French Film Festival — A–Z of films

Knudsen is magnetic as the film's relentlessly pounding heart and its easy to fall into step with her beat.

The best way to get the most out of the film is to succumb completely to the singer’s breathless voice, sultry eyes and her volatile genius.

Maurice Ronet gives a towering performance.

The film’s most gripping aspect is the delicacy with which it handles its extraordinary emotional depth

The writer-director takes great enjoyment in playing around with his various obsessions.

The framing device has a more 'grown-up' sweep, but it is younger children who are likely to get the most out of these simple stories, which often involve a repetition of phrases or ideas in the way of many traditional fairy tales.

This is a film from the perspective of women: and not just one perspective, but many, which is what gives it its richness.

Plot points are ticked off a checklist but the characters remain remote.

If there is rather more surface than substance and the ending is signposted, it is a surface full of intricacy and a signpost of admirable elegance.

The film is as fresh as it was in 1958. As challenging as it was then. And as beautiful.

Losey had shown how adept he was at claustrophobic interiors before, with the likes of The Servant, but here he also shows a flair for more abstract sweeping cinema.

Hazanavicius directs with flair for the style and mood of the Sixties.

There's a potency to this film, largely thanks to a carefully judged performance by Marina Foïs as novelist and tutor Olivia, and a charismatic one by Matthieu Lucci as her most difficult student, Antoine.