André Chanal

Vivre libre ou mourir

In 1943, a divorced mother sends her two children to boarding school, the better to devote herself to her lover. The poetry and affection of a grandfather. The conflicted feelings of a mother-wife. Religious templars of blind teaching. An intruding lover. A child's subjectivity rewrites the entire path of his upbringing.

Cyrano de Bergerac is in love with his young cousin, Roxane, but does not dare to confess his love to her. It must be said that Cyrano's prominent nasal appendage attracts him constant mockery, which often forces him to defend his honor with weapons. When Roxane reveals to him that she loves the handsome Christian, a cadet of Gascony like Cyrano, the latter undertakes to take him under his protection. But the young man is cruelly lacking in spirit. It is therefore Cyrano who writes love letters to Roxane in her name, in which he expresses the ardent flame he also feels for his cousin. He even helps Christian to marry his beloved in secret. It is only years later and after having been the victim of an attack that Cyrano, on the verge of death, will finally declare his passion for her.

Seven directors each dramatize one of the seven deadly sins in a short film. In "Anger," a domestic argument over a fly in the Sunday soup escalates into nuclear war. In "Sloth," a movie star would rather pay someone to tie his shoe than bend over to do it himself, and he can't be bothered to accept a starlet's sexual favors. In "Gluttony," a peasant family on its way to the funeral of a relative who died from indigestion stops regularly to eat and drink en route, arriving in time to eat some more. In "Greed," a high-class prostitute refunds the price of a cadet's lottery ticket. In "Pride," an unfaithful wife finds reason to reform. And so on through lust and envy.

Benoît, a young provincial, arrives in the capital. He has left his family (mother, wife and child) in his native Charente. But for him, the difference in the standard of living is trying, and he loses his bearings among this crowd of anonymous people. A young woman, Myriam, crosses his path. But the encounter is short-lived, and Benoît returns home. A tragedy has occurred.

Young provincial Charles arrives in Paris to stay with his cousin Paul while studying law. Paul is a decadent, bohemian pleasure-seeker who shows the meek, diligent Charles the thrills of city life. When Charles falls for Florence, one of Paul's acquaintances, relationships begin to shift.

Les Gens de Mogador