Excuse Me While I Spaz For A Moment, But…

Please, sir, can I have some more? (Trailer below is all in Russian, no subtitles, but it’s worth the looksey. I promise. Pretty please, click on it and take a look.)

Okay, first of all, if you know anything about me you know that I have this crazy, odd affinity for Russians and Russia in general, so I’m totally ready to pony up for a theater ticket to see Admiral Kolchak, even though I had no idea who Admiral Kolchak actually was until I Wikipedia’d him (warning, here be SPOILERS, ’cause, you know.) Sue me, a lot of my Russian history knowledge, which is woefully limited, is pretty much from 1917 onwards.

Secondly, this movie has Konstantin freakin’ Khabensky in it, so I’m double there. If I could put two of me in the movie theater, I would. Like a lot of people here in America, I had no idea who Khabensky was; actually, here in America I can’t recall the last time a real Russian film was actually hyped up over here. I learned of Khabensky through the Watch movies; Night Watch and Day Watch, which if memory serves me right, are two of the most successful movies in Russian film history. (Also, I must admit, my Russian film viewing is woefully limited as well. You’d think for someone who’s a growing Russophiliac, I’d have some idea of Russian film but…no.)

Thirdly, I dig war/action movies like whoa.

On a more shallow note, Khabensky’s really, really ridiculously good-looking (to me, personally) so I’m triple there. Shallow? Sad? Reaching a new low? Perhaps. Let’s face it; I like to look at pretty things, mmkay?

Am I there? I’m there. I’m so there.

Here in America, it’ll be released as Admiral, I believe, but the only release date that’s listed via IMDB is a November ’08 release for Russia. Come on, Russian film industry! Hook a poor girl up.

Also, I have no idea what they’re saying in the trailer nor what the words say. Cyrillic alphabet makes my head go boom.

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Movie Crack: Face/Off

Guys, I have to make a terrible confession. Have you wondered all these years why Nicolas Cage has a film career? It’s me, people, it’s all me. I’m the sole moviegoer keeping Cage in business. It’s sad to admit, but my name is Caitlin and I’m addicted to bad Nicolas Cage action flicks. (Right now, Fletch over at Blog Cabins is probably booking a plane ticket to come beat me senseless.)

John Travolta plays Sean Archer, a determined, hardworking FBI agent determined to bring down the vicious criminal that killed his son, a certain Castor Troy (Nicolas Cage). After finally bringing him down, the FBI discovers that there’s still one last dastardly plot Castor has dreamed up that he’s already set in motion and there’s only one ridiculously outlandish way to save the day. Sean Archer must have his face switched with Castor Troy. Insult to injury, I should think, but of course! Sean Archer is a total Boy Scout, so he has to do the right thing — at the further expense of everything he holds dear and true. What a hero, right?

There’s really no other way to describe this movie than absurdly over the top. Castor’s brother is named Pollux (haha, get it?); Nicolas Cage starts out the movie by planting some sort of crazy bomb in a convention center dressed as a priest of all things and carrying gold plated guns; the prison in this movie is something you have to see to believe. It’s a quasi-futuristic place with robotic, magnetic boots that control the prison population that’s located on an oil rig looking place in the middle of the ocean. So…yeah. It looks like a fun place to spend an eternity and a half, right? Kinda bleak, kinda depressing, kinda isolated. It’s party city up there.

Meanwhile, while Sean’s taken Castor’s place in prison to get information out of the neurotic, nerdy Pollux, the real Castor wakes up without a face, which would probably really ruin anyone’s day. Pissing off the psycho nutjob and taking his face? Not a good idea. So Castor goes…a little nutso and takes Sean Archer’s face, leading to a nice little switcheroo that screws everyone up. Well, not until after he gets a new face lasered on and kills everyone remotely involved with the face-transplanting.

There’s a reason Nic Cage excels at playing neurotic and/or insane, psychotic characters. I personally speculate that Mr. Cage might be a little cuckoo for Cocoa Puffs, if you catch my drift, but I could be wrong. So when you throw old NIcolas a curveball — say, playing a straightlaced, normal guy that’s out of his league — he doesn’t know what else to do with it than ridiculously, shamefully overplay it. Here? He doesn’t disappoint.

The scene where Archer wakes up with Castor’s face is nearly priceless. You’d better not be drinking anything while watching it or whatever liquid you’re imbibing is going straight up your nose. Cage has a completely unbelievable freak-out attack that’s beyond description, complete with stupid facial mugging, some of the most forced, fake crying I’ve ever heard, and ridiculous cries of “Eff you, eff you!” thrown at his superiors as he breaks a mirror. It’s like angst overload, Nicolas Cage style which basically means Cage plays it like a thirteen year old girl would play it. Academy Award winner right there, folks.

Cage quite simply can’t play it straight to save his life. When you’re making John Travolta, king of the unintentionally comic overacting, look downright Oscar-worthy, it’s pretty bad. Travolta does play a rather despicable bad guy. I love watching Travolta play bad dudes because he hams it up just enough instead of taking the Cage route, which is kind of like watching a monkey on speed chase a banana for hours on end.

The rest of the film is devoted to the two taking bizarre, strange means to get their respective faces back, culminating in a final battle of good versus evil with the trademark John Woo hallmarks splashed in.

So…after having gone through all the bad, why do I like this movie so darn much?

To tell you the truth, I’m really not quite sure. Perhaps it’s the scene where Nicolas Cage dances around as a priest and sings with a kid’s choir after planting a bomb that will destroy Los Angeles; perhaps it’s just the general feeling of “it’s so bad it becomes awesome” that pervades the movie; perhaps it’s the random Joe Bob Briggs cameo (Aww, Joe Bob! I miss Monstervision on TNT!).

Even if it wasn’t intended to be what it is, Face/Off’s a cheesy action flick that for some odd reason, never gets old. It stays awesomely bad and is just as funny the first time as the last time you see it.

After years of having seen it, even Nicolas Cage’s vamping doesn’t get old — and that’s saying something.

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The Best Picture Project: Kramer vs. Kramer

Oh God, don’t watch this movie unless you’re prepared to cry — especially if you’re a guy.

Ted Kramer is a career-minded businessman who’s obsessed with promotions and “bringing home the bacon”, while Joanne Kramer is an unsatisfied housewife who feels like her life is going nowhere. The film starts on “one of the five biggest days of [Ted’s] life”, where he is informed he’s landed a large account at his firm and comes home to find Joanne leaving.

Ted’s ill-equipped to take care of their son Billy and Joanne refuses to take him along with her, saying that Billy is “better off without [her]”. So with a heavy workload, no understanding of how to take care of a kid and little patience, Ted is left on his own to figure out how to raise a child and why, exactly, his marriage failed. Along the way, he discovers he enjoys being a father more than he ever realized, loses his job as a result and decides to be the best dad he can be. And then Joanne rolls back into town, determined to have primary of custody of Billy because she’s his mother.

Kramer vs. Kramer is an interesting film because at a time when American culture was shifting wildly, the film explores the traditional viewpoints of parenthood evolving. The beginning depicts the typical American family of the ’50’s and ’60’s and pretty much asks the question, “What do you do when everything changes and falls apart?” There’s no script and no Cliff’s Notes for parenting, certainly not when a situation like the one in the film arises, and a family has to adapt as best it can.

Dustin Hoffman and Meryl Streep turn in fantastic performances and the film gives equal weight to both Ted and Joanne’s point of view, but in the end it’s difficult to sympathize with the flighty, unstable Joanne.

Hoffman in particular is stunning, making you feel for Ted even when he’s at his most unlikeable, something that’s extremely difficult to do. Streep gives a lot of depth, character and soul to a character that’s easily written off by any other actress.

It’s emotionally trying but well worth the effort to sit down and view.

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The Good, The Bad & The Ugly: Gary Oldman

Sometimes, you can look back at an actor’s resume and you may think, “Ooh!” Conversely, you may think, “…Ewww.” Most of the time, though, it’s a strange mix of the two where you end up wondering, “How did [Insert Actor Here] end up in that piece of crap?”

Gary Oldman is by all accounts an established, respected actor but my word, has he been in some terrible dreck. Let’s break it down, shall we?

Name: Leonard (?!) Gary Oldman

Hobbies: Perfecting accents, since he uses a new one in almost every film; scenery chewing; stealing movies out from other actor’s feet; being almost criminally underrated by a lot of critics and The Academy; being the “thinking girl’s Brad Pitt”.

What He’s Best Known For: Playing psychopaths, freaks and other malcontents of society; he’s the guy producers keep on speed dial for when you have that crazy whack-job character you haven’t cast yet.

THE GOOD

Léon/The Professional — Oldman starred in an excellent film about a hitman who befriends a small girl after her parents are brutally murdered. Of course Oldman plays the psychotic cop Stansfield, who has such classic lines like, “I like these little calm moments before the storm. It reminds me of Beethoven. Can you hear it? It’s like when you put your head to the grass and you can hear the growin’ and the insects. Do you like Beethoven?”

Yeah. Psycho, right? He’s also a big pill-muncher. Seriously, there’s a lot of good acting in this one (Jean Reno and Natalie Portman) but Oldman pulls the rug out from under all of them. Good movie, too.

The Fifth Elemnt — Here we see Oldman costumed by Jean-Paul Gaultier as the thickly Southern accented villain; he overcomes having a massive piece of Plexi-glass glued to his poor head to become actually pretty freaky. Zorg’s not a nice character, but Oldman gives the character a lot of depth where there could’ve been none.

Sid & Nancy — He gave Sid Vicious some sort of emotion instead of just portraying him as the snarly punk we all knew; more people my age can now identify Gary Oldman as Sid Vicious than Sid Vicious as Sid Vicious, I think. He and Chloe Webb did a great job as Sid and Nancy.

THE BAD

Air Force One — Okay, I love Air Force One, but I can firmly admit it’s a bad movie. Gary’s rockin’ it as a maniacal Russian extremist who hijacks Air Force One with the President on board. It’s a pretty bad action movie, but Oldman is good — as usual — while putting on another crazy accent. Harrison Ford started his decline right about here, which is sad, but true. Seriously, everyone in this movie is not so good save for Oldman. And that includes Glenn Close as the Vice-President.

The Scarlet Letter — if your movie is so terrible, so awful, that I can’t appreciate Gary Oldman in it, you’ve screwed up royally. Thanks a lot, Demi Moore. There aren’t words in the English language to describe the suck of The Scarlet Letter.

Immortal Beloved — Gary had a pretty good role in Immortal Beloved, which tells the story of Ludwig von Beethoven and an old friend’s quest to find his “immortal beloved”, who is listed in his will after Beethoven’s death. While Oldman does a spectacular job…the rest of the movie just falls flat. If I want to turn off the movie even though Gary Oldman’s in it, you’ve got problems.

THE UGLY

Hannibal – Oh my god, this movie blows. The book sucked; the movie was worse. Gary Oldman plays the psychotic, insane Mason Verger who’s hellbent on seeking his (oddly elaborate) revenge upon Hannibal Lecter. Lecter’s the one responsible for making him look like Pumpkinhead, so understandably, Verger’s a little upset. Oldman does a good job even under 18 pounds of prosthetics, but I’m glad you can’t recognize him in this film. Really glad.

Lost In Space — A travesty of filmmaking. I like this movie in a “so bad it’s good” kinda way, but let’s face it; it’s atrocious and the TV show wasn’t even that good. For having an all-star cast, it fails spectacularly, probably just because everything about it is just bad. Even Oldman look like he’s phoning it in for the paycheck; it has one of the worst plots I’ve ever seen (time travel? giant spiders? …the hell?) and generally manages to make William Hurt, Mimi Rogers and Gary Oldman look bad.

Bram Stoker’s Dracula — Francis Ford Coppola, what were you thinking? Keanu Reeves? Winona Ryder? The filmmakers had a stroke of genius casting Oldman as what else – the tormented Dracula – but this movie sucks hard. Keanu Reeves looks like he’s constantly looking around as if to say, “Am I really in this movie?” Winona Ryder looks stoned. And Gary? He kind of totters around being his badass self, outfitted in his top hat while his harem of female vampires writhe around back in Transylvania. What a hot mess of a movie.

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#1434: The Blob (1958)

There’s some important lessons to be learned from The Blob.

A meteorite crashes on Earth and some hobo out in the woods finds the Jell-O oozing forth from the piping hot space rock. A chain of events ensues where in a little puddle of goo eventually absorbs everything it can, growing larger and larger…

This film also marked the film debut of one Mr. Steve McQueen.

There’s a few things The Blob teaches us. I like to think of them as common sense instructions in case of a meteorite from space crashing in your back yard.

#1: DON’T POKE THINGS — ESPECIALLY THINGS FROM OUTER SPACE — WITH A STICK

So, Mr. Hobo From The Woods ventures out into his front yard, sees the strawberry Jell-O pouring out of the little rock and promptly pokes it with a stick. Blobbiness oozes up the stick and on to his arm, eventually eating him whole even after a doctor tries to intervene. On a personal note: If I saw a gelatinous mass pouring out of a rock that crashed from the sky, my instinct would not be to think, “Hmm, I think I’ll pick up a stick and give it the old poke-poke”, but rather, “Run away! RUN AWAY!” That could just be me, though.

#2: FOR GOD’S SAKE, GET A HOLD OF YOURSELF, (WO)MAN

The town doctor begins to realize something strange might… you know… be up when The Blob begins to munch on Mr. Hobo From The Woods’ arm and take over the rest of his body. He calls in his trusty nurse, Kate, who discovers that — gasp — the Blob has eaten poor old Mr. Hobo and is sitting on the floor all…blob-like. Immediately, she begins to freak out way, way more than one person should and while the doctor implores her to stay calm and “stay still”, she proceeds to act like a caged bobcat and freak the hell out. Good job, Nurse Kate, ’cause that’s what gets you eaten.

(And the poor old doctor.)

#3: PAY ATTENTION TO YOUR SURROUNDINGS, LOUDMOUTH

After Steve McQueen witnesses the absorption of the doctor, he runs and tells the cops who pretty much just mock him endlessly and/or are consistently convinced that old Steve’s trying to pull a fast one on ’em. While the cops are busy reluctantly searching the doc’s office, the Blob moseys itself on over to some random mechanic’s shop. As one guy works under the car, he runs his mouth incessantly about anything and everything, which means he’s not paying attention when the Blob gets all blobby up behind him and totally eats his head.

#4: THE KIDS AREN’T ALRIGHT…SO SHUT UP AND LISTEN

God, adults are stupid, aren’t they? No matter how many times badass Steve McQueen tells the adults in town that there’s a MONSTER! FROM SPACE! AND IT’S GOING TO EAT EVERYONE!… all the adults do is laugh and/or act furiously angry, like, “You’re cruisin’ for a bruisin’, young man!”

Even after 40 people disappear, the adults in town are all standing around as if they’re going, “You crazy kids are just pulling one big prank on us! Geez Louise, will ya cut it out already!”

Maybe you should pay attention to that whole “monster” speech, adults.

#5: KNOWING HOW TO OPERATE A FIRE EXTINGUISHER IS IMPORTANT

If there’s one weakness that an enormous gob of goo from outer space has, it’s totally CO2. That’s right; that stuff you find in everyday fire extinguishers is downright toxic to The Blob because it’s cold. Somehow, the townspeople dredge up about 8,000 fire extinguishers to spray on The Blob, but every single townsperson seems to have a very good grasp of how fire extinguishers work. I guess they received top notch training in fire safety at the local elementary school?

#6: THE GOVERNMENT WILL TAKE CARE OF EVERYTHING

The end is tidily wrapped up with the townspeople valiantly hosing down the Blob with CO2 while the local police chief calls in the Air Force to somehow magically airlift The Blob to whereabouts unknown. Apparently, the Air Force comes up with the brilliant idea to drop this thing at one of the poles, as we’re shown a final shot of what looks like one of those Mercury space capsules dropping into an icy wasteland. Sure, it looks like a Mercury capsule, but it’s actually The Blob, duh.

_____________________________

You know, I really loved The Blob. It was cheesy; it was campy; but it was was made in such earnestness that you can’t help but really like it. Steve McQueen actually does a pretty good job, given the script and low budget, and it’s your typical ’50’s drive-in fare. If I ever could open a drive-in theater, my grand opening would see The Blob and The Tingler screened back to back.

I was shocked to discover I’d seen the ’80’s version of The Blob but not the original; I think it’s safe to say the original is far, far better.

(Sheesh, I’m really starting to love me some Steve McQueen, man.)

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Once More, With Feeling: Blog Notes & Reader’s Choice

If you look up at the top of 1,416 and Counting, you’ll see a brand new tab.  See it?   It’s up there with The Best Picture Project and ‘What is 1,416 and Counting?’.   That’s the new location for Reader’s Choice.   You have until May 5th to vote on the next ten movies, which are…

• Kickboxer
• Unforgiven
• Touchez Pas Au Grisbi
• Lars and the Real Girl
• Night of the Comet
• Cemetery Man
• Trading Places
• 30 Days of Night
• Vertigo
• Rio Bravo

Just click the tab up top and click on the LINK for the movie you want reviewed.   It will update the poll accordingly.

Also, I’ve got some kickin’ rad reviews of Youngblood, Atonement, and Kramer vs. Kramer as well as some old gems, so keep comin’ round, folks.

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#1433: Basket Case

What’s in the basket, huh?

Why, I’m so glad you asked! It’s only my horrifically deformed, now-unattached Siamese twin! Careful, now, he bites!

Basket Case is the story of two brothers, and it sure as hell is not a “feel-good” kind of story. Duane and Belial are Siamese twins, who are forced apart by their father who’s horrified that he’s got freakishly attached twins, one of whom (Belial) looks like Slimer from Ghostbusters got covered in that years-old gum you find under movie theater seats. Anyways, the doctors separate the two and wrap good old Belial in a Hefty bag and toss him to the curb. (Nothing says “sanitary” like a Hefty bag.) Oooh, burn!

Except Belial’s not dead, and now he’s one pissed little twin. Since Belial seems incapable of doing anything but being murderously wrathful and making noises that sound like, “mrawagh”, he hooks back up with Duane and together, the two are determined to exact their revenge on the doctors who detached them. They shack up in a seedy New York hotel where Duane carts Belial around in an enormous wicker basket with a padlock on it. Charming, non? Yeah, it’s just clothes in that basket, folks, nothing mean and nasty.

Basket Case was probably made for about $5.00 and it shows. The acting is tremendously awful; the special effects are of the laughable kind. Even Belial is obviously a latex puppet, and his modus operandi of killing people appears to be facial lacerations. How one dies of facial lacerations, I don’t know, but everytime someone dies, the viewer’s treated to a nice, long, Strawberry Quik coated close-up of the victim’s face with…facial lacerations.

The brothers systematically begin to exterminate the doctors who made them two instead of one, when Duane has a pang of conscience and begins to try a normal life outside of you know, killing people and lacerating their faces with his hideously deformed twin brother. Needless to say, Belial is less than thrilled. Belial MAD! Belial SMASH! Well, not smash so much, but he does begin to act out.

Duane’s got his eye on this sweet little receptionist. It should be noted that the hotel (and I use that word loosely) where Duane lives is populated by people who are 100% looney tunes, so he’s kind of living in an insane asylum. With prostitutes. Even with crackheads and nutsos living around him, the neighbors kinda begin to suspect something’s up when people start to see things in their rooms. Belial totally tries to get it on with the prostitute down the hall — ick — -and fails; then Belial goes after Duane’s little receptionist friend, and that doesn’t go over too well.

Ultimately, I enjoyed this movie. Why? Because the director, the crew, the actors, seem to know they’re in on one big joke. No one’s out to make a movie to change the world; they’re out to make a bad, schlocky horror movie that you can curl up on your couch with and giggle at the crap killing scenes and laugh at with your friends. They succeeded, so well played, filmmakers of Basket Case.

There’s actually several sequels to this film, and while I’m not running out anytime soon to Netflix them or anything like that, if they’re made in the same spirit as Basket Case, I’d be willing to give ’em a watch.

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#1432: Juno

…Because nothing says funny like teenage pregnancy.

Fifteen year old Juno MacGuff receives a nasty shock one day when she realizes she’s pregnant by her friend Paulie Bleeker. Unable to go through with an abortion, she searches for and finds a couple she feels is suitable enough to adopt her child. When Mark and Vanessa, the prospective parents, begin to fall apart, Juno has to make a tough decision.

I expected to hate Juno. Scratch that, I wanted to hate Juno. From the twee, “I’m so smart it hurts” dialogue in the trailer to Diablo Cody being everywhere all over the place in no time flat, I really wanted to find a reason to dislike this movie.

The dialogue, once you fall into it, is far from “so smart” and delves into sophisticated writing. The actors do a superb job, especially Jennifer Garner, as Vanessa, the “perfect mom”. You can practically feel how badly Garner wants a baby and she and Jason Bateman do a wonderful job as Vanessa and Mark.

Ellen Page deserved her Academy Award nomination and Diablo Cody deserved that win. The eloquent way in which Juno’s father and step-mother handle the news of her pregnancy is so refreshingly unlike anything Hollywood throws at us that it’s nice, for a change, to see something different. Juno’s whip-smart wit does nothing to protect her at her rawest, though, and that’s where the movie really hits home.

I love it.

I’d buy it.

I’m glad this film had all the press and all the coverage it got; it deserved every last ounce of it. J.K. Simmons and Allison Janney also shine as Juno’s dad and step-mother, and any movie that has Allison Janney in it I tend to like (Exh. A: Drop Dead Gorgeous).

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Flashback: The Towering Inferno

If you were a noted film and television actor in the 1970’s, please raise your hand if you were not in an Irwin Allen film.

Are those crickets I hear?

The Towering Inferno is one of those great ’70’s disaster films that’s jam packed with everyone and their dog that was remotely famous. The movie’s got Paul Newman, Fred Astaire (…the hell?), O.J. Simpson (!), Steve McQueen, Richard Chamberlain and seventy thousand other character actors shoved into it.

In San Francisco, the world’s largest ever skyscraper is being unveiled, and on the night of the dedication the architect of the building (Paul Newman) discovers the electrical wiring isn’t up to specification and could cause massive fires all over the building. The people running the show fail to heed Paul Newman’s words, however, and soon fires are raging all over the building while 300 people party up on the top floor of The Glass Tower.

The Towering Inferno is an awesome slice of ’70’s cheese. It was made by the same guy who did The Poseidon Adventure and it features a constant gravitas-off (TM The Colbert Report) between Steve McQueen and Paul Newman. Between featuring styrofoam staircases blowing up, highly improbable fires, bad dialogue and hilariously awful acting (oh, Richard Chamberlain!) it’s a movie that probably wasn’t even considered “good” at the time. Steve McQueen’s cranky, hard-as-nails police chief is a hoot and seeing O.J. Simpson as a security guard rescuing cats is so unintentionally comical years later…

This is a long, long movie. At well over two hours and thirty minutes, it can seriously try your patience at times. Did the editor step out for long, long coffee breaks? I don’t know, but there’s so many subplots in the movie, you really don’t care about a lot of the characters, and really, that’s not the point of the movie; the point is the INFERNO 100 billion stories above the ground. The heavy-handed theme of “man shouldn’t build stuff so damn high” hammers you over the head so much that it only adds to the hilarious cheese factor.

Steve McQueen and Paul Newman make this movie happen.

Period, end of story.

I hope they never, ever remake it.

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The 1,416 and Counting French Film Primer

This is by no means intended to be a comprehensive “best of” list of French film in general.

I should preface this by saying that I took nearly nine years of French classes. For a few years, I was really blessed to have a teacher that felt we not only needed to learn the language, but vital elements of French culture as well. French film was a staple in our classroom, and I cannot thank that teacher enough for exposing me to all the wonderful films that she did show us.

So, in no particular order, here are my favorite French films of all time that I feel give a good feel for French film across the ages that I thoroughly enjoy and recommend (and have recommended) to people.

• LA HAINE (Hate) — 1995

La Haine is the story of three friends in a Parisian banlieue (French for ghetto, colloquially speaking) and I don’t have a better way of describing this film other than a Molotov cocktail to the face. It was renowned in France when it was first released for its depictions of violence and police brutality; it still remains a hallmark in my French film collection simply because of how powerful the movie is. It also is one of several stellar collaborations between Mathieu Kassovitz (dir: Brotherhood of the Wolf, The Crimson Rivers, Gothika – sadly) and Vincent Cassel (Ocean’s 12, Derailed).

The movie spans 24 hours in the lives of the three friends, one of whom is hospitalized after suffering a vicious incident with the police. His two friends roam the streets after the night of a huge riot in Paris with reserves of anger, malice and discontent built up after years of discrimination.

I seriously view La Haine as a landmark film, period. It made a huge impact on me as a teenager.

• LES PARAPLUIES DE CHERBOURG (The Umbrellas of Cherbourg) — 1964

Les Parapluies de Cherbourg is a musical. Don’t let that throw you off; this movie ranks as one of my top five of all time easily. Guy and Genevieve are young and in love when Guy is called up to serve in the French Army for the war in Algeria. His two year term seems to be a lifetime to the pair, and after Guy leaves, Genevieve discovers she is pregnant. Genevieve’s meddling mother and a jewels dealer named Roland do little to help already complicated matters.

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