Films from the North West of France

Now why would I want to select films from this particular region of France and not Paris? Mainly because I just came back from a trip and spent 10 wonderful days exploring Nantes, The Loire Valley and Brittany. So I thought I'd do this post about movies that were filmed in those areas.

It turns out that Jacques Demy is from Nantes (the 5th largest city in France) and has filmed some of his movies there, in particular, Lola. He used the restaurant La Cigale as a setting for the film. We were lucky enough to have dinner in this spectacular restaurant that is just oozing art nouveau:

Watch for it in this trailer from the film - it's in the scenes where Lola and the girls are dancing with the sailors:
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Another Demy film that uses a similar French location is Umbrellas of Cherbourg. I didn't get to Cherbourg on my trip. Maybe next time. Here are scenes from one of my favorite films - not so much for the singing which can be a little off-putting for some people, but for the glorious color of each shot:





Then we have the film Le Havre. This one is not by Demy but it was filmed also in the North of France, Le Havre. The location for this film is a little grittier than the other two, but it's a wonderful film.  I recommend it highly:

These three films aren't particularly cimilar in plot. But they were all shot in a cimilar region of France. What better reason to tie them together along with being able to mention my trip.

Let's see, where will my next trip be? Maybe Italy where we can explore all the locations of Fellini.
That would be another dream trip.