Roselyne and the Lions

Roselyne and the Lions is a 1989 French film directed by Jean-Jacques Beineix, starring Isabelle Pasco and Gérard Sandoz. It tells the story of a couple of circus workers.

Plot

Thierry does odd jobs in a zoo in Marseille in exchange for lessons from Frazier the lion trainer. He meets Roselyne and they leave together to find work. They are taken on by a circus in Munich and achieve success as lion trainers when the trainer Klint loses his nerve.

Cast

Isabelle Pasco as Roselyne
Gérard Sandoz as Thierry
Gabriel Monnet as Frazier
Philippe Clévenot as Bracquard
Günter Meisner as Klint
Wolf Harnisch as Koenig
Jacques Le Carpentier as Markovitch
Carlos Pavlidis as Petit Prince
Jacques Mathou as Armani
Dumitru Furdui as Stainer
Jaroslav Vízner as Gunter
Patrice Abbou as Ben Jemoul 2
Silvio Bolino as Touron
François Boum as Ben Jemoul 1
Guillaume Briat as Matou

Release

The film was screened at the 1989 Toronto International Film Festival and the 1989 Tokyo International Film Festival.

Reception

Phil Powrie of British Film Institute commented that the film "tried to recapture what made Betty Blue so successful, with two young circus lion tamers in another doomed romance." He added, "Its shiny images seem now almost a parody of the cinéma du look, although the style echoes that of one of Beineix's mentors, Stanley Kubrick."