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Five must-see French movies

Tiffany Munuera (The Jakarta Post)
Jakarta
Fri, July 29, 2016

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Five must-see French movies Those who are into foreign films or interested in watching them but need recommendations may want to consider these options of French movies.  (Shutterstock/Javier Brosch)

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hose who are into foreign films or interested in watching them but need recommendations may want to consider these options of French movies. 

'La Haine' (1995)

This classic black-and-white French film directed by Mathieu Kassovitz follows three young men full of rage living in a Paris suburb, also referred to as la banlieue. The plot is quite simple, but it has a powerful message about one of the darkest years of recent French history in which there was a constant threat of violence after a wave of shootings and bombings in the summer of 1995. 

La Haine was also the first movie in which la banlieue life was represented as what it was, rewriting what French people thought they knew about these places.

'Mommy' (2014)

It is perhaps my favorite movie by Canadian director Xavier Dolan. It is a heartfelt, black comedy about a widowed mother taking care of a troubled, hyperactive and violent teenager. It will just blow your mind, taking you somewhere between daylife and hell, but in a deep and shocking way.

The movie's highlight is arguably how Dolan plays on the screen’s aspect as a supporting feature to explain the plot. The screen reduced to the shape of a selfie taken with a mobile phone that relates, as Dolan said, to the characters’ restricted horizons; and it widens out at happy moments.

(Read also: Five feel-good movies to watch and boost your mood)

'La Vie d’Adèle' (2013) 

Directed by Abdellatif Kechiche, this film tells the story of a young girl discovering her sexuality, but it is also about a love story lived with the craziness and intensity of the first times. In short, it goes back to basics. La vie d’Adèle shows us that those painful journeys we all made are what led us to know ourselves better.

 

'Caché' (2005) 

Arguably one of Michael Haneke’s masterpieces, this movie can seem to be a simple film about someone being harassed, but the real plot is far deeper than that. So deep that if you do not know a little bit about recent French history you will not understand the point. Let me help you: in 1961, a massacre of Algerian people took place in Paris. This event is a consequence of the Algerian War of Independence, and it is deeply attached to the protagonist’s past.

 

(Read also: Five must-watch black and white films)

The Mesrine saga

The Jacques Mesrine saga, first with L'instinct de mort and L’Ennemi public nº1 after, was directed by Jean-François Richet. Jacques Mesrine was a notorious French bank robber and murderer who was killed by the police in a hail of bullets in Paris in 1979. Before that, he wrote an autobiography in prison called L’instinct de mort (Death Instinct),and these films are based on it. The first part begins on the day of his death and then flashes back to his early years, while the second part covers the last years of his life after returning to France.

It is a great saga not just because it is based on real life but because the megalomaniacal celebrity criminal who was Mesrine is a figure of French gangster history worth discovering. Besides, Vincent Cassel performs as Mesrine, and you will see why in every film review he is referenced as being on “ the high point of his career”.  

 

 

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