Dussollier

A Good Marriage
$19.98
Eric Rohmer's film stars Beatrice Romand who impulsively decides that a man she barely knows would make an ideal husband. She throws herself body and soul into his conquest, leaving her old boy friend in the dust. To say she is single minded in pursuit of this Parisian lawyer is a vast understatement. Virtually everyone will find themselves thanking the powers that be that they are not the Parisian lawyer. I am sure most men dread finding themselves in this quandary. The natural reaction is to think of her as a fruitcake and to have very little sympathy for her, especially if you are a man. Then she does something that makes this movie extraordinary. She laughs at herself. She sees the utter ludicrousness of what she is doing and just laughs at herself. This may seem like a simple thing but I can't think of another film which has done something so spectacular. This after all is what separates the ordinary person who wants to fall in love, get married, have a family, and grow old together from a crazed stalker. Almost every other film maker would have chosen to make this a crazed stalker film. But Eric Rohmer instead gave us a nuanced, complex view of ordinary people who often make fools of themselves over their personal lives. Yet most of them have developed senses of humor as part of their adaptation skills so they can dust themselves off and go on. This is real life.

Colonel Chabert [VHS]
$14.98
Honoree de Balzac's novels are known for their callous and cool characters of 19th Century France.Anne Chabert has moved on and remarried now that her Colonel/husband has been dead these past ten years.Enter The Colonel,ready to reclaim his name,his wife,his fortune only to be shunned and blocked at all turns.Fanny Ardent and Gerard Depardieu are no strangers to the acting in adaptations of Balzac's works.They succeed on all levels as two of the best French actors ever to grace the screen.The excellent companion film to COLONEL CHABERT would be BALZAC,again featuring Ardent and Depardieu,as well as COUSIN BETTE, another Balzac adaptation.THE RETURN OF MARTIN GUERRE(also starring Depardieu) and it's American remake SOMMERSBY also contain the similar themes of lost identity.

Cortex
$14.99

Notre Dame de Paris/Victor Hugo
$52.98