The events that overwhelm a middle-aged, seemingly happily married couple. The arrogant, bourgeois M. Hervey descends from a train into the teeming bustle of the city. While on his way home, he reflects on the sturdiness of his life: the success he has made of it, and the fortress of security he has built around himself. It is not long before his self-satisfaction is rudely shattered when he discovers a letter from his wife, Gabrielle, waiting for him on his sideboard. The contents of the message will crumble that security and plunge him into newfound feelings of vulnerability, abandonment and betrayal. Husband and wife find themselves engaged in a parry-and-thrust of emotions that change mid-sentence and stretch their ability to function and live in the same house.
In Competition at the 62nd Venice International Film Festival, 2005. Isabelle Huppert won Special Lion for Exceptional Outstanding performance in Gabrielle, and in life career.
Starring: Isabelle Huppert, Pascal Greggory, Claudia Coli, Thierry Hancisse, Chantal Neuwirth
French language with latvian and russian subtitles.
English nobleman Phileas Fogg, a very strict and emotionless man, gets wound up in a bet at his gentlemen's club: He has to prove that it is possible to travel around the whole world in only 80 days. Together with his new butler Passepartout, who expected a different first day at work, he takes off instantly to Paris, where they miss the train to Marseilles. But a travel agent called Thomas Cook offers them his captive balloon, which carries them to Spain instead. Passepartout's skills are necessary in a bullfight in order to get them a ship that should take them back onto their planned route. An ominous Mr. Fix starts crossing their path more and more often, he somehow seems to try to hinder their forthcoming. In the deep jungles of India, the butler's skills are again needed in a case of rescuing beautiful Princess Aouda, who is to be burnt alive at the side of her dead husband. In Hongkong, Passepartout meets drugs in a involuntarily manner and in the United States, the wild, wild west takes its toll. All the time, Mr. Fogg has his usual timetable and meal schedule running at normal pace, so that all the waves have to be broken by Passepartout. And he won't get paid much, because he left the gas running, back in London. When the journey comes to a dramatic returning to England, Mr. Fogg has to cope with the facts that he seems to have lost the bet by some hours, but gained something he never seemed to have: emotion.