Nelly (Emmanuelle Béart), a young married woman disillusioned with life and her self-unemployed husband, meets Monsieur Arnaud (Michel Serrault), an older, retired judge and businessman, through a mutual friend. The two begin a subtle, undefined relationship that leaves them in the end changed a little more profoundly than either expected. Monsieur Arnaud offers Nelly a considerable sum of money to pay her debts, no strings attached. Along with the money she accepts a job assisting Arnaud in writing his memoirs. As the writing progresses, Nelly comes to know the morally ambiguous past of her employer, and Arnaud contends with awakened feelings of longing. It ends abruptly when Arnaud and his ex-wife decide to tour the world on their way to Seattle, where he will see his estranged son. The French seem to have a talent for ambiguity and subtlety that this film shows off at its best. The relationship between the young woman and the older man is wonderfully intriguing in the way it plays out and changes each of them, and even more wonderful in that they never wind up in bed together. Béart and Serrault give flawless, nuanced performances as two people caught in each other's longing. A quiet and deeply satisfying film. [+]

One of the best films of 1994, To Live is a bold, energetic masterpiece from Zhang Yimou, the foremost director from China's influential "fifth generation" of filmmakers. Continuing his brilliant collaboration with China's best-known actress Gong Li (their previous films include Ju Dou and Raise the Red Lantern), Zhang weaves an ambitious tapestry of personal and political events, following the struggles of an impoverished husband and wife (Ge You, Gong Li) from their heyday in the 1940s to the hardships that accompanied the Cultural Revolution in the 1960s. They raise two children amidst a Communist regime, surviving numerous setbacks and yet managing, somehow, to live. Both intimate and epic, Zhang's film encompasses the simplest and most profound realities of Chinese life during this controversial period, and for their honesty, Zhang and Gong Li faced a two-year ban on future collaborations. To Live is a testament to their art, transcending politics to celebrate the tenacity of ordinary people in the wake of turbulent history. -Jeff Shannon.

One of the sweetest films to emerge from Europe in the 1990s, Alain Berliner's Ma Vie en Rose is the story of an innocent little boy, Ludovic (played with noncloying directness by Georges Du Fresne), who wants to be a girl. Convinced that he's the product of misplaced chromosomes (he imagines the mix-up in one of many delightful daydream sequences), he sets about righting the mistake by wearing dresses and high heels and experimenting with lipstick and makeup. The otherwise friendly suburban neighborhood becomes horrified by the gender confusion, though tellingly the cruelest blows come not from the teasing classmates but intolerant adults: one scene recalls the torch-and-pitchfork angry villagers from a Frankenstein movie. Ludo tries hard to be butch, but he can't deny his nature, especially when he meets a kindred spirit: a little girl who gladly trades her dress for his pants and shirt. This bittersweet mix of innocent fantasy and childhood cruelty has its moments of sadness and crushing misunderstandings, but the overall tone is loving, filled with tenderness and culminating in acceptance and togetherness. As the family stumbles and struggles to come to terms with Ludo, they find something special within him, an innocent conviction so powerful and pure that it's infectious. Ludo may not grow up to become a girl as he hopes, but his belief is so strong it's hard to deny him the possibility. This films reminds us that, to a child, anything is possible. -Sean Axmaker.

The press kit's historical notes should be standard issue for anyone who sees Alan Rudolph's (The Moderns, Choose Me) look at the famous intellectuals who dotted New York's finest hour in the 1920s. If you only know the names of Dorothy Parker, Robert Benchley, et al. in passing, this movie will hardly generate more study. These writers and thinkers, most famous for having lunch daily at the Algonquin Hotel, seem as weightless and thin as the fictional ones in The Moderns. Most luminous is Mrs. Parker (Jennifer Jason Leigh), whose passion for unhappiness is rarely interrupted. Leigh, in a performance that viewers seem to love or loathe, swirls "witty" dialogue with pure force and must be praised for keeping your interest in a life that was so dreary. The chief problem is not the performances (Campbell Scott is quite fun in a change-of-pace role); it's that the movie comes off as a taped show on stage: the characters are not real and it's all dress-up. Rudolph illustrates his main character's writing (done far too seldom in writers' bios) by having Leigh speak Parker's poetry directly into the camera. -Doug Thomas.

In the mid-to-late 1990s, Iran began to be recognized as a refreshing source of low-budget, wryly naturalistic filmmaking, and Jafar Panahi's The White Balloon (winner of the Camera d'Or award at the 1995 Cannes Film Festival) was the first Iranian film to get a U. S. art-house release. Simple and spare yet filled with observant detail, it's a mild, beguiling movie about a 7-year-old girl's tenacious quest to buy a cherished goldfish for her family's New Year's Day celebration. That's really all there is to it, but it's wonderfully warm, funny, and generous in spirit. With an almost miraculous ability to capture moments and reality unhindered by the presence of a camera and crew, Panahi handles this seemingly trivial story as a child's emotional odyssey, set amidst the daily rhythms of Teheran as a city where kindness and cruelty can be found in close proximity. Anyone interested in international films and filmmakers should give this one high priority on their list of must-see movies. -Jeff Shannon.

François Truffaut's last film is both a homage and a lark. Without the brooding poutiness it's a homage to Alfred Hitchcock, and it's possible to watch this film just for the parallels or outright hat-tipping that goes on. It's the story of an older, hapless real-estate agent, Vercel (Jean-Louis Trintignant), under suspicion for a ruthless murder. Since this is a black-and-white, subtitled French film, the agent's voluptuous, intelligent secretary (a sharp and sexy Fanny Ardant) is hopelessly in love with him. While he hides out in the back office, she tries to get to the bottom of the crime; this is not so much a whodunit as a cinematic treat about the conventions and setups of film noir. Under the beautiful cinematography of Néstor Almendros, this is a film rainy Sunday afternoons were made for. -Keith Simanton.