married man who betrays his wife. It's fatuous and facile, but it works.
The affair begins when Francois, the married man played by Harel, offers Muriel, a woman he met at a party, a ride home. He is 39; she is 22. He is married; she is not. He seduces; she resists but then relents. They break up, only to make up. He becomes jealous of her other beaus; she remains jealous of his wife. The affair finally ends.
Translated, the title means "The Forbidden Woman", but the film is not about her as it is about his view of her. "She" (the credits do not even refer to her as "Muriel" but as "Elle") is the focal point of every shot, either by voice or by presence. They arrange their rendezvous via telephone, and the story develops with each encounter. He (referred to as "Moi" in the credits) appears only twice: in the reflection of a window near the beginning and in the reflection of a mirror near the end.
What is striking about "La Femme Defendue" is that it succeeds despite, or perhaps because of, its calculated simplicity. It looks and feels like a home movie, as if the director documented a tryst of his own. The excessive use of the subjective camera, typically employed to draw the audience into the perspective of a protagonist, has the opposite effect here. As the director does with Muriel in the opening sequence, he drives the audience home in the end to the fact that all footage is fictional inasmuch as it is all a matter of the point of view.
Because of the director's choice of perspective, the film required a strong actress and script to succeed. Isabelle Carre meets the challenge as the naive and intoxicating Muriel. Screenwriter Eric Assous also conquers his appointed task with a script that brings humor and life to the intrigue. With only voice-overs and two cameo appearances, it is difficult to predict an acting future for Harel, but he will surely get another opportunity to direct with the success of his latest film.
LA FEMME DEFENDUE
Les Production Lazennec
and President Film
Director Philippe Harel
Screenwriter Eric Assous
Director of photography Gilles Henry
Editor Benedicte Teiger
Design Fran‚ois Emmanuelli
Color/stereo
Cast:
Elle Isabelle Carre
Moi Philippe Harel
Running time - 100 minutes
No MPAA rating...
- 5/14/1997
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
IMDb.com, Inc. takes no responsibility for the content or accuracy of the above news articles, Tweets, or blog posts. This content is published for the entertainment of our users only. The news articles, Tweets, and blog posts do not represent IMDb's opinions nor can we guarantee that the reporting therein is completely factual. Please visit the source responsible for the item in question to report any concerns you may have regarding content or accuracy.