"I wish that my pupil could have understood me at this moment. I would have told him that his bite filled my soul with joy."

—Dr. Itard reflects upon his discovery of the feral boy's sense of justice in Truffaut's 1970 film.

The Wild Child, Francois Truffaut's fact-based tale of the discovery of a young feral boy at the turn of the 18th century and the subsequent attempts of an impassioned scientist to educate him, is a film both compelling and tender in its simplicity.

The film opens in a serene forest in France. The year is 1798. A lone, bonnet-clad woman collects fruit in the lush and peaceful surroundings when off to the side she hears a commotion emitting from some bushes. Startled, the woman drops her basket to the ground and flees. With the coast clear, a young boy emerges out from the shrubberies. Gangly, filthy, with long matted hair veiling his face, he runs naked and freely through the forest. The next day, hunters, with leashed dogs in tow, parade the forest paths, vehemently searching for the reported feral child. Upon hearing the clamor of the noisy pursuers, the boy quickly scurries, evading capture. However, when the hunters release their voracious hounds, he is forced up a tree to escape their clutches. Perched atop a branch above the barking dogs, the boy has a moment of respite before his ledge snaps and he plummets swiftly to the ground. As one of the dogs ferociously latches onto the boy's arm, he fights back vigorously and a spirited struggle ensues. It doesn't last long though, when with a whimper, the dog falls limp to the ground and the boy once again escapes. The hunters quickly regroup and, after a time, discover the boy again, this time cradled in a small hole in the ground. The hunters, experienced in their present trade, with a smoldering stick begin to smoke him out from his subterranean sanctuary. The ploy works, as after a few coughs, the exhausted fugitive finally surrenders.

 The Farewell is an account of the final days of the poet, playwright, and theater director, Bertolt Brecht (played by Josef Bierbichler). It recounts a single day of his vacation miles outside of Berlin where he prepared, alongside his reviser, wife, daughter, and mistresses, for the new theater season. The interests of everyone present clash on several matters, most importantly Brecht's health, which was in rapid decline. His wife Helene/Helli (Monica Bleibtreu) stands by as others dote on him. Many, including Kathe (Jeanette Hain), a young actress who seems to be his latest muse and mistress, take priority over his own wife and daughter, Barbara, in terms of attention.  Also present on the estate for the vacation is Wolfgang Harich and his wife Isot. Harich is a political reformer who openly shares his wife with Brecht. To complete the picture is Elizabeth, his reviser, and Ruth, an old mistress past middle age who is now an alcoholic and an emotional wreck over the fact that Brecht no longer takes interest in her.

“It’s not the fall that kills, but the way you land.”

—Hubert’s philosophical metaphor of falling is emotionally applied to survival in the projects in 1995’s La Haine.

La Haine (translated Hate) prologues with actual news footage of rioting in the suburban projects of Paris. Parked cars are lit aflame and buildings trashed as a female news anchor reports on the riots. After a teen was severely beaten by police while handcuffed in their custody, the projects erupted with a wave of violence and looting. The victim, a minority, was left in critical condition, the reporter notes and suddenly, the TV set shuts off—the audience is in for a radically different telling of the situation. The film then opens on Saïd, an Arabian man in his twenties, facing off before a line of policemen in riot gear. The camera slowly moves down the line of the stoic squadron, each face a white copy of the last. At the end of the vilified line, Saïd stealthily spray paints the back of their police van. "Fuck the police," he writes, and then runs away through the projects. 

La Haine, written and directed by Mathieu Kassovitz, follows three young minorities through the course of a day as they survive life in the projects of suburban Paris. Saïd (played by Saïd Taghmaoui) is the wiliest of the group with a loud mouth and free-spirited swagger. Vinz, a Jew (played by a young Vincent Cassel), is the more angry and volatile personality with something to prove.  Hubert, an African boxer (played by Hubert Kounde), is the wisest and more pensive of the trio with high ambitions. In the wake of the recent police beating and subsequent rioting, the three wander throughout the projects, interacting with various colorful characters, including, much to the trio's chagrin, the ever-present police. The trio's bond, at once volatile and assured, is displayed in subtle detail as they enter their different contexts. Through these, the audience gets to know these well-rounded and intricate characters. Even as the three men relentlessly mock and harass each other (as men tend to do), there lies a foundational understanding and trust between them. They are, in essence, brothers. Worn and matured by their environment, a hardened cynical outlook belies their boyish shenanigans. The film's timeline, broken up into chapters titled by the current time of day, creates an ominous feeling that the film is indeed headed towards something significant. This tension is further heightened when Vinz reveals a handgun he found on the street. His previous vow to kill a cop if the beating victim dies is taken more seriously as the film builds to an explosive and perhaps inevitable climax.

As stated in the previous review of Sister My Sister, Murderous Maids is a biopic on the Papin sisters. I listed the flaws of the former, and surprisingly found few to no flaws in this production. Alluding to the various interpretations of the sisters' lives, this film is more complete due to the fact that it goes into their childhood and background as maids, beginning with the convent where they were raised and educated. There's a hefty age difference between the two, and Christine is shattered when her mother informs her that her father, who's away at war, raped their older sister Emilia, who later became a nun. When the young Christine, who is also very religious, expresses her desire to also be a nun, her mother revolts out of spite, telling the child she would be a servant like her.

"We meet, we work together, we love each other, and then...pfft...as soon as we grasp something, it's gone." 

— The aging actress Severine’s (played by Italian starlet Valentia Cortese) astute lament on the intangible nature of filmmaking resounds the yearning romance of all art in Francois Truffaut’s 1973 film, Day for Night.   

The title, La nuit américaine (literally: The American Night), refers to the process of filtering the camera to shoot a scene during the day to look as if it is, in fact, night. Known in America as Day for Night, the film centers around the shooting of a film entitled Je vous presente Pamela (Meet Pamela), a dramatic tragedy in which a young French wife falls in love with her husband’s father. Day for Night pays minimal attention to the film within itself however, and instead follows the cast and crew as they struggle through both the physical production as well as a flurry of interpersonal conflicts.