In his interview on Facet Video's DVD of Diary of a Suicide (Le journal d'un suicidé), Serbian director Stanislav Stanojevic mentions a French arts body that dispenses funds for creative filmmaking, and remarks that Luis Buñuel received more money than he did! This early 70s art film depends for its reputation on a quote by François Truffaut, who may have not seen the film, but had high praise for its screenplay.
Diary of a Suicide plays very much like a brief episode in a Buñuel film, but padded to feature length and communicating little beyond a vague nihilism. Busy actor Sami Frey is a handsome young man on a pleasure cruise on the east coast of Spain. He flirts with an attractive fellow passenger (Delphine Seyrig). Neither is given a name. No matter how much the man coaxes, the woman refuses to remove her sunglasses. They visit a church in Barcelona but mostly talk on board ship while watching seagulls.
The smiling woman encourages the young man to entertain her with a beautiful story. He responds with several morbid, interlinked anecdotes. A man (Bernard Haller) stands before a mirror, unable to make himself smile. Another man faces a firing squad. Anarchist lovers (Marie-France Pisier & Roland Bertin) fail to carry out an assassination. Wounded, she wants to die but is given a life sentence. Her jailer (Sacha Pitoëff) cannot sleep because he was brain-damaged in a war. That infirmity allows him to watch his prisoner around the clock. The jailer explains that his mind holds only one memory, of a beautiful woman he once knew. Should he forget her as well, the jailer reasons, his life will no longer have a purpose.
The female cruise passenger seems pleased by the young man's efforts to seduce her, but she has withheld a wicked surprise.
Unfortunately, Diary of a Suicide is a weak and uninvolving slice of mannered filmmaking. Scenes with the two main actors seem arbitrary and haphazard. Many of their encounters are staged against blank walls, and some dialogue scenes avoid showing lips, as in the cheapest of post-dubbed low-budget productions. Except for a few color inserts, all of the shipboard scenes are in B&W. Some of the young man's stories are tinted in various hues. The compositions are rarely framed wider than a medium shot, producing a feeling of claustrophobia.
With its nameless lovers and stories within stories, director Stanojevic's puzzle picture is more than a little reminiscent of Alan Resnais' Last Year at Marienbad, minus that film's elegance and compelling dreamlike surface. Little tension develops between the shipboard reality and the man's bizarre stories. A melancholy singer performing aboard the ship appears to represent the mystery woman of the jailer's tale. The singer's actor-husband dresses similarly to the jailer, and carries out the jailer's suicide as part of his act. With the exception of Sacha Pitoëff's morose jailer, none of the story characters connect with the audience. The gaunt, sad jailer truly looks like a man haunted by his loss of memory.
Stanislav Stanojevic's main coup for his first film is the gathering of an impressive cast. He's secured the services of Seyrig and Pitoëff, two of the stars of Last Year at Marienbad. Sami Frey and Marie-France Pisier have appeared in films by Agnès Varda, Georges Franju, William Klein, Jean-Luc Godard, H.G. Clouzot, François Truffaut, Alain Robbe-Grillet, Luis Buñuel and Jacques Rivette.
Director Stanojevic made two more features blending political themes with aspects of the fantastic. 1979's Subversion is about a country ruled by a paralyzed, blind president and his corrupt daughter. Diary of a Suicide has images of soldiers used as cannon fodder and anarchists dedicated to an assassination, but makes no real political statement. Its final twist is indeed a surprise, but an almost pointless one.
Facets Video's DVD of Diary of a Suicide is an acceptable flat transfer with English subtitles. For an extra we're given a lengthy video interview with the director. Stanojevic doesn't discuss Diary at length, preferring to give an unfocused talk about film funding and filmmaking in general.

パリのアパルトマンの前。美しい少女アリーズがなぜかゴミ箱をあさっている。そして彼女がその中から一枚の紙を探し出した途端、それを奪って走り去った青年がいた。哲学者ジャン・ソル・パルトのマニアック・ファンの文学青年シックである。慌てた彼女も負けずに、彼を追っかけた。その紙切れはジャン・ソル・パルトの書き損じの原稿だったのだ……。1940年代のパリで“サン・ジェルマン・デ・プレのプリンス”と呼ばれた、ボリス・ヴィアンの小説を基にして撮られた青春映画。

1965 film by Robert Hossein

Husband and wife Ludovic and Karine, and Ludovic's sixteen year old daughter Nelsa lead a relatively carefree life. Motorcycle riding Ludovic, a dance instructor, changes jobs every three years to keep himself interested in whatever he's doing. Ludovic recently remarried, this time to landscape designer Karine, a younger, beautiful woman who regardless is insecure due to her immaturity. Since she doesn't know how to handle that insecurity, Ludovic has placed Karine in various forms of therapy to help her with her life. Nelsa can see the cruelties that life has to offer, and although she doesn't like them, tries to embrace them to expose them for what they are. Ludovic wants to give everybody in his life, including Karine and Nelsa, as much freedom as they need to be happy. Husband and wife Pascal and Marthe and their adolescent son Eric lead a typical middle class life. Pharmaceutical salesman Pascal likes to think of himself as important to bolster his own sense of masculinity, which has led to him being a serial philanderer. Secretary Marthe knows about Pascal's unfaithfulness deep in her heart. The two couples meet when Ludovic's Uncle Jacques marries Marthe's feisty mother. At the wedding reception, Pascal and Karine head off to have a sexual dalliance. Both Ludovic and Marthe know what Pascal and Karine did, Pascal later admitting as much to Marthe. Although Ludovic and Marthe's friendship starts off solely about their respective cheating spouses, it becomes something more. After thinking about the situation over time, Ludovic and Marthe decide to take their relationship into the sexual realm. As time goes on, Ludovic and Marthe become more and more open about their affair, not only to Pascal and Karine, but to their entire combined extended family. Ludovic, Marthe, Pascal and Karine have to decide what to do about what is happening between Ludovic and Marthe, especially as they are now all family who see each other often at family functions.

1999 film by Jean-Philippe Toussaint

一个美国交换生小组来到巴黎学习一年的语言和文化。这部电影描绘了学生和导师之间的各种互动，包括他们所在学院的漂亮女院长。

故事发生在1936年希特勒统治下的德国。当年，就是在这个法西斯头子的淫威下，在德国柏林举办了世界奥林匹克运动会。法国拳击队教练乔治·加瓦利耶虽然痛恨德国法西斯，知道希特勒妄图利用奥运会的国际影响来为法西斯政权作宣传，但他不得不率领自己的队伍到柏林去参加拳击比赛。法国运动员乘坐由巴黎开往柏林的列车，一路上大家满怀必胜信心。加瓦利耶曾经是一个出色的拳击运动员，外号“王中王”。他本人曾经参加过第一次世界大战，担任过法国战斗机飞行员，击落过德军飞机，在法国名气很大。正是在这次大战中，他与一名德国空军军官甘特在空中交手，双方不分胜负。不打不相识。经过从空中到地面的较量，他们相互之间有了好感，成了好朋友。当时，他们都只有２５岁。世事变迁，但二人仍保持着友谊。在奥运会上他们又一次相遇了。在比赛中，甘特给加瓦利耶以大力支持，使法国拳击队赢得社会的广泛关注。不巧，一个犹太孩子卡尔在偶然的机会中出现了。由于他的家庭遭到德国法西斯的迫害，父亲的书店被查封捣毁，家人也不知去向。加瓦利耶和卡尔相遇，非常同情孩子的遭遇。为了解救卡尔一家，加瓦利耶在甘特的帮助下，与纳粹分子进行了错综复杂的周旋，经历了一次又一次惊险。最后，英勇无畏的加瓦利耶终于战胜了敌人，把卡尔一家护送出国境。

Dodo, a French man living in Florida, has one goal in life: Get by without working. Difficult to implement without the help of some women. Betty is one of them, and a gypsy's bride, who suddenly disappears, changing Dodo's life.