The deep conversation between a Japanese architect and a French actress forms the basis of this celebrated French film, considered one of the vanguard productions of the French New Wave. Set in Hiroshima after the end of World War II, the couple -- lovers turned friends -- recount, over many hours, previous romances and life experiences. The two intertwine their stories about the past with pondering the devastation wrought by the atomic bomb dropped on the city.
In a strange and isolated chateau, a man becomes acquainted with a woman and insists that they have met before.
A movie producer, director and assistant take the Trans-Europ-Express from Paris to Antwerp. They get the idea for a movie about a drug smuggler on their train and visualize it while taping the script.
A group of French students are drawn into the psychological and sexual games of a mysterious man called Duchemin. Once they sample his "fear powder" the students experience a series of hallucinations.
A melancholy man meets a stunning, mysterious woman while he is traveling, and discovers she may or may not be involved in a prostitution ring. She disappears after their relationship lasts a few days, and though he searches for her, those around him pretend not to know who he is speaking of.
A man may or may not have betrayed a resistance fighter during World War II. He has supposedly been shot down by the Nazis and wanders into town. Mourning the death of an unseen comrade, he is taken in by the family of the dead rebel. He engages in a superfluous affair and witnesses the lesbian relationship between the man's sister and a female servant. When passions subside, the family has doubts about the reliability of the man's story.
In the aftermath of war, two men and a woman begin acting more like children than adults, leading to tragedy.
What is man? Man makes war, man kills man, man hunts, man is executed. A montage mixing original drawings by Topor, original shots and stock shots that ironically analyze what man is.
Two friends, who go hunting meet a woman who questions their practice.
A slow and ugly fairy tale based on the drawings of inmates at a psychiatric clinic where LaLoux worked.
An avant-garde political satire that takes place in a mythical country in South America. The dictator has been replaced by a look-alike revolutionary, and the dictator's wife has been replaced by a robot.
This is the story of an obsession. Mona Lisa keeps smiling quizzically while our poor hero is pursued by her representation in all its forms, in all places. She smiles at him in a museum, at a bookseller along the banks of the Seine, in the streets, at a café. Enough to drive him up the wall!
La Corne d'or is mostly concerned with religious ritual, examining the mosque (and former cathedral) discussed in Byzance. As a contrast against Istanbul's status as a center of historical religious conflict, Pialat — drawing here on texts by the French poet Gérard de Nerval — also describes the city as a place of strange ethnic and religious harmony, with representatives of various cultures and religions living in close contact. He emphasizes the city's hybrid culture, its blend of Southern European and Arab influences, reflected in both its people and its very construction.
