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"I think he fancies you." Film Movement has debuted an official trailer for an indie romantic drama titled The Sower, originally Le Semeur in French. Adapted from Violette Ailhaud's novel, and directed by first-time filmmaker Marine Francen, the film is set in 1851 and is about a small farming village in the Lower Alps that is cutoff from all men. France's autocratic President Louis-Napoléon Bonaparte has ordered the arrest of all the men, and so the women take an oath: if a man comes, they will share him as a lover. When a mysterious and handsome stranger arrives, he ignites passions and jealousies that threaten to destroy the tight-knit community. The Sower stars Pauline Burlet as Violette, along with Geraldine Pailhas, Alban Lenoir, Iliana Zabeth, Francoise Lebrun, and Raphaëlle Agogué. Shot in 1.37:1, this looks like it has some lush, gorgeous cinematography amidst all the heavy sexual tension and infighting.

John C Reilly and Finnegan Oldfield in Thomas Bidegain's soul searching Les Cowboys

On the afternoon when Thomas Bidegain is presenting Les Cowboys at the Alliance Française, where the week before I introduced Axelle Ropert's Tirez La Langue, Mademoiselle, he gave me some insight on working with Jean-Pierre Dardenne and Luc Dardenne, Jacques Audiard and Noé Debré. Connecting Paul Schrader's Hardcore with Martin Scorsese's Taxi Driver and John Ford's The Searchers by way of Slavoj Žižek in Sophie Fiennes' The Pervert’s Guide To Ideology and the Iliana Zabeth Bertrand Bonello Saint Laurent and House of Tolerance link to Finnegan Oldfield and Nocturama weave through our conversation.

Alain (François Damiens) and Nicole (Agathe Dronne)

François Damiens (Katell Quillévéré's Suzanne) plays Alain, husband to Nicole (Agathe Dronne) whose daughter Kelly's (Iliana Zabeth) disappearance during a French country-western festival triggers a relentless search that jeopardises the family's unity.

It’s hard to blame Thomas Bidegain for thinking that a contemporary remake of “The Searchers” might be a good idea. After all, the same virulent otherness that pumped through John Ford’s classic Western is at the heart of the Islamophobia that plagues modern Europe, and has percolated beneath the surface of its cinema since at least “The Battle of Algiers.” The recent attacks in Paris and Belgium, neither of which occurred until long after “Les Cowboys” was in the can, only serve to add a greater sense of urgency to Bidegain’s film, a vigilante tale whose wayward white hero is stymied by the same cultural divide that terrorists sacrifice their lives in order to deepen and expand.

But Bidegain’s update, however clever and opportunistic it might be, inevitably runs into a problem that didn’t affect the original: It’s not directed by John Ford.

Which...

Thomas Bidegain on John C Reilly in Yorgos Lanthimos' The Lobster and Matteo Garrone's Tale of Tales: "I think he has a secret plan to become a European film star." Photo: Anne-Katrin Titze

Thomas Bidegain known for his screenwriting artistry with Jacques Audiard on Dheepan, A Prophet, and Rust And Bone and Joachim Lafosse on Our Children and The White Knights, met for a conversation on his directorial debut. Co-produced by Jean-Pierre Dardenne and Luc Dardenne, co-written with Noé Debré, Les Cowboys stars François Damiens, Finnegan Oldfield (Eva Husson's Bang Gang) and John C Reilly with Agathe Dronne, Iliana Zabeth (Bertrand Bonello’s Saint Laurent and House Of Tolerance), Jean-Louis Coulloc'h, Ellora Torchia, Mounir Margoum, Antonia Campbell-Hughes and Maxim Driesen.

Alain (François Damiens) with daughter Kelly (Iliana Zabeth)

David Lynch's Mulholland Drive cowboy, a Bronski Beat Smalltown Boy rendition, James Coburn in Sergio Leone's Duck,...

The France-produced, Paris-brothel feature "House Of Pleasures" (aka "L'Apollonide") is directed by Bertrand Bonello, starring Hafsia Herzi, Celine Sallette, Alice Barnole, Adele Haenel, Jasmine Trinca, Iliana Zabeth, and Noemie Lvovsky :

"...At the dawn of the twentieth century, in a brothel in Paris, a  disfigured prostitute lives a strange life, surrounded by other girls, their rivalries, fears, joys and sorrows..."

Click the images to enlarge and Sneak Peek "House Of Pleasures"...

House of Tolerance (original French title L’Apollonide: Souvenirs de la maison close, 2011) is set in a Paris brothel during the twilight of 19th century/eve of 20th century. The story focuses entirely on twelve females aged around 16-30 living and working in the brothel as prostitutes. This is not a ‘knocking shop’, as Madame Marie-France (Noémie Lvovsky) is keen to impress, but a respectable establishment where elegant, if sometimes dangerous men go to meet elegant woman bedecked in semi-revealing Belle Époque fashions and fine silk lingerie.

Costume designer for House of Tolerance, Anaïs Romand (César award winner), approached the project with a view that true period authenticity can never be achieved; instead she aimed to “look for authenticity with the girls and the way they would live in their costumes”. Talking exclusively to Clothes on Film, Romand walks us through her visual interpretation of these characters and how she...

Chicago – L’Apollonide, the Parisian brothel in Bertrand Bonello’s “House of Pleasures,” is one of the most vividly realized movie locations in recent memory. The voyeuristic allure of cinema fuses with the film’s painterly imagery to create a subtly surrealistic dreamscape within the establishment’s claustrophobic walls. The picture is seductive and repellant in about equal measure, but never short of hypnotic.

Though “Pleasures” (alternately titled “House of Tolerance”) is clearly the work of a filmmaker influenced by the “male gaze” represented in everything from Monet artwork to early silents, the film is resoundingly successful in its attempts to view life from the perspectives of the female prostitutes. As the young ladies externalize the kinky fantasies of their clients, Bonello allows the viewer to peer into each woman’s own thoughts and dreams, thus illuminating the strong-willed psyche within the submissive façade.

DVD Rating: 4.5/5.0

Consider the character of...