I feel like committing to one favorite movie is too hard and as you know I'm not good with commit. So to narrow things down and sound pretentious I'm going to talk about my favorite french films.
My first one would have to be j'ai tué ma mere. C'est un bon film! I think it really encapsulates a toxic, but loving mother-son relationship. The mother is constantly yelling at her son and never really listen's to him. He has a whole life outside his mother that she's yet to realize. And though her actions are in the best interest of her son she simply doesn't know him. Like the fact that she didn't know that her son was not only gay, but with a boyfriend, that he was being bullied, and that he wasn't happy really attest to this. On the other hand the son is also very verbally abusive and acts out against the well-intended actions of his mother. I think acting out due to his mother's lack of concern for his personal/private life and his mother's good-intentions, but poor execution leads to their arguments and further distancing between the two. I really liked the recorded monologues in the film it gives us the son's thoughts without it being a weird omnipresent being's like in other films and I really liked the ending where the son and mother kind of come to the realization that they are both to blame in their toxic relationship in one of the most nuanced parts of the film. Xavier Dolan is a cinematic genius such as his attention to detail and his ability to make the movie feel so real and palpable to a large audience. The only sucky part is their accent :p
La Haine (this link is a film essay that I used to help one of my essays I think it summarizes the movie really well, but the ending has a spoiler so yeah...) I love the film so much that I watched it like 5 times within the month of first watching it. It's interesting to see the discrimination and police brutality that french minorities experience. The movie follows primarily Said, a North African Muslim who is a mediator between his other two best friends Vinz, a young Jewish man and Hubert a young Afro-Frenchmen. All the events happen within 24 hours after one of their friend, Abdel, is attacked by policemen for no reason. A riot soon ensues and Vinz argues for violence and revenge while Hubert simply wants peace and a chance to leave his banlieu. I like how the film shows the mundanity of the boys lives as the camera is kind of tossed between the three of them and how their common denominator, the banlieu, connects them. Within the 24 hours of the film only the last minute is what changes all of their lives (this link is the ending, so if you don't want a spoiler, don't click it). I love the camera angles and shots and it has one of the best dolly zooms in any film that I have ever watched. Finally, I love this quote
Translation: Heard about the guy who fell off a skyscraper? On his way down past each floor, he kept saying to reassure himself: So far so good... so far so good... so far so good. How you fall doesn't matter. It's how you land.
Other honorable mentions is Love it's in my opinion an erotica with way too many sex scenes that I could go without seeing and fast forwarding through, but it use of color and doorways in such a cool way. I also liked how the movie wasn't trying to define what loves is or what it "should" look like, but instead it exemplifies how one couple understand and defines love themselves. It's really cool movie though if you're not into sex scenes you'll be fast forwarding a lot! Another movie would be Ma vie de courgette it's a very sad movie that demonstrates how children deal with neglect, love, and abandonment. It's very cute film with a unique style of animation that's ugly but cute at the same time. Finally, like so many other french majors I've read Le Petit Prince and though I didn't like the book I would say the 2015 movie was pretty cute helped me appreciate the story a little more.
I'm still very new to the French film world, but hopefully my list will get longer as I discover more films. If you have any suggestions please share! Aside from that I guess I'll share some of my pictures of the week
Very good analyses. Much like you, I really like J’ai tuè ma mere. Aside from the main character being a cutie ;) I also like the portrayal of the mom-son relationship. It’s funny and ridiculous at times but also very real and serious at others. I think both actors in the movie did a really good job with their roles. I already told you about my opinions about La Haine. Maybe it was because I was tired when I watched it, but I felt like it tried to overly show the chaotic-ness of life in the banlieue. I know it’s a bad thing to do as a movie watcher, but I compare this movie to a lot of those movies…
!! so many good movies!! also love I Killed My Mother, The Little Prince, and Ma Vie de Courgette.
I definitely loved the mother-son relationship in I Killed My Mother too. Family stories like that always get me. Because it's not a simplistic painting where one of them is right and the other is wrong, which (like Emma said) just feels a lot more real. And I also really like all the vignettes/monologues in the movie, I've found that I really like when films kind of break the fourth wall like that. A movie I watched recently is called The Watermelon Woman by Cheryl Dunye and it's kind of a film within a film within a film, so there's all…
ah yes I Killed My Mother! So good! And you're right what made the movie for me when I watched it with you guys was the mother-son relationship. I liked how some parts were really intense, some parts were intense but also funny, etc. etc. idk it just felt like an accurate portrayal of how relationships can be sometimes.
all the movies you talked about sound/look interesting. and I like that you added links! I definitely want to see ma vie de courgette one day. the claymations on the movie cover are so expressive.
that vase makes me feel some type of way but idk if I like it or not. it's like a perfect circle. the sun is hitting…