"Actor: Maurice Chevit"

• L'Homme Du Train | DVD | (22/09/2003) from £7.79   |  Saving you £12.20 (156.61%)   |  RRP £19.99

  You wouldn't think that a movie, which mostly consists of two old guys talking could be a thriller, but that's exactly what L'Homme du Train is. French singer Johnny Hallyday plays a professional criminal who comes to a small town to take part in a robbery. By chance, he meets talkative Jean Rochefort, who invites the laconic Hallyday to stay at his house because the hotel is closed. The two form an unlikely friendship, each curious about (and envious of) the other's life. But all the while plans for the robbery continue, while Rochefort is preparing for a dangerous event of his own. The pitch-perfect performances make L'Homme du Train completely involving. Rochefort and Hallyday play off of each other beautifully; it's impossible to put your finger on what makes these subtle, supple scenes so magnetic. The whole is directed with spare authority by Patrice Leconte (La Veuve de Saint-Pierre). --Bret Fetzer

• The Hairdresser's Husband | DVD | (07/03/2005) from £24.95   |  Saving you £-4.96 (N/A%)   |  RRP £19.99

  At the age of 12 Antoine's life is dominated by twin passions dancing to Arabic music and getting his hair cut by the voluptuous middle-aged local hairdresser who inadvertently provides him with his first experience of the opposite sex. Antoine reaches middle age with his passion undiminished: upon meeting shy hairdresser Mathilde he is so taken by her that he proposes marriage. She accepts and he moves into her salon where they pursue their romance with an intensity that blind

• La Veuve De Saint-Pierre | DVD | (29/04/2002) from £4.99   |  Saving you £5.00 (100.20%)   |  RRP £9.99

  The "widow" referred to in the title of La Veuve de Saint-Pierre isn't a woman, but a mechanism--to be exact, the guillotine, (though the title does take on a second meaning in the tragic final moments of the film). We're on the island of Saint-Pierre, a tiny forgotten French colony off the coast of Newfoundland, midway through the 19th century. A senseless drunken murder is committed and the killer is condemned to death, but zut alors!, there's no guillotine on the island. So one must be requested from the slow, bureaucratic authorities in Paris and, once approved, laboriously shipped over. Meanwhile the killer, a simple-minded giant of a man, is placed in the custody of the Captain, whose beautiful wife starts taking an interest in the prisoner. Director Patrice Leconte has always had an acute feel for place and period--he directed the mordantly witty costume drama Ridicule--and La Veuve vividly captures the sense of remoteness and resentful isolation of this blizzard-swept community. The brooding landscape, all slate-blues and greys, is beautifully framed by Eduardo Serra's camera, and Leconte draws affecting performances from his central trio of actors: Daniel Auteuil, with his intriguingly lopsided face, as the Captain; Juliette Binoche, radiantly vulnerable as his wife; and, in an unexpected but remarkably successful bit of casting, Serbian film director Emir Kusturica as the condemned man. La Veuve de Saint-Pierre may be a touch over-solemn at times, and its message is hardly unexpected; but it's an intelligent, engrossing and richly atmospheric piece of filmmaking. --Philip Kemp

• The Hairdresser's Husband | DVD | (25/09/2000) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £19.99

  At the age of 12 Antoine's life is dominated by twin passions dancing to Arabic music and getting his hair cut by the voluptuous middle-aged local hairdresser who inadvertently provides him with his first experience of the opposite sex. Antoine reaches middle age with his passion undiminished: upon meeting shy hairdresser Mathilde he is so taken by her that he proposes marriage. She accepts and he moves into her salon where they pursue their romance with an intensity that blinds them to the mundane realities of the outside world.

• Les Bronzés font du ski | DVD | (06/08/2007) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £N/A