(My) Top 10 French Films

(I should note I still have a great many films I need to see, from a couple more of Truffaut's and Jean-Luc Goddard's works, I liked The 400 Blows and Breathless but not quite enough to put them on here, I should probably finish Pierrot Le Fou at some point, though I'm not entirely sure French New Wave is my sort of thing. Another pair of films I've never gotten round to seeing are Jean de Florrette and Manon des Sources so I really should've before starting this list. I've been dying to check out is Xavier Dolan, apparently Mommy is an absolutely masterpiece and all of his films range from good to great. I've also heard a great many things about Les Diaboliques. This is probably one of the most subjective lists I've ever made but I do want to talk about some of these films so bear with me.)

Hon. Mentions: Persepolis, Blue is the Warmest Colour, A Very Long Engagement, City of Lost Children, La Haine, and...

Hon. Mention: Rust and Bone

I've mentioned before I think that Marion Cotillard is one of my favourite actresses, however, in most of the French-language films I've seen her in (La Vie En Rose, Two Days, One Night, A Very Long Engagement), though the films themselves are pretty solid she's by far the highlight of them. This isn't the case here though she gives another very good performance as Stéphanie, a killer whale trainer who's befallen by a tragic accident and whose path crosses with an aspiring kickboxer Ali (Matthias Schoenaerts) and his son. The film itself tells a very melodramatic, standard sort of love story in a most unique fashion, by never taking the easy route of overly sympathetic sentimentality. Despite all the unfortunate events that happen to them, director Jacques Audiard and his co-screenwriter Thomas Bidegain never shy away from the flaws of their two lead characters. The discomfort of watching the very real, very blunt depictions of day to day struggles of our characters all helps to build up to the more beautiful, sensitive moments. Cotillard as I mentioned is great but the true highlight is Schoenaerts, one of my favourite young actors working today, who channels his inner Marlon Brando with an intensely physical, daring performance. There's even a scene which turns Katy Perry's Firework into a tearjerker; amazing.

10. Au Revoir Les Enfants

I do like The 400 Blows but in terms of films which depict retrospection of childhood this one takes the cake for me. Besides famously being the root of Quentin Tarantino's Reservoir Dogs title, this autobiographical film about director Louis Malle's childhood in a Roman Catholic boarding school in WWII, is a deceptively simple rumination on friendship and secrets. Young Julie befriends the new kid in school with a secret: he's a Jew in hiding from the Nazis. What ensues is a quiet, sometimes heartwarming, and ultimately incredibly heartbreaking tale of innocence lost. It may not be to everyone's tastes but for me, this is a film that has truly stayed with me in a most haunting fashion.

9. Amour

I'll admit, I'm not a fan of Michael Haneke in general, but find Amour to be quite the incredible viewing experience. It's a romantic film of an altogether very different sort; chartering not the passionate embracing of young love or the revaluation of life through late love, but instead the bond of love between an octogenarian couple being greatly tested by Anne's (Emmanuelle Riva) stroke and paralysis that leaves her husband Georges (Jean-Louis Trintigant) to take care of her. This is a film all about realism and it achieves that without going overboard. The relationship between Georges and Anne is wonderfully depicted with a sense of history, and both Trintigant (who really should've been nominated for the Oscar) and Riva (who would've deserved to win though Wallis from Beasts of the Southern Wild was my personal choice) work perfectly with one another, alongside an equally great Isabelle Huppert (who also deserved a nomination) in a supporting role as their daughter, giving an extremely poignant performance that reflects the audience's feelings of seeing such a strong bond of love have its two ends waste away so tragically.

8. Hiroshima Mon Amour

As I mentioned beofre, French New Wave might not entirely be my 'thing' so to speak, but I'm willing to give a few more a chance because there is one of them I love a great deal, and that's Hiroshima Mon Amour. The film is quite a wonderful exploration of both social and interpersonal relations, the wider scope and the intimate focus. Depicting the affair between a French actress (Emmanuelle Riva again) and a married Japanese businessman (Eiji Okada), and set against the backdrop of post-WWII Hiroshima, director Alain Resnais makes use of repeated flashbacks and a strange, unique non-linear plot structure to generate a sort of more surreal, darker version of Brief Encounter. Obviously nowhere as near as great a film as that one but this is still a great work of French cinema.

7. The Wages of Fear

In terms of pure entertainment I can think of very few French films as great as this one. Reminding me (or vice versa) of Mad Max: Fury Road in more ways than one, this tale of four men on a dangerous mission to deliver nitroglycerin to a burning fire seems at face value to be just another action film, but it's so much more than just that. It develops its characters so very well as just these desparate sorts and more importantly remains taut, brilliantly so, throughout in its execution of every step of the journey. Simply a great film.

6. Intouchables

Feel-good French cinema at its finest. Omar Sy and Francois Cluzet make for an absolutely brilliant comedic and dramatic duo depending on what the film requires of them, and make what could've been yet another goofy buddy film into a surprisingly poignant exploration of how two flawed men bring out the best in one another through their contrasting personalities. The film entirely hinges on the two leads' great performances (I completely understand how Sy won the César Award over Jean Dujardin for The Artist even though I love Dujardin's performance), but besides them the whole cast is uniformly excellent, the script is consistently funny but also develops its themes very well, and the musical choices from the soundtrack to the score are all superb.

5. La Grande Illusion

Renoir is another French director I need to see more of. For the time-being however I'm more than content with this film as it really is an excellent blend of drama and comedy against the backdrop of a rather different sort of prison camp as was mostly depicted in 1930's and 1940's cinema. It kind of all feels like The Great Escape with multiple attempts by our French heroes to escape from German prison camps. What's particularly unique about the film is how it deconstructs yet at the same time, also pays full homage, to the values of war. There's the straightforward hero of Maréchal played with oh so much charm by Jean Gabin, who with Marcel Daillo's equally likable Rosenthal make for an endearing pair of very different yet perfectly matched heroes for us to root for their resilient escape. But there's also another unique, effective element of aristocratic Captain de Boeldieu (Pierre Fresnay) and his relationship to the infamous German aviator and aristocrat von Rauffenstein (Erich von Stroheim). I won't spoil too much but their unique dynamic is at first incredibly entertaining and ultimately very poignant. A great film that deserves every bit of its reputation as a classic.

4. Le Samourai

I would argue actually that this is the most iconic film on this list. The 'Quiet Man' trope had been done before, and after this film, but never with such daring, never to such an extreme, and never with such...style. Yes, 'style' is the perfect word to encompass all this film does right. It's a film that makes no mistake, it's all about its very unique stylized take on the identity of the samurai, this time in the form of Jef Costello (an AMAZING Alain Delon). Delon's minimalist performance which has few lines but makes maxium impact surely influenced a great many performances after it, most notably Ryan Gosling in Drive and Jean Reno in Leon: The Professional, with an intensely peculiar portrayal of a career assassin. The subtlety and quietude of the performance aligns perfectly with the style and flair of Jean-Pierre Melville's direction, and makes for one of the most satisfying films on an aesthetic level, and also an intriguing study in how to make less with more in terms of dramatics and dialogue.

(Not a film scene but a pretty cool montage of scenes to 'Nightcall' by Kavinsky)

3. Z

I love a good ol' procedural film and this is no exception, in fact I would say this and All the President's Men are the benchmark for me. A splendid political thriller that succeeds in espousing its political messages without ever seeming forceful at all about it, as it's all streamlined so well into the plot and characters' speeches that aren't just randomly jammed into the plot, but rather help move it along. It's a film that just does the job amazingly well in terms of flowing along nicely with great pace, and is praise-worthy enough in this respect already.  Just to add to this, it creates such a vividly oppressive atmosphere for its story of firstly the political situation, and than the procedural investigation into a political assassination, bolstered even more by a uniformly superb ensemble, a great score, and one hell of an ending that completely shatters and surprises you. It's just about the perfect representation of a polticial situation in the cinematic context since despite taking a very clear stance, it also adds enough depth to both sides of the conflict to allow for audience autonomy.

2. The Diving Bell and the Butterfly

I discuss the film in more thorough detail here: http://actorvsactor.blogspot.co.uk/2015/11/peripheral-beauties-eternal-sunshine-of.html. Besides having whether in French or English one of the most beautiful titles of all-time, this adaptation of Jean-Dominique Bauby's memoir of his life with locked-in syndrome, a stroke leaving him paralysed from the neck down, and with only his left eyelid as a means of communication, is an incredible work of art, directed by visionary painter Julian Schnabel of course, who makes each frame of the film whether it's a dream sequence or Jean-Dominique's peripheral vision, have such a resonant, powerful beauty to it. Mathieu Amalric, too often pigeonholed into simple Hollywood roles, shows us all his great talents in a limited but great performance, Emmanuelle Seigner, Anne Consigny and especially Marie-Josée Croze are fantastic as the woman who aid him in his life, and Max Von Sydow has a few incredibly powerful scenes as Jean-Dominique's father. A film that must be seen to be believed.

1. The Artist

A parfait film. In the year of 2011, many a great film was made from Tinker Tailor Solider Spy to Drive to Take Shelter to Warrior to 50/50 to Midnight in Paris to Hanna to you get my drift, it was a very strong year, but even in that very strong year I have no qualms whatsoever in calling The Artist my favourite of the year. I love silent films already so I guess that helped but even so, beyond just being a spot-on recreation of that bygone era of cinema it's also such an incredibly sweet, funny film in its own right with one scene in particular never failing to bring tears to my eyes. To say mroe I think would ruin the beauty of the film so here's some clips.

Note: if I counted Leon: The Professional as a French film which it kind of is in many regards, I'd put it #1 on here, most certainly.