Is love compatible with coupledom? And what of freedom and fidelity? These are some of the questions facing two married men.

In a cold French city where suicide is a common urge, there is a colorful shop, managed for many years by the Tuvache family, where it is very easy to obtain the necessary tools to satisfy the sinister desires of so many depressed citizens.

A woman, a man, a summer in Paris. Passion, break ups, reconciliations. A love story in disarray...

An intricate thriller about an ordinary man thrust into the biggest theft of Soviet information of the Cold War. Right after the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. A French businessman based in Moscow, Pierre Froment, makes an unlikely connection with Grigoriev, a senior KGB officer disenchanted with what the Communist ideal has become under Brezhnev. Grigoriev begins passing Froment highly sensitive information about the Soviet spy network in the US.

Madness & Civilization: A History of Insanity in the Age of Reason, by Michel Foucault, is an examination of the ideas, practices, institutions, art & literature relating to madness in Western history. It's an abridged English edition of Histoire de la folie à l'âge classique, originally published in 1961 as Folie et déraison. Histoire de la folie à l'âge classique. A full translation, The History of Madness, was published by Routledge in 6/2006. This was his 1st major book, written while Director of the Maison de France in Sweden.
This history begins in the Middle Ages, noting the social & physical exclusion of lepers. It argues that with the gradual disappearance of leprosy, madness came to occupy this excluded position. The ship of fools in the 15th century is a literary version of one such exclusionary practice, the practice of sending mad people away in boats. However, during the Renaissance, madness was regarded as a common phenomenon because humans couldn't attain Divine Reason. As Cervantes' Don Quixote, all humans are weak to desires & dissimulation. Therefore, the insane, understood as those who had come too close to God's Reason, were accepted in the middle of society. It isn't before the 17th century, in a movement famously called the Great Confinement, that unreasonable people systematically were institutionalized. In the 18th century, the mad came to be seen as having lost what made them human & become animalistic & treated as such. It isn't before 19th century that madness was regarded as an illness to be cured.
Foucault wasn't talking about medical institutions designed specifically for the insane but about the creation of houses of confinement for social outsiders, including not only the insane but also vagrants, the poor & orphans, & what effect those houses of confinement had on the insane & perceptions of madness in the West. He demonstrates that while confinement of social outcastes was a generally European phenomenon, it had a unique development in France & distinct developments in other countries such as Germany & England.
Foucault also argues that madness during the Renaissance had the power to signify the limits of social order & to point to a deeper truth. This was silenced by Enlightened Reason. He also examines the rise of modern scientific & humanitarian treatment of the insane, notably at the hands of Philippe Pinel & Samuel Tuke. He claims these modern treatments were no less controlling than previous methods. Tuke's country retreat for the mad consisted of punishing them until they gave up their commitment to madness. Similarly, Pinel's treatment of the mad amounted to an extended aversion therapy, including such treatments as cold showers & straitjackets. This treatment amounted to repeated brutality until the pattern of judgment & punishment was internalized by the patient.

2011 film by Roman Polanski

2010 film by Olivier Treiner

The true story of pianist Władysław Szpilman's experiences in Warsaw during the Nazi occupation. When the Jews of the city find themselves forced into a ghetto, Szpilman finds work playing in a café; and when his family is deported in 1942, he stays behind, works for a while as a laborer, and eventually goes into hiding in the ruins of the war-torn city.

在浪漫氤氲的法国巴黎，年轻姑娘娜塔莉（奥黛丽·塔图 Audrey Tautou 饰）曾经拥有完美的爱情和快乐的工作，但在一天清晨，意外的车祸夺走了她丈夫的生命，也掐灭了她美好的生活轨迹。她开始沉溺新工作来试图麻痹自己，也拒绝别人的感情。然而，当一位其貌不扬的瑞士同事马库 斯（弗朗索瓦·达米昂 François Damiens 饰）来到公司后，两人竟鬼使神差地渐生情愫，生活的味觉也似在慢慢复苏。但他们的交往却并不为外界看好，面对朋友们的不解和追求者的阻挠，两人将如何小心保护这份意外的爱情美味……
电影改编自大卫·冯金诺斯的同名小说，该书曾同时入围法国四大文学奖并荣获十项文学最高殊荣，在法国畅销突破75万册。

In the sterile setting of a powerful multinational, a ruthless corporate executive and her ambitious protégée bare their claws in a vicious battle for supremacy.

Genève, de nos jours. Lise et Sam, la petite trentaine, forment un couple qui joint difficilement les deux bouts, vivant principalement des revenus de la jeune femme, hôtesse dans un club privé. Leur vie bascule le jour où Henri, veuf et notable local, tombe amoureux de Lise et la demande en mariage. En accord avec Sam, qui devra désormais se faire passer pour son frère, celle-ci accepte, voyant là l'occasion rêvée de dépouiller Henri de sa fortune. Les deux jeunes gens découvrent donc un monde a priori idyllique, mais dont ils ne soupçonnent ni les haines ni les rancœurs, à commencer par la sourde rivalité qui oppose Henri à son frère Edouard...

2003 film by François Ozon

1958 French film by Louis Malle

1997 television film directed by Jean-Daniel Verhaeghe

1999 film by François Ozon

2003 film directed by Alexandre Aja

2010 film by Guillaume Canet