Bertrand Blier

Director

March 14, 1939 (85 years)

† January 20, 2025

Boulogne-Billancourt, Seine [now Hauts-de-Seine], France

Biography

Bertrand Blier (14 March 1939 – 20 January 2025) was a French film director and writer. His 1978 film Get Out Your Handkerchiefs won the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film at the 51st Academy Awards. He was the son of famous French actor Bernard Blier. His 1996 film Mon Homme was entered into the 46th Berlin International Film Festival. His 2005 film How Much Do You Love Me? was entered into the 28th Moscow International Film Festival where he won the Silver George for Best Director. …

Filmography

6.4

Beau Pere

Rémi is a man trapped in a deteriorating marriage. When his wife is unexpectedly killed in a car accident, Rémi is left with his stepdaughter, Marion, who chooses to stay with him rather than live with her birth father. After the initial shock passes, Rémi is caught off-guard when Marion begins expressing her attraction to him. Initially repulsed, Marion's mature beauty wears him down as he finally caves to her seductions.

5.9

How Much Do You Love Me?

After winning the lottery, François goes to a bar in Pigalle and offers one hundred thousand Euros per month to a prostitute named Daniela to live with him as his wife until his money runs out.

6.7

Going Places

Two whimsical, aimless thugs harass and assault women, steal, murder, and alternately charm, fight, or sprint their way out of trouble. They take whatever the bourgeoisie holds dear, whether it’s cars, peace of mind, or daughters. Marie-Ange, a jaded, passive hairdresser, joins them as lover, cook, and mother confessor. She’s on her own search for seemingly unattainable sexual pleasure.

6.6

Get Out Your Handkerchiefs

Solange is seriously depressed, and her kindhearted husband, Raoul, makes it his mission to cure her doldrums. After many failed attempts to cheer her up, Raoul hits upon a possible solution: find his wife a lover. Unfortunately, his choice, Stéphane, proves to be just as ineffectual in restoring her flagging spirits. In the end, the gorgeous Solange finds her own, highly problematic tonic to her troubles in the form of a 13-year-old boy.

5.8

Actors

A self-conscious and self-referential adventure into the (pretend) lives of legendary actors in Paris.

6.1

Femmes Fatales

Two men, fortyish, worn out by their wives, abandon everything to go and live in the back of beyond. There they meet a truculent priest, a boozer, Émile who recalls them to life's simple pleasures. Calm is what they want. But soon their example inspires thousands of disorientated males...

6.3

Our Story

Robert Avranche, a middle-aged, alcoholic garage owner, is sitting on a train, reflecting on the emptiness of his life. An attractive young woman, Donatienne, suddenly enters the compartment and offers to make love to him. Robert accepts but, when the woman leaves the train afterwards, he decides to follow her...

5.8

My Man

In Lyon, where many are unemployed, Marie is a prostitute who loves her work: she's thoughtful and exuberant toward clients old and young, slim or flabby. One night, a homeless man sleeps in the foyer of her apartment house; she gives him a hot meal, then a place on the floor to sleep by her radiator, then she offers herself. She falls in love, giving him new life, clothes, a place to live. When he grouses that he must bar hop while she uses the flat for her work, she finds them a larger flat. He grows restless, seducing a manicurist and pressing her to prostitution. He's arrested for procuring, so Marie must decide what to do; he, too, must face the consequences of his choices.

6.2

Thank You, Life

Camille, a naïve schoolgirl, meets an intriguing influence in Joelle, a slightly older and much more experienced spirit. Camille follows her new friend through the discovery of sex and the darker side of life. As the film progresses, Camille discovers AIDS and the fear that she may have picked up the disease in her early encounters.

7.1

Buffet Froid

Alphonse Tram is unwittingly involved in several murders despite having no memory of committing the crimes. His confusion lead him to confess to his neighbour, Inspector Morvandieu. Alphonse and Morvandieu become the axis around which murders occur.

6.6

Ménage

A bisexual petty criminal named Bob encounters a married couple arguing in a bar. Bob breaks up the fight and proceeds to seduce first the wife and then the husband. Then Bob teaches the couple how to be burglars and they join him in his criminal exploits.

6.9

The Seventh Juror

In a moment of madness a middle-aged, married and respectable pharmacist kills a young woman who is sun-bathing by a lake. Unable to take in what he has done, he flees from the scene of the crime and behaves as if nothing has happened. Eventually her boyfriend is charged with the crime and, in a strange twist of fate, the killer finds himself serving on the jury.

6.3

One, Two, Three, Sun

A provocative, seemingly absurd patchwork movie which sends a worthwhile message about hope against all odds, love, children and human understanding. Schoolgirl Victorine has an insane mother and an alcoholic father who can never find his way home in their maze of slum apartment blocks. Aggressive, sexually threatening boys of all ages are everywhere, and while the teacher eventually relents to a gang of adolescent rapists, Victorine gives herself to a rowdy gang of older layabouts, eventually winning the heart of burglar Paul.

6.3

Too Beautiful for You

A car dealer, well-to-do and with a beautiful wife, finds himself attracted to his rather plain new temporary secretary. Despite her own commitments she feels the same and the two soon embark on an affair. Though it would seem it has happened before his wife finds this particular entanglement of her husband's very difficult to accept.

5.7

Horror Castle

Women are being tortured to death with various devices in the dungeon of an old castle by a mysterious, hooded figure who may be a notorious executioner from medieval times.

5.8

My Best Friend's Girl

The charming Pascal, owner of a clothing store in Courchevel, and the chubby and scruffy Micky, disc jockey in a nearby club, are best of friends. Pascal accumulates women, much to the chagrin of Micky, who is consoled of his failures by listening to his friend talk about his successes. Viviane arises, ravishing and icy, but she's seasonal. Pascal, sincerely in love, seduces her and then leaves. This is a dire situation for Micky: Pascal is far away and the beauty is so kind to him. Complications arise once Pascal returns.

4.2

Wide Load

This is the story of a guy who goes too fast and a big guy who is too slow. Foster meets Taupin. All this would be trivial if one of them had a scary scenario, the scenario of their lives and their deaths. Just open the pages and shake.

6.0

If I Were a Spy

A medical doctor gets into trouble when one of his patients turns out have been involved in espionage (maybe).

6.1

The Chops

A father arrives at his son's house one evening. They begin talking about women, love, relationships and things turn awkward fast.

6.1

The Black Monocle

The Marquis de Villemaur reunite strange visitors in his Castle, to meet a survivor of the Third Reich. There is an Italian fascist, Heinrich; a German, Matthias; a Russian; and Dromard, a blind French war hero with a black monocle.