Diagonale

Camille, a young, provincial, proletarian man works for Hélène Courtray, who is still beautiful and seductive. She's a sophisticated, cultivated and well-to-do woman who has engaged him to care for her reclusive son who has spent the past few years voluntarily locked up in his room. An encounter between two persons and two worlds where the relationship of the young man to this closed, strange and unknown universe rapidly turns tragedy.

Pierre Lentier murders an 8-year-old in horrendous circumstances. This 30-something solitary factory worker who lives on the edge of society is sentenced to death. A damning indictment of the death penalty and the manipulative behaviour of the media.

A radiant young sex worker thrives amidst the clients of Paris’s Les Halles under the protectiveness of her pimp. Her carefully balanced existence unravels when she meets a working‑class man and falls in love, forcing her to confront the emotional and social consequences of pursuing a different path.

A night of drinking in a local cafe quickly turns to tragedy for two of its patrons.

A woman returns after twenty years to Toulon where her husband, who collaborated with the nazis, was murdered. Her motives are unclear.

Lili is twenty years old, has an English mother, a magician father, a voice from elsewhere and a gift that only children know: the power of her own desire. It all starts with a summer night: that summer, Lili and Bruno will find love.

Pierrot, mechanic in Paris, falls madly for a female chemist his senior—who at first refuses him, only accepting love after being diagnosed with a deadly illness.

Louis is a family man, with a wife and young daughter, who discovers in mid-life that he is gay.

The fortunes of a small theatrical company based in the Paris suburbs.

Nine short films about love.

In a supermarket parking lot, two shoppers push a shopping cart to their car. A helpful man approaches them. Friendly at first, his behavior soon becomes strange, invasive and aggressive.

Simone, a leather-clad porn theater worker, spends her shifts bantering with her coworker and observing eccentric customers in the cinema’s lobby. Tonight, she clocks out and heads off to meet her girlfriend, a waitress at a lesbian club. Later, she’ll encounter a lonely man on the prowl.

Ginette is at phone with the famous Rachah Rangers, who hosts a daily radio program. She talks about her break with Richard, her various relationship problems, her desires, fears and reproaches. Her friend, Simone Barbes, advised her to live, urgently, a new relationship ...

The child Ernesto doesn't want to go to school any more because, as he says, all he is taught there is things he doesn't know.

Christian, an art critic, must write a study on the painter René Dimanche in order to understand why he did not produce anything for eight years. He asks his friend Ingrid to help him break through this mystery.

One of the last productions for Diagonale, before De sueur et de sang, the feature film with which Vecchiali would close the cycle of the French production company.

On Paul's initiative, Françoise and Paul met after a long separation, on the pretext to search in commun for a lost memory, a song. It soons appears that Paul's objective is to win her back.

A reluctant boxer is the focus of this unique French romance. Maurice dreams of becoming a violinist. But his father, a former boxing champion crippled by his bouts, has other dreams for his pudgy but strong 18 year old son. He wants Maurice to become the next Champ. Concerned about his son's lack of machismo, the father arranges a tryst between Maurice and Nora, an aging femme fatale. Unfortunately Nora's jealous husband suddenly interrupts their romantic interlude. Maurice accidently kills the husband in the ensuing scuffle. United by the tragedy, Nora and Maurice eventually fall in love. Maurice is then inspired to become a great fighter.

A landmark work of symbolistic imagery. The words that the filmmakers speak offscreen are imaginary conversation with Cézanne quoted from a critique by Joachim Gasquet. An exchange of memories spanning over 250 years interweaves everything from the philosophy of Empedocles to excerpts from the film Madame Bovary, to extant paintings by Cézanne, to the buildings of the artists’ village at Mont Sainte-Victoire. —ntticc.or.jp

A man sings next to a young girl playing the piano. A bucolic landscape, smiles, pensive faces. With them stands a woman (their mother?) who listens to them play and sing.