i'll just list some french movies i like
melville - le samourai
melville is of course a lovely man, and
bob le flambeur is more than worth your time also. i found out about
le samourai through my love of
ghost dog, which also contains an ascetic hitman protagonist who is hella into the rigid observation of a code (as well as the subtle and cute 'master key'). also notable because his coat is honestly amazing holy shit that's a nice coat.
noe - seul contre tous
'new french extremity' is probably one of the coolest labels i've ever heard of for anything. i'm probably going to talk more about its semi-sequel,
irreversible, more than this actual piece but
irreversible is even less accessible so it's probably best that you watch this first.
anyway, gasper noe is fucking hardcore.
irreversible has a scene wherein monica bellucci is anally raped for several minutes while infrasound plays in the background. infrasound is barely audible to humans but it causes this weird feeling that something fey is afoot, and generally just makes people physically uncomfortable. it's also said that it's linked to 'ghost sightings'. spo0o0oky! while such a scene sounds unpalatable (and it is), there is a level of sympathy present in noe's films that almost suggest an apology for a cruel and mercurial world. almost.
as for
seul contre tous, it reinforces 'no pain like this body' in a way that even films like
biutiful fail to manage. you are born into a sharp and mournful world and you writhe until fatigued enough to acquiesce to the beyond. good thing there's internet huh???????
also if you want a less brutal film of noe's,
enter the void came out a couple years ago and it's ok. more an oneiric warp than an actual film, but it's pretty and vibrant and it takes place in tokyo so thats also cool.
villeneuve - incendies
an astonishing quebecois film. i missed it at its release in 2010, but it is bar none the best movie i've seen this year. brother and sister must travel to mysterious middle eastern country to receive the bequeathal of their dead mother. 'religious drama' but i honestly dont want to give anything away because the ending is so marvelous that i want you to go in with a completely open mind. films like this are so wounded and wounding that i find myself sitting alone, scheming on how to be remembered.
godard - alphaville
FUCKING godard. i feel bad lauding him and his masterpieces because it's almost too obvious but whatever. watch
alphaville, watch
pierrot le fou, watch
le mepris. i'm not even going to talk about this movie. just think about a world where love is illegal and...................
other notable frenchie films i can think of are beineix's
betty blue (a good love movie) and berri's
jean de florette (kinda really dry but the scene where a character tastes the farmland's earth on a fucking plate to gauge its quality is more than worth the whole hundred twenty minutes, also probably my favourite gerard depardieu role)
