France From the Roof

Six classic movies to enjoy at poolside in Pattaya

After the success of its Rooftop German Film Festival last year, the Hotel DusitD2 Baraquda Pattaya is inviting movie fans to lounge on beach chairs by the pool every Friday and Saturday night this month with French films and cocktails.

Organised in cooperation with the World Film Festival of Bangkok and the French Embassy, the festival showcases some vintage celluloid offerings among them Jean Renoir' "French Cancan", "On Connait la Chanson" by Alain Resnais and Jacques Tati's classic "Playtime".

This Friday's movie is "French Cancan", Renoir's 1954 sentimental and largely fictionalised account of the creation of the Moulin Rouge, starring Jean Gabin as a suave nightclub manager.

Saturday's screening is 1997's "On Connait La Chanson" ("Same Old Song"), which is also a musical of sorts, with Alain Resnais playing homage to acclaimed TV scriptwriter Dennis Potter in a romantic comedy that stars Pierre Arditi, Agnes Jaoui and Andre Dussollier.

"'French Cancan' is a real classic bursting with true French-style entertainment while "On Connait La Chanson" is a unique musical film that's totally unlike anything to have ever come out of Hollywood," says Kriengsak "Victor" Silakong, the director of the World Film Festival of Bangkok.

On February 15, it's Julie Delpy's "Two Days in Paris", a romantic comedy, which she wrote, directed and in which she also stars, about a New York couple on a trip to Europe to try and salvage their relationship.

Romance is also on the bill on February 16 in Anne Fontaine's "La fille de Monaco", a breezy comedy about an attorney who goes to Monaco to defend a famous criminal but instead falls for a beautiful she-devil, who turns him into a complete wreck.

Juliette Binoche and Olivier Martinez are the stars of Jean-Paul Rappeneau's "Le hussard sur le toit" ("The horseman on the roof") showing on February 22. Set in 1832 during a cholera epidemic that has laid waste to Provence, a young officer gallantly tries to help a woman to find her husband.

The festival closes on February 23 with 1967's "Playtime" by Jacques Tati, which continues the comical adventures of Tati's Monsieur Hulot. "Playtime" has as its setting an ultra-modern Paris where familiar landmarks appear only as fleeting reflections in the new buildings of glass and steel. Alternating between Hulot and a group of American tourists, Tati makes the point that all new capitals look exactly the same.



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• The Pattaya French Film Festival runs on Friday and Saturday nights until February 23.
• Films are in French with English subtitles unless otherwise stated. Screenings start at 8 and there is no admission fee.
• For more information or reservations, call (038) 769 999 or e-mail d2pa@dusit.com.