♦ The Chef ***

by Philip Barantini

English film, 1 h 34

The Chief looks at himself, clinging to his chair, as one follows the hazardous progress of a tightrope walker, watching, breathless, the slightest misstep, the fatal swing. It is the story of a Magic Friday. The Friday before Christmas is the busiest night in London restaurants in Britain. It’s the day chosen by a fastidious food standards inspector to check that everything is in order in the establishment of Andy Jones, a starred chef at the head of a very renowned gastronomic restaurant.

» READ THE REVIEW. “The Chef”: at the heart of a boiling volcano

♦ Love is better than life **

by Claude Lelouch

French film, 1 h 55

For his fiftieth film, Lelouch makes Lelouch: a group of unfailing friends and a love story on the edge before an imminent end. The filmmaker allows himself self-quotations from his previous films and replaces his favorite actors, who bear the same first name in the city and on the screen, in the same family ties from one film to another (Gérard Darmon is again the son of Robert Hossein as in One and the other, etc).

» READ THE REVIEW. “Love is better than life”, itinerary of a repentant crook

♦ Memory Box **

by Joana Hadjithomas and Khalil Joreige

Franco-Lebanese film, 1 h 42

One Christmas Eve, as a snowstorm hits Montreal, a package from Beirut brings back old memories. Maia, overwhelmed by its contents, hastens to put it away in the cellar but Alex, intrigued, goes to open it to try to understand what the mother is hiding from her.

» READ THE REVIEW.“Memory Box”, the fragmented memory of the war in Lebanon

♦Lobos **

by Samuel Kishi Leopo

Mexican film, 1 h 35

Max, 8, and Leo, 5, land with their mother, Lucia in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Thanks to a cassette recorder inherited from their grandfather, they try to learn English words recorded by their mother before leaving for work, as well as the rules they must respect when she is not around. For these two little Mexicans who lived on the other side of the border, the United States is synonymous with a necessarily better life and the promise of going to Disneyland one day. The reality will be quite different.

» READ THE REVIEW. “Lobos”, the children of the American dream

♦Nightmare Alley**

by Guillermo del Toro

American film, 2:30

four years later The Shape of Water, supernatural thriller whose praise of difference seduced Hollywood (four Oscars in 2018), here is Nightmare Alley, the second film adaptation of a post-war noir novel (The Charlatan, 1947). Femme fatale with platinum blond, hero marked by fate, dark painting of the underworld, heinous murders: Nightmare Alley aligns all the archetypes of film noir, without however multiplying the winks too supported.

» READ THE REVIEW. “Nightmare Alley”, fatal fable

♦ The place of another *

by Aurelia Georges

French film, 1 h 52

Between social drama and thriller, Aurélia Georges offers a new version of identity theft in cinema. In Paris, in 1914, Nélie, a young servant without a family from the provinces, is thrown into the street for having protested against the touching of her employer. Begins for her a descent into hell which leads her to sell her body so as not to starve.

» READ THE REVIEW. “The Place of another”, the imposture of Nélie

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