10 French Horror, Thriller, New French Extremity And Fantasy Fil

10 French Horror, Thriller, New French Extremity And Fantasy Films Pack 1 Baxter (1989) FRENCH WITH ENGLISH SUBTITLES Baxter is a 1989 French film directed by Jérôme Boivin. The title character is a murderous bull terrier who tells the story of his search for a proper master in voice-over narration. Baxter was the featured film of episode four of the here! original series John Waters Presents Movies That Will Corrupt You. Plot Baxter, a bull terrier, is taken from the pens and given to an old woman. Baxter hates the old woman’s bland lifestyle and reacts to her habits with disgust. In contrast, he becomes obsessed with the young couple across the street as he observes their nightly lovemaking sessions. Baxter attempts to communicate his dominance over the old woman by causing her to stumble, but his plan backfires. The old woman’s condition deteriorates, and ultimately Baxter kills her in order to be adopted by the young couple. Baxter enjoys his life with the young couple, splitting his time between the sensual woman and the earthy man. He brings them dead animals in an attempt to show them who he is. His idyll is broken when the couple has a baby and begins to neglect him. Baxter hates the weak and helpless child. He attempts to kill it, but his plans again backfire. Ignorant of Baxter’s murderous intentions, the couple gives Baxter to a neighborhood boy. Baxter thrills under the firm hand of his new master, a budding sociopath and Hitler fanatic. Baxter kills a stray dog to show the boy who he is, and Baxter believes that they come to a mutual understanding. The boy begins to see a girl from his school who reminds him of Eva Braun. Baxter impregnates the girl’s spaniel, though his own sexuality disgusts him. When the boy commands Baxter to kill a classmate, Baxter refuses and realizes that the boy does not understand him after all. The girl’s spaniel gives birth to puppies, and Baxter reacts to them with mixed emotions. In an attempt to emulate the final days of Hitler, the boy kills the puppies. In reaction, Baxter decides that the boy must die. The boy attacks first, but Baxter manages to gain the upper hand. When the boy commands him to heel, Baxter finds that he cannot disobey, allowing the boy to kill him. Intimacy (2001) ENGLISH LANGUAGE One man's sexual obsessions and emotional weaknesses are laid bare in this controversial drama. Jay (Mark Rylance) is a cold, emotionally distant man who abandoned his wife and children several years ago andnow works in a nightclub. Jay enters into an affair with a married woman, an amateur actress named Claire (Kerry Fox), in which their emotional needs barely enter the picture; they meet once a week and have sex, talking as little as possible and parting ways once they're done. One week, Jay follows Claire after their weekly encounter and sees her meeting her husband Andy (Timothy Spall), a cheerful and good-natured cab driver. Jay becomes curious about Andy and strikes up an acquaintance with him; as they become friendly, Jay begins sharing with Andy the details of his affair with a married woman, without mentioning his lover's name. Claire has already begun moving away from her affair with Jay, and when she discovers that he's been meeting with her husband and sharing information about their relationship, she becomes understandably furious. Intimacy was the first English-language film for French director Patrice Chereau; the film received its North American premiere at the 2001 Sundance Film Festival. La Horde (2009) FRENCH WITH ENGLISH SUBTITLES With its simple yet ominous title, nifty concept and low budget styling’s it seems almost strange that Yannick Dahan and Benjamin Rocher’s cops, gangsters and zombies action horror hasn’t already been done. Though some might argue that it actually has already been done actually and been done several times over, La Horde nonetheless rises above its solid genre trappings and stands out as undoubtedly one of the finest examples of zombie cinema in the whole sub-genre’s decomposing canon. pontypool still As with all the best, zombie movies The Horde’s human characters are the focus of the story . In this case those characters are a vengeance-driven bunch of bent cops raiding a notorious gangster’s hide-out in a crumbling slum-like tower block. This simple set-up works perfectly and sucks the viewer into the violent and bloody world of these people well before we even get a glimpse of one of our undead antagonists. Of course, once they do show their rotting faces the two warring factions are forced to make an uneasy alliance in the name of common interests, namely not being torn to frayed and bloody fragments at the teeth of hundreds of walking corpses. From there the plot follows a fairly predictable trajectory with a few minor but welcome surprises along the way such as Alain Figlarz’s stand out performance as the gleefully war-obsessed janitor. The zombies themselves are of the running variety and follow all the usual traits and rules – head shots kill them, bites infect etc. Though this may all sound fairly standard, what really marks this film out is the sheer energy and style with which it is done. In most films featuring the living-challenged the protagonists are a motley collection of untrained random people who must come to terms with not only the undead menace but also with physically smashing in the skull of something which until recently was another human being. Though that yields interesting subtleties of its own it’s also great to see tooled-up professional bastards doing what they do best and bringing the pain to legions of the screaming dead. Some of the best moments in La Horde come when various characters are forced to go toe-to toe with their necrotic enemies and show that a ravenous hunger for human flesh and maniacal fervour are no match for a lifetime’s experience of knocking the holy living shit out of people. The film also looks great with its grotty lighting scheme enhancing the inherent seediness of the location. The blood that regularly gets liberally spattered against these walls and floors is clearly not the worst substance they have ever been in contact with. The special effects are used sparingly and effectively with perhaps a little CGI sheen to a few shots but the majority of effects being done practically. There are also some very cool images created and the almost-traditional shot of the zombie legion swarming at our hero in a sea of raised arms and grasping hands has never looked more brutal or terrifying as it does here. Of course, the film has its flaws and first-time directors Dahan and Rocher fall into the trap of giving us too much of a good thing. The film runs a good twenty minutes longer than it ideally should which is a shame as if it was pared down it would be a real blood-slicked streamlined thrill ride of outright gore-soaked exuberance. As has already been pointed out both in this review and in many others it also offers very little that the genre or average viewer has not seen before. In these circumstances however this doesn’t matter in the slightest, it may be little more than a cover version at heart but it still rocks like a motherfucker and it’s still great to dance to. Sitcom (1998) FRENCH WITH ENGLISH SUBTITLES Francois Ozon's exquisitely unsettling ''See the Sea'' was one of the high points at last year's New Directors/New Films series. Now Mr. Ozon returns with a black comedy that means to be no less disturbing than his expert thriller. But ''Sitcom,'' which is sardonically filmed with the snappy look of a television comedy, has a sour streak that eventually poisons its humor. Mr. Ozon pushed the limits of shock value much more effectively with the carefully measured violence of ''See the Sea'' than he does with this frontal assault. ''Sitcom'' begins promisingly enough with the sounds of gunfire and screaming at a picture-perfect suburban house. The father of the family (Francois Marthouret) has evidently not been pleased by the surprise birthday party that greeted him. Then the film flashes back to presumably happier times, when the mother (Evelyne Dandry) fussed demurely about the housekeeping and the son, Nicholas (Adrien De Van), and daughter, Sophie (Marina De Van, the same sullen actress who set off chills in ''See the Sea''), looked like model children. Needless to say, they're not. Two new members of the household, a pet rat and an insinuating maid named Maria (Lucia Sanchez), touch off some amusing first rounds of trouble. One night Maria arrives for dinner in unexpectedly formal dress and accompanied by Abdu (Jules-Emmanuel Eyoum Deido), her unexpectedly black husband. (The family is white but the mother feigns interest in African history.) This is the same night on which Nicholas abruptly announces that he is gay and stomps off to his room. Abdu offers to have a helpful talk with Nicholas, but it soon becomes clear that Abdu's idea of help isn't what the parents have in mind. Soon Nicholas's room is home to a parade of strangers doing who-knows-what. The mother greets these guests politely, if bewilderedly, at the front door. Then Sophie has an erotic encounter with the rat, leaps out a window, cripples herself and becomes a bad-tempered paraplegic dominatrix. It is at about this point that the film's light touch falls into jeopardy. As the rest of ''Sitcom'' dwells on broken incest taboos, the popularity of zucchini among Nicholas's guests and assorted other supposed outrages, we get the point and then some. And in the end, ''Sitcom'' isn't any more barbed about middle-class complacency than many situation comedies, however inadvertently, are themselves. Sheitan (2006) FRENCH WITH ENGLISH SUBTITLES Plot A night out clubbing in Paris takes a nasty turn for four friends when they accept the invitation of the beautiful Eve to celebrate Christmas by visiting her house in the country. Once there they meet the manically grinning caretaker Joseph who welcomes the out of town guests while his heavily pregnant wife Marie lurks upstairs. That evening, what begins innocently as Christmas dinner turns into a disturbing conversation about sex, religion, satanic possession and evil. As the weekend progresses Joseph's behaviour only gets more erratic and the young friends realise their host has made a demonic pact. All hell is about to break loose. Review Who or what is Le Sheitan? It's the devil, explains Joseph (Cassel) as he entertains his houseguests, someone who pushes us all towards sin. He then goes on to relate the tale of a man who asked to become invincible when visited by the devil. When his wish was granted the man promptly fucked his sister, only to find she was pregnant the next morning. On Christmas Eve, at the stroke of midnight, it was said the devil would return to claim the newborn as his own... You can't help fearing that Joseph's tale is just a little bit autobiographical as the man's behaviour up to this point has been anything but normal. We first encounter this moustachioed housekeeper with his crazed grin as he's herding his goats along a country lane. As Eve (Mesquida) introduces her new friends his gruff retorts show a very un-PC attitude, referring first to Yasmine (Bekthi) as a "camel rider" and then calling Thai (Tan) "chink", before offering to give Eve a squirt of his goat's milk. The key to enjoying this film can be summed up in two words – Vincent Cassel. No matter what the quality of the finished film (Derailed, Ocean's Twelve as prime examples), with Cassel on board you're always guaranteed a watchable performance from the French master. And from the moment he appears on screen with his manic look and colourful vocabulary, you just know you're in for a treat here! Yet Satan is so much more than a one man show; this deranged tale of a bunch of clubbers caught up in an inbred farming community is sharp, inventive and wickedly funny. Back at Eve's house, Joseph particularly takes a shine to Bart (Barthelemy) and pesters him to come skinny-dipping at the hot springs. Reluctantly Bart agrees, but only after persuading the others to join him. On the journey we meet Joseph's niece – same fixed grin and all - who immediately latches on to Bart, licking his face, jerking off his dog, and eventually ripping a clump of his hair as the afternoon unfolds. It's both extremely funny yet equally uncomfortable, constantly keeping the viewer on edge as you're never quite sure which direction it's going to go next. Imagine the unsettling oddness of Calvaire crossed with the manic energy of Dobermann and you're only part way to appreciating just how way out this movie is. Satan is the brainchild of Kim Chapiron, a member of Kourtrajme - a loose collective of video makers, artists and musicians who enlisted Cassel for a series of short films a few years back. With Cassel on board as producer, Chapiron utilised other members of the group in key roles, and called on other Kourtrajme friends and associates for the hard French rap soundtrack. It was perhaps a risky strategy - imagine the cast of Dirty Sanchez trying to attempt the same feat - but the group largely pull it off with great success. If there's a criticism to be levelled at Satan, then it's squarely aimed at the characters of the three male friends who we first meet in the aptly named Styxx Club as Bart gets into a fist fight. None of the characters are particularly likeable, acting like brutish, vulgar thugs, which makes it hard to care for them later when their lives are in peril. Nevertheless, the trio of Barthelemy, Tan and Ly improvise well in their debut roles, the former recounting an hilariously filthy anecdote about a previous girlfriend (for no apparent reason) which is worth the price of admission alone. The two girls acquit themselves well too, having been cast from acting backgrounds (Mesquida was in A Ma Soeur), with Bekthi taking the victim role and Mesquida the femme fatale, whose motives and complicity in the events are never made explicitly clear. Look out too for one Monica Bellucci in a cameo role, and then there's Marie... with child, creeping around upstairs looking for doll parts. To say anymore about Marie would spoil the surprise, but I must mention the birthing scene which comes with the most wonderful sound of dripping fluid as the clock strikes twelve. With its continued display of gross-out behaviour, Satan is clearly not going to cater for all tastes. Whilst there are certainly horror elements within the story it isn't a particularly gory picture, preferring to shock the viewer instead through the nature of the community's relationship and the way they interact with their new arrivals. For me though, it works perfectly. Cassel's over-the-top performance coupled with Chapiron's wild approach produce a fresh, invigorating film which makes for ideal late night viewing. At the same time, it's also one of the most unconventional Christmas movies you're ever likely to see! Right, could you pass the sprouts please Joseph? Nada (1974) FRENCH WITH ENGLISH SUBTITLES A chillingly cool political thriller, all the better for its non-partisan stance. No attempt is made to whitewash the activist group in Paris, calling themselves Nada in memory of the Spanish anarchists, who kidnap the American ambassador (at an exclusive brothel) in a welter of functional violence. A motley collection of malcontents and seasoned professionals, driven by absurd ideological confusions, they are for that reason a doubly dangerous time bomb likely to explode at any random moment. But against them Chabrol sets the cold calculation of the forces of order, wheeling, dealing, finally engineering a politic holocaust, and emerging as even less concerned with human life than the terrorists they are hunting down as a threat to society. Right is on their side, but it is the members of Nada, groping desperately to build little burrows of viable living in a world of expediency and corruption, who become the heroes in spite of everything. Powerful, pure film noir in mood, it's one of Chabrol's best films. Love Rites (1988) FRENCH WITH ENGLISH SUBTITLES Well, I’ve got to say, I’m really starting to like Walerian Borowczyk. Despite some reservations after my initial viewing of The Beast (though I think pretty much everyone has reservations after viewing The Beast for the first time), I quickly warmed up to his skewed take on sexuality. After all, if the gorgeous, painterly compositions for which he is so renowned hadn’t changed my mind, the giant, sperm-spurting phallus surely would have. So, with that in mind, I was eager about taking my second foray into Borowczyk territory with Cult Epics’ new DVD of Love Rites (or Cérémonie D’Amour, which, you may have guessed, translates more directly to “Love Ceremony”). In the end, Love Rites sealed the deal for me: I’m now a certified Walerian Borowczyk fan, and I can’t wait to see what more of his sorely under-represented catalogue is given stateside release in the future. But, for now, I’ll turn my mind back to the present and focus on Love Rites. Adapted from a short story by André Pieyre de Mandiargues, Love Rites concerns French fashion designer Hugo Arnold, who has set out on the Paris metro to meet a woman about a batch of dresses he’s interested in. On the metro, he meets a beautiful young prostitute named Myriam. Soon, Hugo has forgotten all about his dresses and is devoting his day to following Myriam around the city. Eventually, the two end up at the apartment of Myriam’s friend, Sara Sand. Anyone who can’t guess what happens from there hasn’t seen the disk’s cover art. What’s interesting about Love Rites is that it truly is as simple a movie as it sounds; in fact, I can’t think of the last movie I saw that was this uncomplicated—the film really only consists of two characters, so, over its course, we come to know both of them quite intimately (and yet, strangely, they both manage to retain an air of mystery as well). In this sense, it really is an excellent translation of the short story form to cinema (ranking, in my opinion, on the same level as the opening segment of Todd Solondz’s Storytelling). Love Rites’ simplicity is also interesting as a contrast to other films: instead of trying to cram the content of a novel into a feature, Borowczyk, in choosing shorter source material, allows himself the time to explore it properly, which, in the end, produces a film that is much more satisfying than most adaptations. Of course, such steady pacing is a trademark of Borowczyk, and his oft-cited “painterly compositions” are definitely on display here: the film is loaded with shots you could almost frame and hang on a wall. Borowczyk also proves himself to be quite experimental in this film, too. Many dialogue scenes, for instance, will focus fetishistically on small objects as the characters continue to talk: a scene in a church, for instance, focuses for an inordinate amount of time on Myriam’s legs, while a dialogue between Hugo and Myriam across the tracks of the metro contains not a single cut-away to Hugo—it focuses solely on Myriam for minutes on end, studying her just as obsessively as Hugo must be. At times, Borowczyk will even abandon dialogue all together and go roaming through the streets of Paris. All of this combines to create a haunting and meditative atmosphere that is just as poetic as many scenes in The Beast. (And, for the raincoat crowd, Love Rites, like The Beast, contains its share of Borowczyk-trademark silk-nightgown-covered-pubis shots, too.) All in all, Love Rites proves another engaging and interesting gift from Walerian Borowczyk that, like the Beast, refuses to be classified. It treads the lines between horror and romance, art and exploitation, and refuses to give the viewer any easy answers. Even now, I’m still not sure of what the movie is exactly supposed to mean; however, I know I liked it. If you’re interested in the artier side of cult cinema, I’m sure you’ll feel the same. That said, we come to Cult Epics’ DVD presentation of this fine film, which doesn’t quite live up to the material it’s presenting. The film itself comes very slightly letterboxed at around 1.66:1. The video component of this package is strange, as its letterboxing seems to fluctuate as the film plays, with the image staying the same size but bobbing up and down on the screen (as well as occasionally bleeding into the black mattes as you may have seen in one of these screengrabs). These peculiarities led me to question the framing a little bit, but I eventually decided it must be at least pretty close, as nothing seemed cropped. As for audio, sound is presented in a French mono mix that is pretty good, all things considered: it’s clear with no hissing or popping, etc. The included subtitles are removable and poetically rendered, which is very appropriate, considering the material. Fat Girl (2001) FRENCH WITH ENGLISH SUBTITLES Fat Girl supplies a startling vision of the prickly crawlspace between innocence and sexual awakening. Catherine Breillat's notions of perseverance are at once sensible and unnerving, so that love becomes indistinguishable from rape. Anaïs (Anaïs Reboux) is the fat girl of the film's title, a poised creature who repeatedly engages and teases the spectator's morality. Key here is how Breillat expertly forces the audience to look at the world through the girl's point of view, intelligently and with a sly mix of humor, as when Anaïs tells her sister, the gorgeous Elena (Roxane Mesquida) that she reeks of loose morals. Young but stoic, Anaïs vigilantly clings to her virginity the more her sister threatens to lose hers. She knows that she will spare herself a lot of pain if she looses it to someone she doesn't love, which makes a last-act penetration as shocking as it is perfectly rational. The film's brilliance lies in its deceptive simplicity—its dawdling sketch of virtue on the brink of collapse. During her family's summer retreat, Anaïs goes swimming and fantasizes a relationship between a wooden diving board and the pool's metal ladder. She professes her love to the diving board only to then swim toward the ladder, kissing it softly and daring it to express jealousy over her love for the diving board. This humorous exchange is both the means by which the young Anaïs prepares herself for the complications of sex and love and displaces her frustrations and desires. Though she understands that she is too young for sex, she nonetheless builds a body-politic should sex happen before its time and under someone else's terms. Consider then the film's audacious, central sex scene a form of boot camp. Anaïs keeps watch over Elena as the handsome Fernando (Libero De Rienzo) orchestrates her older sister's deflowering. Fernando's games are familiar and the genius of this twisted sequence is the way Breilliat dares the spectator to buy into the boy's lies. Fernando, though clearly controlled by his rock-hard erection, professes his love for Elena. His persistence is perhaps as tiresome to us as it is to him, but is there a chance that he may be earnest? Elena clearly thinks so. Fernando chips away at the girl's safeguard during a remarkable sequence that threatens to go on forever—or, at least, until the girl caves in to the pressure. The curious and judgmental Anaïs watches as Fernando penetrates Elena from behind; the next morning, he longs for oral sex—for him, the next step toward Elena's vagina. These are three characters on a sexual journey, and if a connection can be forced between this scene and the film's monster-trucks sequence, the passive Elena is riding shotgun. Fernando, having used his mother's stolen ring to get into Elena's panties, is as calculating when it comes to discarding Elena as he was in getting her into bed. Once he deflowers Elena, Fernando is suddenly troubled by their age difference. He says he could be arrested because of it and that he's not willing to risk the drama. Though she cries for her sister's weakness, Anaïs is remarkably strong when passing judgment. She understands why Elena accepted Fernando's lie (she is, in the end, only human) though she is willing to humorously acknowledge that Elena's loss will make her less frigid the next time around. Raised as rivals, Elena and Anaïs celebrate their sisterhood, and though their differences in weight and morality separate them (Anaïs is younger yet wiser), their sexual journeys are still "a simple human issue." Like Breillat, Anaïs may be cynical to a fault, but if you consider the final moments of Fat Girl, you realize that this cynicism is a pretext for a philosophical query of the way defense mechanisms allow people to redirect sexual impulses to safer outlets. In Sex Is Comedy, Breillat's auto-critique of Fat Girl's infamous sex scene, a horned-up director played by Anne Parillaud seems to grapple with the extent of her cynicism and how she uses it to control the people around her. This is much in the same way that Romance's main character looks to define her notions of love and pleasure. Breillat may not be someone you'd want to be in a relationship with, but this is a woman who insists on creating characters with full ownership of their sex. Like Romance and Sex is Comedy, Fat Girl is a bold feminist statement. But unlike Sex is Comedy, Fat Girl isn't taxing and doesn't do the thinking for us, and unlike Romance, it's daringly sexy. This may be why Breillat intimidates so many critics, especially men: because she uses sex as philosophical titillation—a place very few people want to go when they're trying to get off. Fat Girl is a riveting art film, rigorously intelligent but profoundly emotional and philosophically perverse. Too smart for her family, Anaïs longs for the friendship of television's intellectuals, and she laments the fact that she "was born too late." There's an overwhelming sense that this quintessential French girl is well equipping herself for survival. One could say that she is too smart for her own good. With the final moments of Fat Girl, Breillat likens sex to the allure of a road accident waiting to happen. The director toys with the sensation of horror, and this brilliantly mounted sequence evokes the fear of sexual initiation. The film's forceful gaze flirts with imminent danger when monster trucks threaten to destroy Anaïs, Elena, and their crazed mother during a car trip home. A boogeyman appears, windows are shattered (not unlike Elena's virginity), and Breillat brilliantly and powerfully allows a prophecy to be fulfilled. The scene is confrontational, for sure, but it's not a passive act of resistance—it's a philosophical wish fulfillment and empowerment ritual. Anaïs always knew the first time should never be about love, and so she accepts her faith and continues to author her sexual experience completely on her own terms. The City Of Lost Children (1995) ENGLISH DUBBED In 1991, the creative team of Jean-Pierre Jeunet and Marc Caro introduced movie-goers to their nightmarish view of a post-apocalyptic world where troglodytes inhabited the underground and a butcher relied on apartment tenants to keep his meat cabinet full. Delicatessen, a bizarre black comedy, became something of a cult hit -- certainly not everyone's fare, but those who got it, loved it. Now, four years later, Jeunet and Caro are back, and, with their latest film, The City of Lost Children, it's apparent that they have neither moderated their approach nor mainstreamed their vision. The City of Lost Children is as visually striking and daringly offbeat as its predecessor. In The City of Lost Children, Jeunet and Caro have presented another gloomy world where "normal" life is no more. The film is saturated with atmosphere and features some of the most imaginative set construction of the year. The picture works in part because the film makers have taken the time and effort to frame a strange land where all their quirky characters can live and operate. Jeunet and Caro's movie is thematically and stylistically inspired by such diverse sources as Frankenstein, Dracula, Brazil, Time Bandits, and The Wizard of Oz. Like Delicatessen, The City of Lost Children is characterized by dark, twisted humor, yet this movie is more of a fantasy than a macabre comedy. The City of Lost Children relates dreams to creativity, youth, and wonder. The capacity to escape the rational world through imagination fuels not only the desire to continue living, but the need to make something out of one's life. In this film, we are introduced the brilliant-yet-warped mad scientist Krank (Daniel Emilfork), who is aging prematurely because he cannot dream. In an effort to stay alive, he has begun capturing children to steal their dreams. One of the toddlers abducted by Krank is little Denree (Joseph Lucien), the brother of a simpleminded circus strongman named One (Ron Perlman). One is joined in his search for his brother by Miette (Judith Vittet), the nine-year old, wise-beyond-her-years leader of an orphan gang. Together, One and Miette seek to penetrate Krank's fortress; elude his six cloned henchmen (all played by Dominque Pinon), the deadly Miss Bismuth (Mireille Mosse), Irvin the talking brain (voice of Jean-Louis Trintignant), and the scientist himself; and rescue Denree. It proves to be a difficult task. While much of The City of Lost Children is surreal and strange, the film's emotional center -- the relationship between One and Miette -- is nurtured with care and genuine feeling. Miette sees in One and Denree the chance for the family she has never known, although there are times when her intentions towards the older, child-like man seem more romantic than sisterly. It's to Jeunet and Caro's credit that they are able to present the ambiguities of this relationship tenderly, without ever injecting a hint of the sordid or perverse. Daniel Emilfork is wonderfully frightening as Krank. Bald-headed and evil-looking, he evokes memories of Max Schreck's vampire in the classic silent film Nosferatu. Dominique Pinon, who had the lead in Delicatessen, uses his unusual face and goofy mannerisms to good comic effect in turning the clones into the Six Stooges. Judith Vittet shows great promise from one so young in her appealing portrayal of Miette, and Ron Perlman is effective as the strong, silent One. Like Delicatessen, The City of Lost Children won't be to everyone's taste. In fact, even though I thoroughly enjoyed Jeunet and Caro's previous film, it took a while for me to warm up to this effort. The first forty-five minutes are poorly-paced and it's easy to get lost down one of the script's many dark, maze-like alleyways. The film tends to lurch along in fits and starts until Miette becomes established as a central character. From that point on, improvement is immediate and consistent. For those who enjoy the offbeat, The City of Lost Children is worth taking the time and effort to find. Forbidden Paris (1969) FRENCH WITH ENGLISH SUBTITLES Forbidden Paris is a comparatively normal "mondo" movie that sticks closely to the model laid out by Jacopetti and Prosperi in Mondo Cane. The film purports to detail the transgressive side of Paris in the 1960s. The subject matter is typical of the style, including sex (nude woman driving a car, middle-class housewives learning to strip), cults, freaks (faux French Nazis into ritual humiliation, body painting, and parading around the Champs-Élysées), and a typical dose of random ugly animal hijinks. Much of the footage is staged. Numerous actors from Sadist with Red Teeth appear throughout. An observant viewer will also notice that footage of a "the last vampire in Europe" is used in the Sadist with Red Teeth. Could this have been the roots for Sadist with Red Teeth? Only Jean Louis van Belle knows. In any case, this film is more creative than the average mondo, but those familiar with the format won't find anything new here.

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MissLucifer666 (2010-07-06)

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