This past Monday, francophiles and French citizens celebrated Bastille Day. And since gossiping about President Sarkozy and his wife is no way to celebrate the holiday -- and Film Forum is no longer featuring its wonderful series on Godard -- here are a few suggestions for some French films worth renting.

The Rules of the Game (1939):
Directed by Jean Renoir, the son of the Impressionist painter Pierre-Auguste and a man regarded as one of the greatest directors of all time, the film is an incendiary satire of the self-absorption within France's bourgeoisie on the eve of World War II. The film only slowly reaches the point at which the viewer sees that the nation's elite are feuding with each other over sex while their country faces imminent war. The movie was so powerful that a man set fire to a newspaper at its premiere in an attempt to burn down the theater, while the French government (and later the occupying Nazi regime) banned the film. The Rules of the Game survived and remains both a cinematic achievement ad well as a relevant social critique.

Mr. Manley Cottingshire, capitalized commenter of yore, has submitted to us the following graphic. First time we've seen Sarkozy...on the left?