rendez-vous with french cinema 2001 march 9 - 18, 2001 photo: saint-cyr

see information about our box office sales here. film descriptions and times sponsored by Vivendi Universal Rendez-Vous 2001 is presented by the Film Society of Lincoln Center, Unifrance and The French Film Office / Unifrance USA, together with The French Cultural Services. The festival is sponsored by Vivendi Universal, with additional support provided by the Florence Gould Foundation, L.V.T. (Laser Video Titles) and The Children of French Cinema. Very special thanks to Catherine Verret-Vimont, Executive Director of The French Film Office / Unifrance USA, and The French Cultural Services for making this program possible. Thanks also to Antoine Khalife, Maria Manthoulis and Natascha Bodemann. Every March, passionate Francophiles and lovers of French cinema reserve several weeks to attend our exciting annual program of the best recent movies from a country practically synonymous with cutting-edge film art. Contemporary French filmmaking can always be depended upon to simmer with remarkable energy and diversity, as well as artistic power. France's film industry continues to flourish without ever losing its unique national flavors. Renowned masters continue to produce rich, complex movies, such as Benoît Jacquot's Sade, while sharp newcomers push the envelope stylistically and in their choice of subject matter. Five remarkable women directors were showcased last year; this year's program again features five women, including the distinguished Chantal Akerman, as well as Agnès Obadia, Anne-Sophie Birot, Jeanne Labrune and Patricia Mazuy. Jean Becker, Robert Guédiguian and Arnaud Desplechin are back with must-see new work, and a whole host of outstanding actors, familiar as well as fresh faces, are on view. Join us for a banquet of sparkling comedy, heartrending drama, magical excursions into France's past and, of course, the kind of challenging forays into psychosexual territory that are la spécialité of the sophisticated French.

murderous maids / les blessures assassines according to matthieu / selon matthieu samia a crime in paradise / un crime au paradis esther kahn

MURDEROUS MAIDS / LES BLESSURES ASSASSINES Jean-Pierre Denis, 2000; 94m The story of the murderous Papin sisters has engendered much inspired commentary over the years, from artists and intellectuals ranging from Simone de Beauvoir, Jean-Paul Sartre, and Benjamin Perret to psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan; perhaps most notably, it served as the basis for Jean Genet's play The Maids. Now Jean-Pierre Denis has created a film which, using new information based on recent scholarship on the case, provides a fascinating, and provocative portrait of the two women. The children of a terribly unhappy marriage, Christine and Léa Papin spent their childhood shunted off to relatives or placed in convent schools. When she was fifteen, Christine was hired out by her mother to work as a maid; five years later, her younger sister Léa joined her in the same household. Denis powerfully conveys how these two young women, rejected by family and buffeted by a heartless provincial society, turn to each other with what becomes an all-consuming intensity - and the defense of their private world eventually causes them to lash out at anyone who threatens it. Sylvie Testud, also seen in Akerman's LA CAPTIVE, is remarkable as Christine, a woman whose placid demeanor belies the rage inside her; Léa is played by Julie-Marie Parmentier, who appears also in Robert Guédiguian's THE TOWN IS QUIEST. She was one of the four young actresses revealed in I'm Not Afraid of Life (Rendez-Vous 2000). Fri March 9: 1 & 6:15 Sun March 11: 9 ACCORDING TO MATTHIEU / SELON MATTHIEU Xavier Beauvois, 2000; 100m A fine actor (seen last year in Garrel's Nightwind) as well as director (his Don't Forget You're Going To Die was one of the major hits of the 1996 Rendez-Vous program), Xavier Beauvois returns with this impassioned tale of family loyalty. Francis and his two sons, Matthieu and Eric, all work in the same factory in a Normandy town. After his father is fired for a minor infraction, Matthieu tries to mobilize his co-workers to confront management, but to no avail. A short time later Francis dies under mysterious circumstances, and Matthieu, convinced his father committed suicide, decides to take out his revenge on those he considers responsible. Benoît Magimel, one of France's hottest young actors (recently seen in Pierre Grimblat's Lisa), gives a searing performance as Matthieu, a young man bursting with rage and not sure where to direct it; the film also features Natalie Baye (appearing as well in TOMORROW'S ANOTHER DAY) and Antoine Chappey. Fri March 9: 3:30 & 8:45 Sat March 10: 1:30 SAMIA Philippe Faucon, 2000; 73m Over the past decade a number of French films have dealt with the growing presence of North African immigrants, yet no work can be said to have delved as deeply into that world as Philippe Faucon's SAMIA. Based on an autobiographical novel by Soraya Nini, SAMIA chronicles a few weeks in the life of its title character, a teenage girl of Algerian descent living with her family in Marseilles. For Samia and her friends, just being a teenager seemingly isn't hard enough; in addition, they must endlessly negotiate the differences between the world of their parents and their adopted homeland. Structuring his film as a series of loosely related incidents, Faucon powerfully captures both the warmth and support of these families as well as the at times stifling rigidity of the codes and traditions they fight so hard to maintain. Making her screen debut, Lynda Benahouda as Samia is simply astonishing, embodying with her quiet strength a spirit of independence and a determination to make her own way. Sat March 10: 3:45 Sun March 11: 1:15 Tue March 13: 6:15 A CRIME IN PARADISE / UN CRIME AU PARADIS Jean Becker, 2000; 100m Based on La poison, a much-loved film by Sacha Guitry, Jean Becker's A CRIME IN PARADISE is a delicious black comedy of marital mayhem. Jojo Poacher and his wife can no longer stand each other. One day on TV, Jojo sees the famous defense lawyer Maurice Jacquard celebrate his twenty-fifth acquittal. Jojo is very impressed; unable to put up with his marriage any longer, he goes to see Jacquard and announces that he has killed his wife (which isn't true), and then learns from the venerable master what kind of extenuating circumstances might lead to an acquittal in such a murder case. Encouraged by what he's learned, Jojo goes home, and decides to put the lawyer's theories to the ultimate test. Director Becker, whose The Children of the Marshland was a great hit at last year's Rendez-Vous, returns with a hilarious gem featuring a terrific cast headed by Jacques Villeret, Josiane Balasko and André Dussolier. Sat March 10: 5:45 Sun March 11: 3:15 ESTHER KAHN Arnaud Desplechin, 2000; 145m Arnaud (La Sentinelle, My Sex Life) Desplechin's third feature (Cannes Film Festival 2000, Official Selection) is his boldest and most surprising film yet. Esther (Summer Phoenix) is the daughter of Jewish immigrants who live in a London tenement at the turn of the century. An outcast in her own family, Esther takes to the stage: under the tutelage of a pompous theater critic (Fabrice Desplechin) and a down-at-the-heels actor (Ian Holm, in one of his finest performances), she finds a life for herself in the theater. Few filmmakers at work today are so attuned to nuances of behavior and character, and Desplechin achieves something quite unusual and breathtaking with his lead actress, who can tremble like a bird one minute and roar like a lion the next. This is not a movie about finding fame and fortune on stage. It's about the terrifying yet liberating reality of acting, and the painful act of self-recreation, culminating in an extended backstage sequence as powerful as anything in late Bergman. Sat March 10: 8:30 Sun March 11: 5:30 THE TOWN IS QUIET / LA VILLE EST TRANQUILLE Robert Guédiguian, 2000; 132m Robert Guédiguian first came to international attention with the lovely Marius and Jeannette, which premiered here in Rendez-Vous in 1998. A native of Marseilles, he has made that bustling Mediterranean city, with its potent mix of races, classes and cultures, his special muse, chronicling the lives, loves and dreams of its inhabitants, often working with the same troupe of actors; with THE TOWN IS QUIET Guédiguian has made his most ambitious work to date. There's Michèle (played by Ariane Ascaride), a fishmonger raising her granddaughter while her daughter struggles to rebuild a shattered life; Paul, who uses his severance pay from being a dockworker to buy the car of his dreams; and Abderamane, transformed by his experience in jail and now looking for a way to make his mark on the world. Their stories combine with those of Guédiguian's other finely-etched characters to create a rich, insightful Altmanesque fresco of a very particular contemporary urban reality, showing in the words of the director that "at a time when life is more and more meaningless, the town is not quiet." Tue March 13: 1 Sat March 17: 1 Sun March 18: 7:15

the town is quiet / la ville est tranquille girls can't swim / les filles ne savent pas nager tomorrow's another day / ça ira mieux demain la captive sade fur on the roses / du poil sous les roses

SAINT-CYR Patricia Mazuy, 2000; 119m In what truly must be a banner year for Isabelle Huppert - she gave a number of outstanding performances for directors as varied as Raul Ruiz and Claude Chabrol - Huppert was especially praised for her work in SAINT-CYR (Cannes Film Festival 2000, Un Certain Regard), Patricia Mazuy's wry look at the hidden costs of idealism. Madame de Maintenon (Huppert), wife of Louis XIV, founds Saint-Cyr, a boarding school outside of Paris for the daughters of destitute nobility. Girls from all over the kingdom are brought there to acquire the language and manners befitting their rank. Yet what began as a form of cultural charity will eventually become a source of nightmarish anxiety for Madame de Maintenon, as the idle but rapacious young noblemen who loll about Versailles eventually discover her blooming young charges. SAINT-CYR soon becomes a lightning rod for all the disputes and tensions - religious, social, sexual and finally political - that come to define that turbulent era. "A thoroughly researched vision of the time, but far removed from the academicism we have grown accustomed to with today's period films." - Jean-Michel Frodon Tue March 13: 3:45 & 8:30 GIRLS CAN'T SWIM / LES FILLES NE SAVENT PAS NAGER Anne-Sophie Birot, 2000; 101m Piers Handling of the Toronto Film Festival writes that "this wonderful first feature (A Winstar Cinema release) from newcomer Anne-Sophie Birot captures one of the most ephemeral of relationships: that between young teenage girls. Gwen and Lise are bosom buddies; their loyalty to each other supersedes almost every other relationship in their lives.... Birot's complete identification with her two young protagonists gives LES FILLES NE SAVENT PAS NAGER the veracity and intimacy that is its greatest strength. Its double point-of-view is used to great effect, communicating the intricacies of both girls' experiences. Birot has caught the cadences and rhythms of teenage anxieties, complicated by home lives that are never simple, set against a landscape that is as harsh and unforgiving as the life lessons Gwen and Lise (Pascale Bussières) are about to learn." Topped by an eye-catching performance by Isild Le Besco (Gwen), who was in last year's Rendez-Vous with La puce and who is equally striking in this year's SADE by Benoît Jacquot, this is a film not to be missed. Wed March 14: 1 & 6 TOMORROW'S ANOTHER DAY / ÇA IRA MIEUX DEMAIN Jeanne Labrune, 2000; 89m As evidenced in recent years by films ranging from Un air de famille to La bûche to The Taste of Others, French comedy is alive and very well - and women directors are a very important part of its renaissance. Expertly paced and delightfully surprising, TOMORROW'S ANOTHER DAY brings together a splendid cast (including the great Danielle Darrieux, Nathalie Baye, Jeanne Balibar and Jean-Pierre Darroussin) for this wry look at the way small problems and situations sometimes grow and result in completely unexpected consequences. Elisabeth would like to get rid of some furniture in her cellar but isn't sure quite how. A former specialist in window dressings, Eva refuses to sit back and accept retirement. A couple, Sophie and Xavier, are on the verge of breaking up every time they have a conversation. Gradually, they all come to realize that the solutions to their problems are with other people - who of course bring along with them their own sets of problems. Wed March 14: 3:30 & 8:30 Sat March 17: 6:30 THREE BY EIGHT / TROIS HUIT Philippe Le Guay, 2000; 95m Recent years have seen a number of superb French feature films about working people, such as last year's excellent Human Resources, films which approach their usually stereotyped subjects with a refreshing complexity. The title of Philippe Le Guay's new film refers to the one-third of our time spent at our jobs, and the way in which that portion of our days defines so much about us. Pierre gives up his own business for the security of a factory job. Soon after his arrival he attracts the attention of Fred, a powerfully built co-worker; at first his taunting of Pierre seems innocent enough, the typical hazing of a newcomer, but it soon increases in intensity and eventually becomes violent. Trying to fit into his new workplace, Pierre just takes it, but the pressure affects his home life, especially his relationship with his adolescent son. An unsettling, deeply personal film, TROIS HUIT is a taut, gripping drama that exposes some of the darkest recesses of male sexuality. Thurs March 15: 1 & 5:45 Sat March 17: 4:15 LA CAPTIVE Chantal Akerman, 2000; 108m The second installment in producer extraordinaire Paulo Branco's project to bring each volume of Marcel Proust's In Search of Lost Time to the screen, Chantal Akerman's very free adaptation of La Prisonnière completely differs from the approach taken by Raul Ruiz for Time Regained. Rather than the kaleidoscopic, ever expanding Ruizian vision, LA CAPTIVE is a spare, at times extraordinarily intense, description of an emotional state. "In LA CAPTIVE, a lovely young woman, Ariane, lives with a wealthy young man, Simon, in an enormous old Parisian apartment which he also shares with his grandmother. Simon is obsessed with Ariane and keeps her as his willing captive. She acquiesces to his elaborate desires, his ceaseless surveillance and endless questions, responding in vague, neutral ways that maintain her own reserve of privacy, her own mental and physical freedom. Sympathetic and even affectionate to Simon, Ariane prefers women as sexual partners, and leads a (known) double life, thus intensifying Simon's pain, obsession and desire.... Beneath the elegant surface - the banal, casual conversations, the impeccably polite exchanges -there is a depth of passion surging through Akerman's most recent work." - Kay Armatage, Toronto Film Festival. Thurs March 15: 3:10; Fri March 16: 9 Sun March 18: 2 SADE Benoît Jacquot, 2000; 100m "With SADE (courtesy Offline Releasing), Benoît Jacquot eschews the contemporary settings of his most recent work for a historical peep at that most outrageous of eighteenth-century Frenchmen, the Marquis de Sade. Libertine, masochist, sexual adventurer, writer and libertarian, he remains an endlessly fascinating subject.... Avoiding the pitfalls of the biographical film that skims over many decades, Jacquot instead concentrates on a relatively small period of Sade's life: his imprisonment by the Jacobins during the French Revolution and his near-brush with the fickle guillotine. Sentenced to a prison for the French aristocracy, Sade finds his reputation has preceded him and his company is shunned as a result. His easy wit and way with words, plus his incisive mind and unequivocal values attract the attentions of the impressionable young Emilie de Lancris, who is alternately repelled and attracted by Sade's free-thinking ways.... Daniel Auteuil enters into the very spirit of Sade, and newcomer Isild Le Besco brings a wary, wide-eyed charm to the role of Emilie. Sumptuously photographed, this film is a feast for the eye and a provocative look at one of history's most misunderstood thinkers." - Piers Handling, Toronto Film Festival. Fri March 16: 1 & 6:15 Sat March 17: 9 FUR ON THE ROSES / DU POIL SOUS LES ROSES Agnes Obadia & Jean-Julien Chervier, 2000; 85m For many viewers, the sexual "coming of age" film is somewhat a specialty of the French; audiences the world over can thank French cinema for continuing opportunities to re-experience the pleasure and pain of growing up. Yet even this illustrious tradition doesn't prepare one for the extraordinary frankness of FUR ON THE ROSES. Co-directors Obadia and Chervier plunge us (in more ways than one) into the morass of fears, fantasies, desires and dreams of two French teenagers, Roudoudou and Romain. Their burgeoning sexualities inspire more questions than answers: Is this what my body's really going to look like? When I'm finally with someone, will I know what to do? And when words or dramatic action seem insufficient, the filmmakers turn to animator Sébastien Laudenbach, whose brilliant animations supply other perspectives on where these characters are at. Bold, innovative, and finally touching, FUR ON THE ROSES is a work of real freshness and great promise. Fri March 16: 3:30 Sun March 18: 5