French Film Reviews: Cycle of Time (C’était mieux demain) + The French Job (Les Règles de l’art)
AFFF 3 March - 22 April — The Alliance Française Film Festival tours Australia in 2026.
Cycle of Time (C’était mieux demain)
I found this a thoroughly enjoyable film. Even though I believe its target audience is older men pining for life as it was in the 1950s, where men go out to work, and women are trained to be live-in housemaids and cooks, aka wives.
The film begins with upbeat music and bright colours, showing us a happy French family living in 1958, with parents Michel and Helene understanding their roles in life. Michel is a loans officer with a bank, and Helene serves his and their two children’s every household need.
Things change when Helene wins a washing machine – yay, gone the drudgery of hand washing. But Michel wants to sell it and buy a tv.
As they are arguing in the laundry, water and electricity somehow mix, and their electrocution sends them off into the future to 2025. Waking up to see a faster world with not only new model cars and e-scooters, but with technology that inexplicably responds to voice commands, they are understandably confused.
To pile on that confusion, Helene is now a successful bank manager, and Michel is a househusband. Initially, both are horrified at their new roles in society, but Helene gradually comes to appreciate her independence – having her own bank account without having to ask for money, and the reversal of roles, where Michel is the one to bring her drinks and make dinner for the family. He (understandably) becomes depressed with all the housework and servitude. There’s a lot of comedy in how they both come to grips with it all.
The acting is first class, with Didier Bourdon as Michel and Elsa Zylberstein as Helene. This is a light-hearted, fun film with a smidge of drama thrown in.
The French Job (Les Règles de l’art)
The French Job is inspired by a true unsolved art heist, and imagines how the crime panned out. In 2010, five paintings were stolen from the Musée d’Art Moderne de Paris - a Matisse, a Picasso, a Braque, and a Modigliani - worth over 100 million euros. The paintings have never been recovered.
The central character is hapless Yonathan (Melvil Poupaud), a luxury watch repairer who gets drawn into the chaos of crime.
It’s an interesting story, but plods along with unsympathetic characters, and not in the same class as last year’s French Film Festival offering, The Stolen Painting.
Having said that, plenty of other people have enjoyed this film, praising its entertainment value, offbeat execution, and Ocean’s 11 feel.
Have you seen these French films yet?
The Alliance Française Film Festival tours Australia: 3 March-22 April 2026.
Program & tickets→
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Introducing Contributor Cynthia Karena
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