’Deception’ (Tromperie)

An elegant, fractured, dialogue-based chamber piece, a perfect example of the craft of filmmaking through intimacy of performance, camera work, lighting and editing as a successful writer looks to the relationships in his life. Yet, ultimately, the result is somewhat inert and tedious.

An adaptation of the experimental novel by Philip Roth, Philip (Denis Podalydès) converses over several years with various women in his life – with the unnamed L’amante anglaise (Léa Seydoux) dominant. A luminous contrivance of sex, love and (dis)loyalty in a Notting Hill studio, Hampstead home or New York hospital, Deception is a literary and cinematic bon mot as Philip intellectualises his infidelities, his writings, his Judaism.

Directed by Arnaud Desplechin, Deception is deceptively seductive centred around a mesmerising performance by Seydoux, muse, lover and intellectual match to the writer. Less convincing is a Philip with charm but lacking the rigour and magnetism of the philanderer he is meant to be.

Rating: 59%

Director: Arnaud Desplechin (My Golden Days, The Sentinel)

Writer: Arnaud Desplechin (My Golden Days, Esther Kahn), Julie Peyr (Brother and Sister, Who You Think I Am) – adapted from the Philip Roth novel

Main cast: Denis Podalydès (Caché, An Officer and a Spy), Léa Seydoux (No Time to Die, Blue is the Warmest Colour), Emmanuelle Devos (Coco Before Chanel, Kings & Queens)

’Joyeux Noël’

A visceral moment in the trenches of World War I as individual opposing British, French and German units lay down their arms on Christmas Eve, 1914 to celebrate together.

Joyeux Noël is a fictionalised account of true events and centred around the Delsaux farm occupied by the German 93rd Infantry under the command of Leutnant Horstmayer (Daniel Brühl). Less than 100 metres away are the French 26th and the Royal Scots Fusiliers. Music brings the nationalities together as night falls on 24 December 1914. As the bagpipes play, a catholic Mass, lead by stretcher bearer and priest Father Palmer (Gary Lewis), is held in no man’s land: tenor Private Nikolaus Sprink (Benno Fürmann) and his wife Anna Sørensen (Diane Kruger), both members of the Berlin State Opera, sing to the troops. Horstmayer is able to find out information about the wife and new born child of the French commanding officer, Le lieutenant Audebert (Guillaume Canet), caught behind enemy lines.

Moving and uplifting with its deep sense of humanity, Joyeux Noël is, admittedly, a neatly packaged emotive tearjerker with its bittersweet consequences. It’s the art of uncomplicated storytelling that wins out.

Nominated for best foreign language film Oscar in 2006.

Rating: 71%

Director: Christian Carion (My Son, Driving Madeleine)

Writer: Christian Carion (My Son, Driving Madeleine)

Main cast: Guillaume Canet (Tell No One, My Son), Daniel Brühl (Rush, All Quiet on the Western Front), Gary Lewis (Billy Elliot, The Keeper)

‘Yannick’

Off beat and at times laugh out loud funny, parking attendant Yannick takes a rare night off and attends a comédie au boudoir – and is less than impressed with what he sees.

A staid three hander, Le Cocu (The Cuckold) is performed to a sparse crowd in a theatre on the outskirts of Paris. Even the actors look as if they are doing nothing more than going through the motions. Dissatisfied with what he is seeing, Yannick (Raphaël Quenard) interrupts from his seat in the stalls. Taking the theatre hostage, demanding to become the playwright, gloriously barbed dialogue ensues between the extremely likeable Yannick, the cast and audience.

Writer/director Quentin Dupieux brilliantly deconstructs expectations of social norms as Yannick clashes with lead actor Paul Rivière (Pio Marmaï), wins empathic support from audience members and pits Rivière against leading lady Sophie Denis (Blanche Gardin). With more than a nod towards Buñuel’s absurdist The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie, Yannick upends convention in its 67 minute running time, making the sudden shift in tone even more poignant and shocking.

Rating: 75%

Director: Quentin Dupieux (Reality, Smoking Causes Coughing)

Writer: Quentin Dupieux (Reality, Smoking Causes Coughing)

Main cast: Raphaël Quenard (Junkyard Dog, One and Thousand Nights), Pio Marmaï (Happening, Back to Burgundy), Blanche Gardin (Delete History, Smoking Causes Coughing)

‘Vagabond’ (Sans toit ni loi)

Found frozen to death in a ditch, a young woman’s immediate past life is stitched together by the filmmaker.

A fictional narrative but readily indicative of the films of documentarian Agnès Varda in its humane social realism, young drifter Mona (Sandrine Bonnaire) heads for a wintry south of France. Moments in time are captured by interviews with individuals impacted by Mona – a Tunisian labourer she works with for a short period pruning back vines, a brief love affair squatting in a dilapidated manor house, a kind-hearted lecturer and environmentalist (Macha Méril) – creating a piecemeal understanding of the last few months of Mona’s life as she heads for the inevitable.

The camera’s gaze is ever on the enigmatic, uncertain yet determined Mona. It’s an unromanticised, non-judgemental portrayal that is a feminist comment on the human condition and the desire to be free from constraint. Regarded as auteur Agnès Varda’s masterpiece, Vagabond collected three awards at the 1985 Venice Film Festival, including the Golden Lion.

Rating: 78%

Director: Agnès Varda (Faces Places, The Gleaners and I)

Writer: Agnès Varda (One Hundred and One Nights, Cléo from 5 to 7)

Main cast: Sandrine Bonnaire (Elle s’appelle Sabine, La cérémonie), Macha Méril (Belle de jour, Trésor), Stéphane Freiss (Welcome to the Sticks, Munich)

‘Saint Omer’

A mix of real life court transcipts and fictional characterisation, Saint Omer is a powerful and gripping drama exploring race, class and motherhood.

Reading of the upcoming trial of a young Senegalese woman charged with abandoning her baby on a beach to die, novelist and lecturer Rama (Kayije Kagame), herself pregnant, determines to attend court. Her thesis on Medea and the motivations for the murder of her own children provides the background for the decision. Travelling out of Paris, Rama, already fearful of her own insecurities and failings as a potential mother, struggles with the unnaturally calm and seemingly resigned Laurence (Guslagie Malanda).

A wholly engrossing, nuanced feature from documentary filmmaker Alice Diop, part courtroom drama, part self reflection, Saint Omer verges on the observational and non-judgemental as witnesses provide answers to the events leading up to Laurence’s decision to abandon her child on the beach.

Rating: 82%

Director: Alice Diop (We, La permanence)

Writer: Alice Diop (We, La mort de Danton)

Main cast: Kayije Kagame (Night Shift), Guslagie Malanda (My Friend Victoria, The Beast), Valérie Dréville (My American Uncle, Elles)

‘The Dreamers’

A sensual ménage à trois as an American student moves to 1968 Paris where, amid rising social tensions, he meets and falls in love with twins Theo and Isabelle.

A love for art house cinema sees Matthew (Michael Pitt) cross paths with the ubercool twins. A daring twosome, they instigate an intense friendship with Matthew moving into the large, rambling family apartment as their bohemian parents leave Paris for the summer. Cinema, obsession, revolution and youth underscore the more personal sexual revolution contained within the four walls as riots rage outside and Matthew struggles with his emotions towards Isabelle (Eva Green). The incestuous relationship between brother (Louis Garrel) and sister add frisson to the already highly charged scenario.

With its smouldering eroticism and director Bernardo Bertolucci’s interweaving of 1940s film clips to add to the emotions and actions of the threesome, The Dreamers is a seductive portrayal of sexual awakening unfolding in the City of Love.

Rating: 78%

Director: Bernardo Bertolucci (The Last Emperor, The Conformist)

Writer: Gilbert Adair (Love and Death on Long Island, Klimt) – adapted from hs own novel

Main cast: Michael Pitt (Seven Psychopaths, Hedwig & the Angry Inch), Louis Garrel (Saint Laurent, A Faithful Man), Eva Green (Casino Royale, Miss Peregrine’s Home For Peculiar Children)

‘Chocolat’

A sublime debut from French auteur Claire Denis, a French woman returns to Cameroon and reflects upon her colonialist childhood.

Semi-autobiographical, Chocolat, a deceptively simple, nuanced film, is overtly political yet deeply sensual. In a remote outpost with her colonial administrator father (François Cluzet) frequently away, the young France (Cécile Ducasse) must entertain herself. As an adult, her strongest memories are of the family’s ‘houseboy’ Protee (Isaach de Bankolé) – a man of great nobility and beauty. But what she’s not aware of is the strong sexual attraction her mother (Giulia Boschi) has for Protee and the complexities of adult interaction in a colonial, racist society. It’s the older France (Mireille Perrier) who contemplates the tensions and ambiguity of the last years of French colonialism in West Africa.

Rating: 80%

Director: Claire Denis (Beau travail, Let the Sunshine In)

Writer: Claire Denis (Beau travail, Let the Sunshine In), Jean-Pol Fargeau (Beau travail, The Intruder)

Main cast: Isaach de Bankolé (Casino Royale, Black Panther), Cécile Ducasse, François Cluzet (The Intouchables, Tell No One)

‘Bergman Island’

A thoughtful and captivating character-driven film within a film within a film set as two married filmmakers travel to Fårö, the island home and inspiration for many of Ingmar Bergman’s features.

Arriving on the island as a guest of the Bergman Society, acclaimed film director Tony (Tim Roth) finds his time increasingly in demand to attend screenings and talks around the island. With more time to herself, wife Chris (Vicky Krieps) looks for inspiration for her latest script. As Tony attends the more official aspects of everything Bergman, so Chris immerses herself in the ever present spirit of the renowned director – with the ideas within her evolving script taking centre stage of Bergman Island. Reality and fiction blur unexpectedly as Mia Wasikowska and her thwarted love for Anders Danielsen Lie becomes the central narrative.

A slow burn of a feature that slowly creeps up on the viewer, Bergman Island is very much director Mia Hansen-Løve’s homage to Bergman himself and the seriousness in which he approached the exploration of relationships within his films (and personal life). Layer upon layer is applied that draws the viewer into a narrative of wistful nostalgia.

Rating: 74%

Director: Mia Hansen-Løve (Father of My Children, Things to Come)

Writer: Mia Hansen-Løve (Father of My Children, Things to Come)

Main cast: Vicky Krieps (Phantom Thread, Old), Tim Roth (Pulp Fiction, Luce), Mia Wasikowska (Judy and Punch, Stoker), Anders Danielsen Lie (The Worst Person in the World, Oslo August 31st)

’Stolen Kisses’ (Baisers volés)

Whimsical but unedifying picaresque comedy-drama, Stolen Kisses sees French auteur François Truffaut pay homage to film noir detective drama.

Something of a drifter, Antoine Doinel (Jean-Pierre Léaud) – lead character from the earlier The 400 Blows – returns to Paris having been discharged from the army as unfit for duty. Reconnecting with on/off girlfriend Christine (Delphine Seyrig), Doinel finds himself circuitously employed as a private detective. Though incompetent, he somehow bumbles his way through – including an affair with a wealthy client’s wife – before being fired and finding himself as a TV repairman.

Romantic yet slapstick silly, Truffaut’s much loved feature is seen as an insightful meditation on love as Doinel attempts to understand his relationships with women. Simultaneously playful and complex, it’s all somewhat superficial and unengaging.

Nominated for 1969 Best Foreign Language Film Oscar.

Rating: 54%

Director: François Truffaut (The 400 Blows, Day For Night)

Writer: François Truffaut (The 400 Blows, Day For Night), Claude de Givray (Me faire ça à moi, L’amour à la chaîne), Bernard Revon (La guerilla, L’amour à la chaîne) – loosely based on the novel by Honoré de Balzac

Main cast: Jean-Pierre Léaud (The 400 Blows, Irma Vep), Delphine Seyrig (The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie, The Day of the Jackal), Claude Jade (Love on the Run, Topaz)

‘Shoot the Piano Player’ (Tirez sur le pianiste)

French New Wave auteur François Truffaut’s second film and his ode to film noir, Shoot the Piano Player is as structuarlly loose as improvised free form jazz whilst simultaneously focussed in its narrative.

Charlie (Charles Aznavour) is a disillusioned classically-trained pianist now playing jazz and scat in a small Parisian bar. Helping his brother Richard avoid pursuing gangsters to whom he owes money, Charlie finds himself drawn into illegal family concerns. Things get worse for Charlie and Lena (Marie Dubois), a waitress at the bar, forcing them to flee Paris. But they are followed.

An uber cool score and shot in monochrome, Shoot the Piano Player may not be the best of Truffaut (it occasionally veers towards slapstick), but it remains an engaging distracted impulse of a feature.

Rating: 63%

Director: François Truffaut (The 400 Blows, Stolen Kisses)

Writer: François Truffaut (The 400 Blows, Day For Night), Marcel Moussy (The 400 Blows, St Tropez Blues) – based on the novel by David Goodis

Main cast: Charles Aznavour (The Truth About Charlie, The Tin Drum), Marie Dubois (Jules and Jim, La menace), Michèle Mercier (Angélique, Emma Hamilton)