7 Movies Directed by Maurice Pialat

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A ten-year-old boy feels unwanted when his mother places him in a home for wayward children. He goes to a foster home where a family of workers finds him to be too much for them. When the unruly child discovers the family plans to give up on him, he drowns their daughter's cat in retaliation. He is sent to another home where he is cared for by an elderly couple. The boy takes to the woman, a kindly grandmother who reaches out to the disturbed boy. His deliberate disobedience lessens somewhat in his new environment, but he is arrested after throwing bolts at cars from a bridge. The boy tries to overcome his mother's rejection and struggles to boost his self-image in this childhood drama.

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Jean has been married to Francoise for years, but his relationship with his wife has been all but over for a long time. She's hardly ever around, always traveling to Russia for work, and she drifts in and out of the film as well, reflecting the ephemeral nature of their marriage.

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Maurice Pialat's portrait of contemporary France mocks prosperity as a substitute for social and sexual revolution. Nelly abandons her bourgeois friends and a steady relationship for the unemployed layabout Loulou, whose charms include focusing his energy into sex.

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Suzanne is 15 and is having sex with many boys, just for fun, but did not manage to really love one of them. Her family does not understand her. The father does not like her behaviour. When he leaves home, the mother becomes a little bit neurotic. And Suzanne's brother Robert, begins to beat her as a punishment...

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Mangin, a police inspector in Paris, leans hard on informants to get evidence on three Tunisian brothers who traffic in drugs. He arrests one, Simon, and his girl-friend Noria. Simon's brothers go to their lawyer. He springs Noria, who promptly steals 2 million francs that belong to the Tunisians. They suspect her of the theft; her life as well as the lawyer's is in danger. Meanwhile, Noria is playing with both the lawyer and Mangin's affections. Mangin is mercurial anyway: intimidating and bloodying suspects, falling for a police commission trainee before flipping for Noria, wearing his emotions on his sleeve. Can he save the lawyer and Noria, and can he convince her to love?

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Dossignan is a zealous rural priest. The dean Menou-Segrais tries to keep him reasonable. But Dossignan will be tempted by Satan, then will try to save the soul of Mouchette, a young girl who killed one of her lovers.

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In late spring, 1890, Vincent moves to Auvers-sur-Oise, near Paris, under the care of Dr. Gachet, living in a humble inn. Fewer than 70 days later, Vincent dies from a self-inflicted gunshot wound. We see Vincent at work, painting landscapes and portraits. His brother Theo, wife Johanna, and their baby visit Auvers. Vincent is playful and charming, engaging the attentions of Gachet's daughter Marguerite (who's half Vincent's age), a young maid at the inn, Cathy a Parisian prostitute, and Johanna. Shortly before his death, Vincent visits Paris, quarrels with Theo, disparages his own art and accomplishments, dances at a brothel, and is warm then cold toward Marguerite.