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Bookmark this pageElisa (1994)
Director: Jean Becker
Movie review
From Time Out Film Guide
This vehicle for the gamine pop-star/actress Vanessa Paradis is by Jean Becker, a director who has done, and should know, better. Here, she prances her hot-panted way as an ex-children's home rebel who leaves her surrogate 'family' (Courau's fellow home-girl Solange, Sall's Arab sidekick Ahmed) to wreak emotional revenge for her mother's suicide on both her suburban grandparents and her 'real' father. The first half is a series of loosely linked scenes of posturing 'rebellion'. Older men figure strongly. She twists a late-middle-aged bookseller around her little finger, seduces an older man in the (mistaken) belief he may have been her mother's lover, and (at last!) tracks down her father, who turns out to be Depardieu. Thrown in, for good measure, is a bemusing scene with Léotard doing a Serge Gainsbourg impression at the piano as 'the Gitanes Smoker'. The final sequence is more diverting. She finds Depardieu brawling and boozing among the matelots in a port-side bistro, and strips for him on the sands before slowly realising that redemption is a game two must play.Author: WH
User reviews of this film
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- orientman said...
- Posted on Sep 28 2009 17:20 Thought Paradin great,reminded me of Bardot in her first movies,all lega and naked as often as possible!!,film enjoyable until ending which was incongruous and out of kilter with rest of plot Have to give it 31/2 stars for the two female leads .
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- Jim said...
- Posted on Jul 07 2008 19:07 "The film is a typical french film full of bonking and full research." LMAO - that's the funniest thing I've ever read.
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- Venusangel said...
- Posted on Mar 29 2008 06:25 vanessa is the main protagonist. She plays her seductive role well. She seduces old men and they knew that she has innocent eyes. The film is a typical french film full of bonking and full research.
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Cast & crew
Director: Jean Becker
Producer: Henri Brichetti
Cast: Vanessa Paradis, Gérard Depardieu, Clothilde Courau, Sekkou Sall, Florence Thomassin, Michel Bouquet, Philippe Léotard, Catherine Rouvel full cast
Duration: 114 mins
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