Le Daim
French Davy Crockett Goes Berserk
When a French movie is described as a “comedy” and has a July release date in Paris, it almost invariably means that (1) it’s a generic film about a chaotic summer holiday with families/groups of mature male friends/bands of teens … Read More
Into the Night
Timely Apocalyptic Drama
Flying has never been the same since the terrorist attacks of 9/11. That, together with decreasing seat sizes and the multiplication of extra fees, has taken the romance out of traveling. Like all thrillers, the TV series Into the Night … Read More
Lupin
Gentleman Thief and Avenger
France was long ridiculed for the poor quality of its TV series, but that has changed enormously in recent years, with more sophisticated and compelling works gaining worldwide respect, among them the dramas The Bureau and Spiral, and the brilliant … Read More
Call My Agent, Season 4
Too Parisian? Impossible!
After a seemingly endless wait, it feels an almost indecent joy to watch the fourth – and final – season of the French series Call My Agent (Dix Pour Cent) on Netflix. Not only do our favorite characters from the … Read More
Emily in Paris
Lost in Translation
It’s a classic yet ever-popular tale: a young American realizes her dream of moving to Paris. It’s also a natural for a Netflix series, especially when created by the man who brought us “Sex and the City,” the producer Darren … Read More
Adolescentes
Five Years of Teen Trauma
Director Sébastien Lifshitz is a brave man. For five years he embedded himself and his camera in the lives of two adolescent girls in the French provincial town of Brive, recording the traumas and joys of that fraught stage of … Read More
Été 85
Summer Love
Director François Ozon’s Été 85, originally scheduled to be part of the official Cannes Film Festival lineup this year before the coronavirus crisis forced the festival’s cancellation, is the first major movie to be released in France post-lockdown. It also … Read More
Mythomaniac
Madame Giannini, C’est Moi!
In the 2019 French Netflix show Mythomaniac (Mytho in the original French), creator Fabrice Gobert, who brought us the neo-zombies of Les Revenants, focuses on the zombification of contemporary suburban lifestyles. Most horror takes place in suburbia, as if to … Read More
Science Fiction: Fantastic Planet
Brave New World?
One of the main functions – and values – of science fiction is its ability to critique today’s society. Although a story may deal with vastly different cultures and be set in the future, an alien world or an alternate-history … Read More
Ad Vitam
Happily Ever After?
In the 1980s, a chance discovery revealed that a species of small jellyfish, Turritopsis dohrnii, which self-regenerates and never reaches maturity, is biologically immortal. This process is currently being studied by many groups of scientists around the world with a … Read More