(LES NUITS DE LA PLEINE LUNE, Eric Rohmer, France 1984, 102 min., French/subtitles)

The marvelous and delicately heartbreaking fourth entry in director Rohmer’s “Comedies and Proverbs” series centers on a heroine (Pascale Ogier) who lives with a lover in the suburbs of Paris. When she takes a small apartment in town as a way of asserting her freedom, she upsets the delicate equilibrium that has provided her with a measure of happiness.

(KÖRKARLEN, Victor Sjöström, Sweden 1921, 90 min.)

One of the towering achievements of silent cinema, director Sjöström’s (The Wind, He Who Gets Slapped) allegory is based on a Swedish legend that the last person to die each year must drive the chariot that collects the dead. When an inebriated brawler dies at midnight on New Year’s Eve, he is given the chance to review and correct his life’s errors. Shot entirely on elaborate studio sets, The Phantom Chariot employs a complex and innovative flashback structure and a haunting, poetic style of double exposures and superimpositions that blend with the universality of its theme. Live piano by Philip C. Carli.

(Jacques Tati, France 1958, 116 min.)

Monsieur Hulot, Tati’s blundering comic creation, returns in his second vehicle, an Oscar®-winner for Best Foreign Film. A sincere pragmatist, Hulot visits his sister’s ultra-contemporary home and grapples uproariously with all its modern “conveniences.” An enduring satire on technological gadgetry, Tati reminds us that “all serious things should be smiled out of existence and … funny things are ultimately matters for serious thought.”—Richard W. Nason, The New York Times.

(L’ARBRE, LE MAIRE ET LA MEDIATHEQUE, Eric Rohmer, France 1993, 105 min., French/subtitles)

Rohmer’s pointed comedy stars Pascal Gregory as the Socialist mayor of a small French village who secures government funding to build a showy media arts center on a picturesque, pastoral patch of land, something the local schoolmaster (Fabrice Luchini) and his pre-teen daughter won’t abide. Never released in America, don’t miss this rare opportunity to see one of Rohmer’s most personal movies.

(Michael House, UK 2009, 60 min.)

9 p.m. Short Films by Jacques Tati (70 min.)

Through film clips and interviews with experts, The Magnificent Tati reveals the life and times of the brilliant comic filmmaker Jacques Tati. Then, three rare short films, all starring and scripted by the French funnyman: In SOIGNE TON GAUCHE (René Clement, France 1936, 20 min., French w/subtitles), Tati appears as a farmer who unfortunately realizes his dream of becoming a boxer; in SCHOOL FOR POSTMEN (L’ÉCOLE DES FACTEURS, Jacques Tati, France 1947, 20 min., French w/subtitles), a dry-run for Jour de Fete, in which Tati plays a letter carrier who aspires to be as fast as American mailmen; and EVENING CLASSES (COURS DE SOIR, Nicolas Ribowski, France 1967, 30 min., French w/subtitles), in which Tati displays his amazing talents for pantomime for a group of unenthusiastic students.