Nebout, Claire

On Guard

The swordplay never ends in this dazzling, Dumas-like adventure of conspiracy and revenge, set around 1700 and presented here in its seventh filmed incarnation, directed by French New Wave titan Philippe de Broca (That Man from Rio). Daniel Auteuil plays Legardere, a callow swordsman who becomes friend to and bodyguard of the Duke of Nevers (Vincent Perez). When the latter is assassinated by his scheming cousin, Gonzague (Fabrice Luchini), Nevers's daughter, Aurore (Marie Gillain), is left in the care of Legardere, who raises her within the protective camouflage of a traveling troupe of actors. Years later, back in Paris, Legardere exacts a complicated retribution under Gonzague's nose, determined to give Aurore the life and inheritance she deserves. This exceptionally handsome film is an all-out adventure, but the witty de Broca is not one to settle for mere derring-do. The great Auteuil (The Girl on the Bridge) proves as funny as he is heroic. --Tom Keogh

Cold Showers

Venus Beauty Institute

The carefully unattached existence of working girl Nathalie Baye is suddenly upended when lovesick hunk Samuel Le Bihan introduces himself: "My name is Antoine and I love you." Set in a cute glass storefront with a neon pink and blue façade that could have sprung from a Jacques Demy musical, this bittersweet romantic drama was written for the arresting Baye, who plays a middle-aged "girl" in a uniquely Parisian beauty shop that specializes in facials, body treatments, massages, and emotional confession. Her coworkers, young, sweetly guileless brunette cutie Audrey Tautou and gloomy twentysomething Mathilde Seigner, are like glimpses into her past lives, one full of hope and giddy optimism, the other turned resentful from disappointment. She clings to the girly camaraderie and workaday autopilot of her job while her "patronne" (the incomparable Bulle Ogier) nudges her toward responsibility.

Writer-director Tonie Marshall has a marvelous feeling for the women who work and visit the place, though her soulful bohemian artist Le Bihan is defined by little more than good looks, shaggy charm, and a kind of reckless attraction. The film is at its best with the women: the easy by-play and guarded emotions of the shopgirls, the often uncontrolled outbursts of the offbeat and oddball clients, and especially the haunted and lonely performance from Baye, who warily creeps out of her shell for another chance at intimacy. --Sean Axmaker

Ponette

Live-action films about the very young are rare, and even more rare are such films that work as well as Ponette does, without cloying or pandering. The film stars 4-year old actress Victoire Thivisol as Ponette, who's lost her mother in a car accident. The rest of the film has her dealing with this loss, helped by relatives, but mostly by the other children she knows, and the help is sometimes heartening and sometimes hindering. The core events in the film are nearly all enacted by children, peers of Ponette. Sequenced as they are, they form what can only be termed the mythologies of childhood, using the contrast of childhood and death and the children's take on it to drive Ponette's changing attitudes. The result is seen passing across the face of Victoire Thivisol, one of the most luminous faces since Maria Falconetti in The Passion of Joan of Arc. Filmed cannily in close-ups, we're always privy to the artless emotions of the young girl. She's not old enough yet to have learned to dissemble. Her direct, unaffected performance (if that's what it is) draws us close in as few films have been able to do. If you're unaffected by this film, you might want to reconsider what kind of organism you'd like to be other than a human being. Victoire Thivisol was named Best Actress at the Venice Film Festival 1996. --Jim Gay

Le Bossu [Region 2]

The swordplay never ends in this dazzling, Dumas-like adventure of conspiracy and revenge, set around 1700 and presented here in its seventh filmed incarnation, directed by French New Wave titan Philippe de Broca (That Man from Rio). Daniel Auteuil plays Legardere, a callow swordsman who becomes friend to and bodyguard of the Duke of Nevers (Vincent Perez). When the latter is assassinated by his scheming cousin, Gonzague (Fabrice Luchini), Nevers's daughter, Aurore (Marie Gillain), is left in the care of Legardere, who raises her within the protective camouflage of a traveling troupe of actors. Years later, back in Paris, Legardere exacts a complicated retribution under Gonzague's nose, determined to give Aurore the life and inheritance she deserves. This exceptionally handsome film is an all-out adventure, but the witty de Broca is not one to settle for mere derring-do. The great Auteuil (The Girl on the Bridge) proves as funny as he is heroic. --Tom Keogh

Beaumarchais the Scoundrel [Region 2]

Vénus beauté (institut) [Region 2]

The carefully unattached existence of working girl Nathalie Baye is suddenly upended when lovesick hunk Samuel Le Bihan introduces himself: "My name is Antoine and I love you." Set in a cute glass storefront with a neon pink and blue façade that could have sprung from a Jacques Demy musical, this bittersweet romantic drama was written for the arresting Baye, who plays a middle-aged "girl" in a uniquely Parisian beauty shop that specializes in facials, body treatments, massages, and emotional confession. Her coworkers, young, sweetly guileless brunette cutie Audrey Tautou and gloomy twentysomething Mathilde Seigner, are like glimpses into her past lives, one full of hope and giddy optimism, the other turned resentful from disappointment. She clings to the girly camaraderie and workaday autopilot of her job while her "patronne" (the incomparable Bulle Ogier) nudges her toward responsibility.

Writer-director Tonie Marshall has a marvelous feeling for the women who work and visit the place, though her soulful bohemian artist Le Bihan is defined by little more than good looks, shaggy charm, and a kind of reckless attraction. The film is at its best with the women: the easy by-play and guarded emotions of the shopgirls, the often uncontrolled outbursts of the offbeat and oddball clients, and especially the haunted and lonely performance from Baye, who warily creeps out of her shell for another chance at intimacy. --Sean Axmaker

Vénus beauté (institut) [Region 2]

The carefully unattached existence of working girl Nathalie Baye is suddenly upended when lovesick hunk Samuel Le Bihan introduces himself: "My name is Antoine and I love you." Set in a cute glass storefront with a neon pink and blue façade that could have sprung from a Jacques Demy musical, this bittersweet romantic drama was written for the arresting Baye, who plays a middle-aged "girl" in a uniquely Parisian beauty shop that specializes in facials, body treatments, massages, and emotional confession. Her coworkers, young, sweetly guileless brunette cutie Audrey Tautou and gloomy twentysomething Mathilde Seigner, are like glimpses into her past lives, one full of hope and giddy optimism, the other turned resentful from disappointment. She clings to the girly camaraderie and workaday autopilot of her job while her "patronne" (the incomparable Bulle Ogier) nudges her toward responsibility.

Writer-director Tonie Marshall has a marvelous feeling for the women who work and visit the place, though her soulful bohemian artist Le Bihan is defined by little more than good looks, shaggy charm, and a kind of reckless attraction. The film is at its best with the women: the easy by-play and guarded emotions of the shopgirls, the often uncontrolled outbursts of the offbeat and oddball clients, and especially the haunted and lonely performance from Baye, who warily creeps out of her shell for another chance at intimacy. --Sean Axmaker

Le Bossu [Region 2]

The swordplay never ends in this dazzling, Dumas-like adventure of conspiracy and revenge, set around 1700 and presented here in its seventh filmed incarnation, directed by French New Wave titan Philippe de Broca (That Man from Rio). Daniel Auteuil plays Legardere, a callow swordsman who becomes friend to and bodyguard of the Duke of Nevers (Vincent Perez). When the latter is assassinated by his scheming cousin, Gonzague (Fabrice Luchini), Nevers's daughter, Aurore (Marie Gillain), is left in the care of Legardere, who raises her within the protective camouflage of a traveling troupe of actors. Years later, back in Paris, Legardere exacts a complicated retribution under Gonzague's nose, determined to give Aurore the life and inheritance she deserves. This exceptionally handsome film is an all-out adventure, but the witty de Broca is not one to settle for mere derring-do. The great Auteuil (The Girl on the Bridge) proves as funny as he is heroic. --Tom Keogh

Melody for a Hustler [Region 2]