French Film Festival — A–Z of films

Dreams, memories and reality all intermingle to rather intoxicating effect

Binoche gives her all, stripping away any vestiges of actressy pretence to assimilate herself in the community while at the same time investing her performance with an authentic conviction.

Director Yann Gozlan has done a great job here of taking us right up to the line.

Bloody Oranges is condemned to straddle between two half-baked tones.

Covert glances and dauntless gestures between the three protagonists, that keep us guessing about who knows what, weave a web as diaphanous as the stitching on fine cloth.

Although this film has no body count, it carries with it all the danger of an erotic thriller.

Desplechin fires off too many salvoes which hit wide of the mark

Although the heartfelt nature of the film is evident, it's a shame Ayouch became so wedded to its documentary element when its more stylised moments are where it finds its real energy.

Loose camerawork from Frank van den Eeden enhances the intimate, raw spirit.

The real strength of the film is in the way it points up gender role differences that go unnoticed because people are so used to them.

Breathtakingly ambitious, exquisitely realised and performed and made under extreme circumstances, Les Enfants Du Paradis is an absolute joy to behold and a monument to the power of the arts to transcend opressive social and political climates.

François Ozon makes what could have been an impossibly painful subject more palatable but nonetheless affecting.

The detailing, including the flamboyant naming of dresses and the rush to be finished, feels as right as a perfect necklace, so that it sets off the wider fabric of the story without detracting from it.

An homage to truly bad film-making - but it sails perilously close to self-parody

France is a supremely sad film, maybe the saddest Dumont has made in its interplay of the true and the fake.

This is satire. Sharp, observant, but unlike British films in similar vein, never cutting.

Gravel cleverly works the tempo, so we feel the occasional moments when Julie almost gets to relax, but that keep being snatched from her, more acutely.

A crisp, downbeat, clever exploration of the issues, combined with a whodunnit.

What, you might ask, is at the heart of the mystery? It's a good question and one that Pariser barely articulates.

What makes all this work is the very straightforward and matter-of-fact way in which Dupieux approaches the story.

The closer and more personal this documentary gets, the more it opens up to the largest of issues.

Warm-hearted and humorous without losing sight of the manifold injustices many migrants face.

Everything flows with the flourish of an expensive ink pen on paper, as sketches are made to bloom with colour or a bicycle ride turns into a mini adventure, all given additional life by the zippy score from Ludovic Bource.

An exercise in stamina and perseverance.

The star himself commands an uncharacteristic stillness, dialling down his famous charisma, surrendering himself to the material.

Audiard captures the fluid nature of relationships for a younger generation navigating both on and offline opportunities and, because this is French, it also features plenty of gracefully worked sexual encounters.

Martyrdom and bad wishing, casual cruelty and sweet despair reign in this realm.

This challengingly structured moving picture connects past with present not in linear form but in fragments of story that come in waves.

While exploitation is expertly outlined, the directors are never exploitative themselves in the way it is depicted.