Toutes les nuits

Toutes les nuits is a French film made by Eugène Green in 2001. If you enjoy films by Éric Rohmer, as I do, you will love this one.  Eugène Green was born in the USA but chose to become (thoroughly) French when he was 28. In my view, he is an excellent successor to Rohmer who died in 2010. In the film, as in others, he puts in a small cameo appearance as a café owner, see below.

Eugene Green

The film tells the rich story about the coming of age of two childhood friends, Henri and Jules. Henri has a well-off bourgeois family and goes off to study in Paris while Jules stays behind in the village.

Jules and Henri

They keep in touch by post and their lives touch occasionally. The story starts in 1967 and covers most of the 1970's. The scenes relating to the 1968 revolt are particularly amusing, and the 'revolution' is made fun of.  For example, in Jule's village, there are less than 5 students in a manifestation that is broken up by a posse of 2 CRS.

The prologue mentions that the film is based on  the book L'éducation sentimentale by Gustave Flaubert.

A beautiful film that I will definitely will want to watch again.

☆☆☆☆☆

PS An interesting take on Green's baroque films can be found in this article.

Tu dors Nicole?

This black and white film is set in the French speaking part of Canada. While I have no problem understanding other Canadian French spoken films, such as the delightful 'Les invasions barbares', I could not follow the dialogues in this one at all. Luckily, there were English subtitles.

The story describes how a young girl spends her summer, dividing her time between a boring job, her brother and his friends and her own best friend. Nothing much happens. That should not be a problem as many excellent French films, such as the ones by Éric Rohmer, rely on atmosphere alone to provide a memorable viewing experience. However, in this case, it did not work. At least not for me, the film seems to have had mostly very good reviews, see some of them at Rotten Tomatoes. I think most of the characters were boring and unsympathetic while the language they spoke sounded very unpleasant as well. Too bad.

☆☆