If you enjoy mysteries with a comic turn, you might like this one, Playing Dead or Je Fais le Mort, which includes the added pleasures of polishing your French and seeing the best of beautiful Alps resort Megeve.

(Source: myfrenchfilmfestival.com)

Jean-Paul Salome directs and French star Francois Damiens plays the out-of-work actor who consents to play the corpse in a crime reconstruction.(Source: purebreak.com)

He is very funny as we discovered in the 2011 film La Delicatesse with Audrey Tatou. He is mid-50s handsome with thinning hair (men take note) and is perfectly willing to act like an idiot which is, in my opinion, the first prerequisite to comedy.

(Source: rendezvouswithfrenchcinema.com)

Unfortunately (for an actor) named Jean Renault, which sounds exactly like major star Jean Reno, he immediately tangles with the female detective played by Geraldine Nakache and well, you can guess where this leads.

Writer-director Salome, known for the Adventures of Arsene Lupin, Female Agents, and Belphégor – Le fantôme du Louvre, has a light hand with this genre, of which I am a fan. Think the black bird (Maltese Falcon) and innumerable Hitchcock films.

(Source: gonemovies.com)

One great thing about the Rendez-Vous series is that it gives a showing to films that might otherwise not make it even to New York. It may surface here, however, especially at art houses that like French movies or at other festivals. Also, it’s worth while keeping an eye out for more Salome movies; I know I will.