marie gillain

Female Agents

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The female agents on the way to an airplane

Jean-Paul Salomé, director and co-writer of Female Agents (Les Femmes de l’Ombre in the original French), got the idea for his 2008 film from an obituary. While in London in 2004 he read about Lise Villameur, who’d just died aged 98. During the Second World War she’d been an agent for the French Section of Britain’s Special Operations Executive. Parachuted into France to set up her own cell and run her own agents, Villameur was described by the folk at SOE training school as “quite imperturbable… would remain cool and collected in any situation . . . she was very much ahead of her fellow students”. That’s exactly how Sophie Marceau plays Louise … Read more

Le Bossu

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Daniel Auteuil and Marie Gillain in Le Bossu

Daniel Auteuil, Jean Reno, Gerard Depardieu. Where are the barrel-chested Brit equivalents to these beefy action men of the French cinema? But then, Brits are all gay, aren’t we? Take this fine, roistering spectacle, a dashingly charming entertainment in which Auteuil plays a D’Artagnan-like figure, all flashing swords and teeth. The story has been made into a film five times before, and is in the tradition of the Count of Monte Cristo – revenge is its beating heart – as it follows 18th century swordsman the Chevalier de Lagardère (Auteuil) through long patient years, disguise as a hunchback, political intrigue, love from an unexpected quarter, until he finally faces down the dastardly Gonzague (played … Read more