In this whimsical fable, Resnais deftly interweaves three story lines: the creation of an early-20th-century utopia; romantic high jinks at a school conference; and a fantasy sparked by F/X pioneer Georges Méliès.
Claire de La Tour Picquet shares her life between her husband, the successful novelist William Brandeis, and her lover, Jacques Lalouet, William's publisher. Then she discovers that her lover has a mistress, Charlie, who is also that of her husband...
The year is 1898. Héloïse, 9 years old, comes from a family belonging to the anti-Dreyfus and anti-Semitic Parisian high bourgeoisie. In a spirit of revolt, she begins a love affair with Maxime, a young Jewish journalist. During a terrible quarrel with her father, the latter suffers a stroke and...
Mr. Bennett is a model citizen, a tender father and an irreproachable husband, he yearns for a quiet life. On a weekend he receives a visit from a strange man called Pédro Juarez. Mr. Bennett’s past suddenly resurfaces and his peaceful existence is turned upside down ...
The Fenouillards (Sophie Desmarets and Jean Richard are the parents, Annie Sinigalia and Marie-José Ruíz are the daughters) are shopkeepers with higher aspirations. The Monsieur wants to run for mayor of their town, but the family acknowledges he has little experience of the real world -- and so...
Harpagon, a miserly bourgeois, wishes to marry the young Mariane and marry his daughter Elise to Lord Anselme. He does not know that Cléante, his son, is in love with the young Mariane and that his daughter Elise loves a penniless young man, Valère, whom he has just hired as a steward.
Mathilde de Blanzac is abducted on her way home from an evening at the opera with her wealthy industrialist husband. Her pathetic pieds-nickelés kidnappers begin by holding her hostage at the home of Petit Jean, a country bumpkin, before demanding a ransom from her husband. At the same time,...
Thirty years after giving her daughter up for adoption in order to join the terrorist underground in Germany, Judith is tracked down by her now adult daughter Alice to a vineyard in the Alsace where she is now living with a new family and a new identity. Alice calls on her mother to give herself...
Created in 1861, this comedy by Eugène Labiche depicts two bourgeois families obsessed with appearances who intend to marry off their children. Labiche exposes the social rivalry between the two families through tyrannical female characters and submissive husbands, whose only concern is to create...
This play by Henry de Montherland, takes place in 1517 and depicts the Cardinal de Cisneros, an authoritarian man approaching his end, regent of the throne of Spain oscillating between his desire for power and his tendency to inaction. Thinking himself invulnerable, he awaits the arrival of young...
