Author: Joey Ciaramitaro

From March 29th to April 6th, The Cape Ann Community Cinema at 21 Main Street in Gloucester will celebrate some of the best French films of the year with its annual "Rendez-Vous With French Cinema" line-up:
Friday, March 29th @ 7:30pm
You Will Be My Son (Director: Gilles Legrand, 2012, France, 102m)
Instead of grooming his son to inherit his lucrative wine-growing business, an imperious vintner (Niels Arestrup) looks to a talented California-based grower, rendering a harvest of jealousy and worse. Legrand’s narrative takes on Shakespearean qualities, driven by a titanic performance by Arestrup, while the film’s observations on the wine-growing business are thoroughly engrossing.
Saturday, March 30th @ 7:30pm
Thérèse Desqueyroux (Director: Claude Miller, 2012, France, 110m)
The late Claude Miller’s final film elegantly adapts François Mauriac’s modern classic of a woman’s growing resistance to her suffocating marriage, and showcases a remarkable Audrey Tautou as the disturbed titular heroine. With Gilles Lelouche, Anaïs Demoustier, Catherine Arditi.
Sunday, March 31st @ 6:30pm
Augustine (Director: Alice Winocour, 2012, France, 102m)
Based on a true case, writer-director Winocour has adapted a true case of a progressive 19th century doctor/therapist and his unusual patient into a study of personal wills, hidden desires and reversals of fate. A maid who suffers from seizures is sent to a mental hospital, where she appears to be condemned for life until Professor Charcot finds in her the possibilities of testing his advanced notions of the sources of so-called “hysteria.” Soko as Augustine and Vincent Lindon as Charcot deliver astonishing performances.

Monday, April 1st @ 6:30pm
Journal de France (Directors: Raymond Depardon & Claudine Nougaret, 2012, France, 100m)
Depardon’s brilliant self-portrait (co-directed by his longtime collaborator and sound engineer Claudine Nougaret) takes a surprising point of view on the great documentarian’s life—not only as a filmmaker, but as a photographer of expressive precision, capturing the entirety of French society over the decades. The patience of this image-maker’s practice is testament to an alternative to the hyper-fast, instant delivery of digital images that now dominates the culture.
Tuesday, April 2nd @ 7:30pm
Rich Is The Wolf (Director: Damien Odoul, 2012, France, 82m)
Perplexed at the sudden disappearance of her husband, a wife watches hours of videotape that he’s recorded over the previous seven years to piece together some clues. Odoul’s most daring feature, whose color and black-and-white images are culled from his own videotaping, confirms his place as one of France’s genuinely exploratory filmmakers. Stars Marie-Eve Nadeau, Damien Odoul.

Wednesday, April 3rd @ 7:30pm
You, Me and Us (Director: Jacques Doillon, 2012, France, 136m)
The tentative nature of relationships is explored in dazzling, three-dimensional fashion in this cleverly written and directed roundelay between current and former lovers. Aya, the mother of a bright young daughter, struggles to come to terms with the end of her marriage, while hoping to have a child with her new lover. Stars Lou Doillon, Samuel Benchetrit, Malik Zidi, Olga Milshtein.
Thursday, April 4th @ 7:30pm
The Suicide Shop (Director: Patrice Leconte, 2012, France, 79m)
Master filmmaker Leconte makes a startling and unforgettable departure from his previous work with this whimsical animated musical about a family business offering certain special “end-of-life” services. Rather than succumbing to a purely mordant perspective, the movie switches course and mood, driven by the family’s perpetually happy child whom they can’t control. Based on the novel by Jean Teule and with the voices of Bernard Alane, Isabelle Space, Kacey Mottet Klein, Isabelle Giami, Laurent Gendron.
Saturday, April 6th @ 2:30pm
Granny’s Funeral (Director: Bruno Podalydès, 2012, France, 100m)
Although he made no effort to see his grandmother in her waning years, pharmacist Armand (director Bruno Podalydès’ brother and co-writer Denis) must now deal with her funeral arrangements. This is awkward enough, but nothing like his emotional swings between a wife he can’t quite part from and a lover he can’t quite commit to, in a comedy stamped with the Podalydès brand of caustic, Gallic wit. With Valerie Lemercier, Isabelle Candelier, Catherine Heigel and Benoit Hamon.
Saturday, April 6th @ 5:00pm
Persécution (Director: Patrice Chéreau, 2012, France, 100m)
A brutally intimate close-up of the moment-to-moment dissolution of a love affair, this psychological drama stars Duris as a brooding, bestubbled Parisian juggling a hot-and-cold relationship with a jet-setting careerist (Gainsbourg) and the intrusions of a middle-aged male stalker who has claimed him as the love of his life. Fueled by emotionally charged dialogue and nervy, passionate performances, "Persécution" continues Chéreau’s masterful observation of human desire in all its intricacies and contradictions. Starring Romain Duris, Charlotte Gainsbourg, Jean-Hugues Anglade.
Tickets for all shows are $10.00 adults, $8.50 students and seniors (60+) and $7.00 for Members. More information about these and any of the Cinema’s other offerings can be found at www.CapeAnnCinema.com.

Audrey Tautou stars in "Thérèse Desqueyroux," one of nine films playing from March 29th through April 6th as part of the Cape Ann Community Cinema’s "Rendez-Vous With French Cinema" line-up.