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Best
French Films of the
1930s
Luis
Buñuel (1930) |
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Jean
Cocteau (1930) |
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A
masterpiece of surrealist non-conformism, marking the start of Buñuel's
life-long and vehement crusade against the bourgeois elite.
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Jean
Cocteau's disturbing surrealist dream-like imagery allows us to explore
the troubled mind of a poet and to gain an insight into his pain and fear.
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René Clair (1931) |
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René Clair (1931) |
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An
extravaganza of burlesque comedy and the forerunner of the Hollywood film
musical, Le Million was a triumph for the era it was made in and
remains an enduring popular classic of French cinema.
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Technology
enslaves mankind but utltimately it will free him, a Utopian vision which
underpins this outrageous comic farce, arguably René Clair's best
film.
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Marcel Pagnol (1931) |
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Jean Vigo (1933) |
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Marius,
Fanny, César... three characters forever linked in this monumental
saga of three films from one of France's greatest writers. A tale
of unrequited love set in the romantic environs of the French port of Marseilles.
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Jean
Vigo's account of an uprising in a boy's school brilliantly captures the
spirit of childhood rebellion, but the scenes of rampant anarchy were too
much for the censors and the film was banned.
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Raymond Bernard (1932) |
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Maurice Tourneur (1933) |
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A startlingly realistic account of World War I, seen through the eyes of a young soldier
destined to fall in No Man's Land. Brutal and unsentimental, it stands as France's most effective anti-war film.
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Renée Saint-Cyr stars in this poignant adaptation of a
hugely popular 19th century melodrama, best known for its authentic
reconstruction of pre-revolutionary France.
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Jean Vigo (1934) |
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Marcel Carné (1936) |
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This
simple tale of love lost and regained has, despite its unfortunate history,
acquired the status of a classic. Vigo's last film, its enduring
appeal stems from its profound humanity, some daring photography and a
remarkable performance from Michel Simon.
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The
most bizarre work from the fruitful Carné-Prévert partnership
is this extraordinary black comedy, where the entire cast appears to have
been made up from inmates of a lunatic asylum. And Louis Jouvet wears
a kilt...
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Jean Grémillon (1937) |
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Jean Renoir (1937) |
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Raimu
gives one of his towering performances in this sombre tale of guilt, deceit
and retribution, in which a ruthless villain hides behind a veneer of middle-class
respectability.
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Often
cited as the greatest French film, La Grande illusion makes a powerful
anti-war statement by showing that as much unites humanity as divides it.
The Nazis tried to obliterate this film, but failed.
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Julien Duvivier (1937) |
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Jean Renoir (1938) |
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Once
banned by the French authorities for being too depressing, Pépé
le Moko is now regarded as a masterpiece, a perfect blend of poetic
realism and film noir thriller, set in the Algerian Casbah.
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Jean
Renoir's dark thriller raises a number of questions about the morality
of murder in this brilliant adaptation of an Emile Zola novel, in which
Jean Gabin plays a schizophrenic train driver.
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Marcel Pagnol (1938) |
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Marcel Carné (1938) |
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La
Femme du boulanger is as memorable for its stunning location work,
in Marcel Pagnol's beloved Provence, as for Raimu's poignant performance
as the man who loses all he values when his wife deserts him.
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The
apotheosis of poetic realism, the film starts with a suicide attempt and
ends with a revenge killing. Not much room for light relief in this
sombre drama from the Carné-Prévert team, other than some
sparkling repartee between Arletty and Jouvet.
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Marcel Carné (1938) |
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Marcel Carné (1939) |
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Jean
Gabin plays a deserter hoping to start a new life but it all goes wrong
when he falls in love with the ward of a ruthless gangster. The pessimism
of the time is reflected in this film, a haunting tale of ill-fated love
from the masters of poetic realism.
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With
its gloomy melancholic photography and doom-laden narrative, this film,
probably the finest example of poetic realism, seems to presage the outbreak
of World War II.
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Jean Delannoy (1939) |
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Jean Renoir (1939) |
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A
gun-runner plays for the highest stakes in this atmospheric and suspenseful
film
noir set in the Far East. Delannoy's skilful direction is surpassed
only by Erich Von Stroheim's unforgettable performance.
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Regarded
by many as Jean Renoir's greatest work and a masterpiece of French cinema,
this film combines dramatic intrigue and farce to take a brutal swipe at
the ruling classes.
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Buy DVDs of 1930s French films...
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