Language Laboratory Film Collection Wagner College, Campus Hall ...

The Barbarian Invasions/ Les Invasions barbares (2003) Denys Arcand. Canada
Having a difficult time accepting the reality of death and feeling regretful of his past, a man dying of cancer
tries to find peace in his last moments. His estranged son, ex-wife, ex-lovers and old friends will all come to
him to share his last breath. The sequel to Le Déclin de l’empire américain, by the same Québécois
director.
The Beat that my Heart Skipped/ De battre mon coeur s'est arête (2005) Jacques Audiard. France
Twenty-eight-year-old Tom leads a life that might be termed as criminal. In doing so, he follows in the
footsteps of his father, who made his money from dirty, and sometimes brutal, real estate deals. Tom is a
pretty hard-boiled guy but also strangely considerate as far as his father is concerned. Somehow he
appears to have arrived at a critical juncture in his life when a chance encounter prompts him to take up
the piano and become a concert pianist, like his mother. He senses that this might be his final opportunity
to take back his life. His piano teacher is a Chinese piano virtuoso who has recently come to live in France.
She doesn't speak a lick of French so music becomes the only language they have in common. Before long,
Jacques' bid to be a better person means that he begins to yearn for true love. But, when he finally has the
chance of winning his best friend's wife, his passion only succeeds in scaring her. And then, one day, his
dubious past comes to light...
The Beautiful Beast/ La belle bête (2006) Karim Hussain. Canada
La Belle Bête is a powerful study of the conflict between beauty and ugliness, hate and love. The story
revolves around three main characters. At the center, Patrice, a beautiful but mindless youth stands gazing
at his image in the water. Around him move his ugly sister Isabelle-Marie, and his frivolous mother Louise,
the first lost in love and hate for her brother's beauty, the second seeing it as an adornment for herself.
Into this small, obsessed universe come a blind boy and an elegant fop from the outside world. At once, the
pattern breaks and events move forward into a terrifying denouement.
Beauty and the Devil/ La beauté du diable (1950) René Clair. France
The Faust story retold, with an aged alchemist accepting the gift of renewed youth from the devilish
Mephistopheles.
La Bête Humaine (1938) Jean Renoir. France
Based on the classic Emile Zola novel, Jean Renoir’s La bête humaine was one of the legendary director’s
greatest popular successes—and earned star Jean Gabin a permanent place in the hearts of his
countrymen. Part poetic realism, part film noir, the film is a hard-boiled and suspenseful journey into the
tormented psyche of a workingman.
Between Us/ Entre Nous (1983) Diane Kurys. France
In 1942 in occupied France, a Jewish refugee marries a soldier to escape deportation to Germany.
Meanwhile a wealthy art student loses her first husband to a stray Resistance bullet; at the Liberation she
meets an actor, gets pregnant, and marries him. Lena and Madeleine meet at their children's school in
Lyon in 1952 and the intensity of their relationship strains both their marriages to the breaking point.