Tag: Paris

Categories
Animation Dance Features Movies

Ana, en Passant
(Ana, en Passant)

Ana, en Passant (Ana, en Passant)

Director – Fernanda Salgado – 2026 – Brazil, Portugal, France – Cert. tbc – 90m

*****

A woman from Paris travels to Belo Horizonte, Brazil where she hopes to unearth something of her family history – from the BFI London Film Festival 2026 which runs from Wednesday, October 7th to Sunday, October 18th in cinemas and on BFI Player

This opens with a profusion of images and a child’s voice asking: “mummy, what is a map?” The images are moving images treated in painterly ways, animated postcard-like holiday snaps putting themselves into order, flashes of memory as if printed on an unusual under-texture. Then an image of a baby scanned in the womb. More images – fish in the ocean, talk by the little girl of whether fish follow maps too – then we settle into the film proper.

Which is to say that, rather than the film’s form constantly shifting, it suddenly settles into a more formal, less abstract, fixed form of 2D animation as Ana (voice: Jéssica Pierina) – the little girl asking the questions earlier, perhaps? – leaves the Paris Metro with its familiar Hector Guimard art deco, wrought iron entrance, wanders satisfyingly along the bank of the Seine and finally enters her apartment, where she tidies broken pieces of china off the floor, binning them.… Read the rest

Categories
Features Live Action Movies

Case 137

Case 137 (Dossier 137)

Director – Dominik Moll – 2025 – France – Cert. 12a – 116m

*****

A member of the internal police watchdog department investigates a complaint of police violence in the 2018 Yellow Jackets riots – out in UK cinemas on Friday, October 16th

Who watches the watchmen? Who polices the police? It’s a question with great relevance to today’s societies, including our own in the UK. In the US, the Police have the Internal Affairs. In France, the police have a branch called the IGPN (L’inspection générale de la police nationale / The General Inspectorate of the National Police). So if members of the public accuse the police of bad or criminal behaviour, they have a department set up to investigate that. An internal department, not an external body.

IGPN inspector Stéphanie Bertrand (Léa Drucker from Mars Express, Jérémie Périn, 2023; Two of Us, Filippo Meneghetti, 2019; The Blue Room, Matthieu Amalric, 2014) is working on allegations of police misconduct during the Yellow Jackets protests of 2018. She tries to be scrupulously fair in questioning an officer who threw stones at rioters, later defending him to superiors as being in a situation that put him under intense psychological pressure.… Read the rest

Categories
Art Exhibitions Features Live Action Movies

Exhibition on Screen
James McNeill Whistler

Courtesy of Exhibition on Screen

Exhibition on Screen: James McNeill Whistler

Director – David Bickerstaff – 2026 – UK – Cert. U – 90m

*****

A look at the work of 19th Century painter Whistler, seen through the lens of the 2026 Tate Britain exhibition – out in UK cinemas from Tuesday, 15th September

Before watching this latest Exhibition on Screen feature, I was able to visit Tate Britain’s stunning James McNeill Whistler show, which sits very much at the film’s core. The film had the effect of making me want to go back for further visits.

Exhibition on Screen’s film opens with shots of a Victorian concert hall interior where the unseen Whistler (voice: Bret Jones) is addressing the room with his spoken lecture on art, something the film will return to towards its close. After a montage of brushes, painting surfaces and palettes, establishing shots of Tate Britain take us straight into the current Whistler show. “People sometimes think of Whistler as being based in French art, and sometimes as being based in British art,” explains Carol Jacobi, Curator of British Art 1850-1915, Tate Britain, “whereas…he was very much an independent…and very much leading the avant-garde in both those countries.”

Susan Grace Galassi, Curator Emeritas, The Frick Collection, New York, who considers Whistler one of the greatest American artists, notes that he didn’t distinguish between fine or applied art, that he was as great a painter as he was a printmaker.… Read the rest

Categories
Features Live Action Movies

La Femme Infidèle
(The Unfaithful Wife)

La Femme Infidèle (The Unfaithful Wife)

Director – Claude Chabrol – 1969 – France – Cert. 15 – 98m

*****

A man suspects his wife is having an affair, hires a private detective, and then acts upon what emerges… – back out in UK cinemas on Friday, September 11th; Claude Chabrol – Elements of Crime, a season of the director’s films, plays at BFI Southbank from Tuesday, September 1st to Tuesday, October 6th 2026.

Charles Desvallées (Michel Bouquet from Just Before Nightfall, 1971; Cop au Vin, 1985, both Claude Chabrol; The Bride Wore Black, François Truffaut, 1966) lives outside Paris with his wife Hélène (Stéphane Audran, then the director’s wife, from Les Biches, 1968, Le Boucher, 1970, both Claude Chabrol; Babette’s Feast, Gabriel Axel, 1987) and pre-teenage son Michel (Stéphane Di Napoli from Que la Bête Meure, Claude Chabrol, 1969).

He works in an office in Paris, to which he commutes by car. She often goes into town, for instance to get her hair done or visit the cinema. One day, he becomes suspicious and hires a private detective to follow her, who reports back that she is visiting the apartment of another man Victor Pegala every few days.… Read the rest

Categories
Features Live Action Movies

Once a Thief
(Chung Hang Sei Hoi,
縱橫四海,
lit: Criss-Cross
Over Four Seas)

Once a Thief (Chung Hang Sei Hoi, 縱橫四海,
lit: Criss-Cross Over Four Seas)

Director – John Woo – 1991 – Hong Kong – Cert. 15 – 107m

****1/2

Lightweight caper movie bult around three orphans – two boys in love wth the third child, a girl – raised to become professional art thieves – 4K Restoration plays as part of Bullets and Brotherhood: the Films of John Woo at BFI Southbank from Friday, 3rd July to Friday, 31st July, and is out on 4K UHD on Friday, 3rd August

Three orphans adopted from the street are raised together in Hong Kong by gang boss Chow (Kenneth Tsang) to become professional art thieves – with the two boys Red Bean Pudding (Chow Yun Fat from Hard Boiled, 1992; The Killer, 1987; A Better Tomorrow, 1986, all John Woo) and James (Leslie Cheung from Happy Together, Wong Kar-wai, 1997; A Chinese Ghost Story, Tsui Hark, 1987; A Better Tomorrow, John Woo, 1986) growing up equally in love with the girl Red Bean (Cherie Chung from Wild Search, Ringo Lam, 1989, An Autumn’s Tale, Mabel Cheung, 1987; Peking Opera Blues, Tsui Hark, 1986).… Read the rest

Categories
Features Live Action Movies

A Private Life
(Vie Privée)

A Private Life (Vie Privée)

Director – Rebecca Zlotowski – 2025 – France – Cert. 15 – 107m

****

A psychiatrist with an unusual eye problem must unravel the mystery of the recent death of one of her patients – out in UK cinemas on Friday, June 26th

Parisian psychiatrist Dr. Lilian Steiner (Jodie Foster from The Mauritanian, Kevin Macdonald, 2021, The Silence of the Lambs, Jonathan Demme, 1991; Taxi Driver, Martin Scorsese, 1976) is having a hard time. One of her patients Pierre is terminating his sessions after years of treatment following his visit to a hypnotist who managed to cure him of his long-standing smoking habit in one session; indeed, he may sue Dr. Lilian for non-effectiveness of treatment. Another regular Paula hasn’t turned up for her last two sessions, and Dr. Lilian is chasing the invoices.

The reason Paula hasn’t turned up, Dr. Lilian learns in a phone call from Paula’s daughter Valérie (Luana Bajrami (Luana Bajrami from Portrait of a Lady on Fire, Céline Sciamma, 2019)), is simple: Paula has just died. Valérie invites Dr. Lilian to the Shemira (basically, a Jewish wake) only for Paula’s outraged husband Simon (Matthieu Amalric from Nino, Pauline Loquès, 2025; The Grand Budapest Hotel, Wes Anderson, 2014; Munich, Steven Spielberg, 2005) to tell her to get out.… Read the rest

Categories
Features Live Action Movies

Nino
(Nino)

Nino (Nino)

Director – Pauline Loquès – 2025 – France – Cert. 15 – 96m

****1/2

A young man attempts to cope with the news that he has throat cancer in his first weekend following diagnosis – out in UK cinemas on Friday, June 19th

There are some films you watch which are so close to parts of your own life that it’s impossible to be objective about them. This doesn’t happen very often to this writer, but it happened on this film. Over a year ago, completely out of the blue, I was diagnosed with breast cancer. As a UK citizen I’m entitled to free healthcare, and as a cancer patient my treatment is fast-tracked. My initial experience was of being tested for cancer, waiting a week or so for the results to come back, and having the presence of the cancer confirmed. That gave me around ten days to adjust, but it was a terrible shock. Not least because my (mis)understanding was that men didn’t get breast cancer, only women did, so that couldn’t possibly be what I had. And, obviously, it was life-changing.

Cut to the film Nino. A name film, named after its central character. What follows is my own highly personalised reaction as a cancer patient / survivor.… Read the rest

Categories
Art Features Live Action Movies

Leonora
in the Morning Light
(Leonora
im Morgenlicht)

©Mirjam Kluka, Dragonfly films, Alamode Film

Leonora in the Morning Light (Leonora im Morgenlicht)

Directors – Thor Klein, Lena Vurma – 2025 – Germany, Romania, Mexico, UK – Cert. 15 – 103m

**

In Mexico, France, Spain and the England of her childhood, Surrealist painter Leonora Carrington must confront her personal demons – out in UK and Ireland cinemas on Friday, May 29th

Deserted hillsides, a sliver of a road, eventually a tiny red car moving along it, to the accompaniment of a pulsating electronic score suggesting the present day. Another stretch of road: the car drops off the woman, in stylish trousers and blouse, who smokes observing the landscape. The driver gets out to photograph her, much to her displeasure, but he’s run out of film.

An illustrated title card: Death. Xilitla, Mexico, 1951. The man takes her to the rooming house of Edward (Ryan Gage), leaving her as he promises to look after their son. Outside the window, she can hear the two men discuss all that has happened to her. Her madness.

©Mirjam Kluka, Dragonfly films, Alamode Film

She and Edward are riding with others in the back of a lorry on a road. In Spanish, she asks a woman on the lorry (Yasmira Escárrega) about her amulet – “a sacred stone that illuminated the path through the underworld”.… Read the rest

Categories
Features Live Action Movies

Father Mother
Sister Brother

© Vague Notion 2024 Yorick Le Saux

Father Mother Sister Brother

Director – Jim Jarmusch – 2025 – US – Cert. 12a – 110m

*****

Three separate stories follow visits by three separate sets of adult siblings to, respectively, an elderly father, an elderly mother, and a deceased parents’ cleared home – streams exclusively on MUBI from Friday, May 29th

This harks back to a couple of earlier Jarmusch movies which similarly consist of a small number of stories: Night on Earth (1991) with five cabbies on one night in different cities and Mystery Train (1989) with its three linked stories set during one night in Memphis. There’s no suggestion that the three stories in Father Mother Sister Brother – set in rural North America, Dublin and Paris – are taking place simultaneously, international time differences notwithstanding, but they could well be, because all three take place in similarly good weather conditions. The first is rural, with snow on the ground, while the latter two are urban.

All three of FMSB’s stories feature similarities which link them beyond the overall siblings / parent(s) theme. These are both expected – car journeys to the home of the parent or parents, time spent in their presence or absence – and unexpected – skateboarders seen from the can en route, a Rolex watch.… Read the rest