Our hearts go out to the suffering people of France this week, and as such it behooves us to remember that this country was in possession of our hearts to begin with. The United States wouldn’t exist without the French (thank you, General Lafayette), and as film lovers we also owe France an enormous debt; this was the country in which the art form was born and repeatedly revitalized throughout the 20th Century.
As such, this week on Now Streaming we are dedicating our instant streaming recommendations exclusively to French cinema, of which there is no shortage. Thanks in large part to the Criterion Collection, a celebrated art house distributor that makes many of its films available on Hulu Plus, a lot of the best French movies ever made – and by extension, a lot of the best movies ever made – are currently available at the click of a button.
Previously: Now Streaming | The ‘Gone Girl’ Follow-Up Nobody Is Talking About
We could recommend dozens of films from this service alone, but these are five of our very favorites, which should be required viewing for anybody with even a passing interest in motion pictures. Vive la France!
The Rules of the Game (Hulu Plus)
Criterion
One of the most important and influential films in history (a description that applies to quite a few French movies), Jean Renoir’s The Rules of the Game is a funny and profound examination of class disparity, set against the backdrop of a weekend retreat in the country. A cast of characters, many of whom are in love and many of whom hate each other, snip and snipe until the dramatic tension hits a prolonged crescendo, with action taking place in every part of the frame. The climax is breathless and exhilarating.
The Rules of the Game was, like many of the best movies, unappreciated in its time, and Jean Renoir was forced to cut it down dramatically after the original premiere. The version we have available today was reconstructed in 1956, and is mostly complete. Certainly you’d never notice a damned thing wrong with it. This spry comedy-drama endures due to its innovative cinematographic techniques (Renoir used “Deep Focus” photography years before Orson Welles most famously used it in Citizen Kane) and a story that feels as fresh and topical today as it did in the late 1930s.
Beauty and the Beast (Hulu Plus)
Criterion
Jean Cocteau applied surrealistic techniques to popular fantasy in his 1946 adaptation of Beauty and the Beast, a controversial decision that paid off in this classic fairy tale. Whereas surrealist imagery had hitherto been used to contrast with mainstream art, Cocteau married the two styles and came up with something beautiful and new, a work of art that still influences fanciful filmmakers to this very day.
The story is familiar: a young beauty volunteers to become a prisoner of a hideous beast in the place of her father, who earned the monster’s ire after stealing one of the beast’s precious roses for his daughter. So she becomes trapped in his nightmarish castle, filled with living furniture made of human limbs, and gradually finds the humanity hidden beneath her captor’s ugly façade. The dreamlike imagery, anthropomorphic setting, and the introduction of a handsome rival love interest – who is more of a villain than the beast ever was – was lifted outright for the beloved Walt Disney version, but the original feels even more fantastic and bizarre, and still has the power to enchant.
The 400 Blows (Hulu Plus)
Criterion
No discussion of French Cinema would be complete without a discussion of the French New Wave, a revolutionary series of films – many directed by film critics who wrote for Cahiers du Cinema – that incorporated striking new styles and mainstream Hollywood genre techniques to tell emotionally powerful, decidedly independent stories. The French New Wave movies were often existentialist in nature, and frequently broke the established rules of motion picture storytelling. The 400 Blows is one of the greatest masterpieces produced within the movement.
Conventionally plotless, François Truffaut’s 1959 drama stars Jean-Pierre Léaud as Antoine Doinel, a troublemaking young boy who plagiarizes Balzac and steals typewriters to fund his plans to run away from home. But what Antoine Doinel may not be as important as why, which is a question adults cannot seem to answer. Truffaut’s film beautifully captures the determination and confusion of youth, when passions run high but self-analysis is not yet possible. It is captured with an energy and earnestness that seems to elude most filmmakers no matter how hard they try, and the final shot is among the most hauntingly ambiguous images in the history of cinema.
Cleo from 5 to 7 (Hulu Plus)
Criterion
Agnès Varda is one of the most vital filmmakers in the French New Wave. She focused on female characters in an artistic environment that too often neglected them, and filmed her subjects with an intimacy and immediacy that borders on documentary. One of her greatest films, Cleo from 5 to 7, is one of the most immediate motion pictures ever produced, taking place in the span of two hours as a singer (Corinne Marchand) awaits the results of a biopsy which could turn out to be a death sentence.
Too many motion pictures cut away from these all-too human moments, the waiting, the uncertainty. Cleo from 5 to 7 lives there. The title character is a vibrant young woman struggling with contemporary feminism, wishing to be seen as an equal by the men in her life while simultaneously embracing the qualities that otherwise make her objectified. And as she wanders about, contemplating the impact (or lack thereof) of her life and art, she seems both trapped and free. Cleo’s life is potentially quite short, forcing her to make the most of every moment, but every moment may also be one of her last opportunities to find meaning. It’s a powerful and genuinely exciting span of time to spend with anybody, and Varda makes every minute of it count.
La Haine (Hulu Plus)
Criterion
This saga of three young men from immigrant families who can barely contain their rage, even though there’s no one who necessarily deserves it, is one of the most explosive motion pictures to emerge from France in the last two decades. Written and directed by Mathieu Kassovitz – perhaps more famous in America for starring in the far gentler French fantasy Amelie – La Haine is a furious film that promises to end in violence. If a friend of the heroes, currently in a coma, dies of his injuries then one of them vows to kill a police officer in retaliation.
With that constant threat in the background, Kassovitz paints a picture of (then) contemporary France as a fuse that is constantly lit, but that doesn’t always explode. These men have the capacity for violence but as we see them interact with bystanders, gangs and police (some of whom are awful, some of whom are nice) we discover that they may not have the heart for it. But that doesn’t mean that La Haine (or “Hate”) isn’t aptly titled: the film culminates in a shocking incident that questions and possibly confirms whether or not all of this animosity is just a self-fulfilling prophecy in which every single one of us is trapped.
Top Photo: Criterion
William Bibbiani (everyone calls him ‘Bibbs’) is Crave’s film content editor and critic. You can hear him every week on The B-Movies Podcast and watch him on the weekly YouTube series Most Craved and What the Flick. Follow his rantings on Twitter at @WilliamBibbiani.
