Amazon.com

Beautiful young French people romp on an idyllic country estate in Tender Cousins. The story, set in 1939, centers around Julien, a young adolescent boy in love with his cousin Julia, who is in love with the foppish Charles, who is engaged to be married to Julien's older sister Claire, who... you get the idea. Julien and Julia's little sister Poune, who seems to know what everyone is up to, engage in pranks; a visiting actress puts on a theatrical revue; everyone pursues the new maid; a scientist believes he has isolated the soul, which he captures in balloons; and, when war against Germany is declared, the adult men must go off to war, giving the otherwise lyrical story a sad undercurrent. Flashes of wit, bits of silliness, and a good dose of nudity make Tender Cousins pretty much the definition of its brand of French sex comedy. --Bret Fetzer ... Read more

Reviews (9)

Tender Cousins
Unless you are a David Hamilton collector, I would suggest you buy another movie. The amount and duration of early teen nudity was very disappointing. While there are a few adult nude scenes (also short in duration), teen and pre-teen nudity is seriously lacking. For a brief moment you get to see one nude teen (full frontal nudity) lying in the grass outside. Later you get to see her bathing with only a slight glimpse of pubic hair. The prettiest and youngest girl in this movie you don't get to see nude at all. Such a disappointment for a David Hamilton film. If you're looking for movies with good story lines, good acting and pre-teen or child nudity look at "Pretty Baby", "Tom and Lola" and "The Annunciation".

I hope this review provides potential buyers with information that other reviewers seem to overlook. While many of these movies have great acting and solid story lines, what many people are interested in is nudity, so to that end all GateKeeper reviews will focus on providing that information.

Interesting for David Hamilton Fans
David Hamilton, who began as a fashion photographer, made his considerable reputation from a large number of glossy and beautifully executed coffee-table-sized photobooks of undraped adolescent girls, soft-focused, highly romanticized, and decorous almost to the point of being chaste. In 1977 he began making motion pictures with the same general theme as his books. He made five altogether: "Bilitis" (1977), "Laura" (1979), "Tendres Cousines" (1980), "Premiers Désirs" (1983), and "A Summer in Saint-Tropez" (1984). Four of these are available on VHS. The fifth, "Premiers Désirs," notable for featuring the 18-year-old Emmanuelle Béart in a minor role, has never been released in the US.

Unfortunately, Hamilton, while brilliant at photographic composition and with a keen eye for the sensuous, fails as a motion-picture director. Apart from the images, his films are not very interesting. The scripts are dull and predictable, and the mostly wooden dramatic performances of his adolescent and adult stars are less than praiseworthy. If you are a David Hamilton fan and collector as I am, you will not be able to pass up the opportunity to have any of his films on VHS or, better still, DVD. Otherwise, rent before you buy.

A Boy's Dream Summer-done by David Hamilton
A teenage boy is left on a farm during the war when all the men have gone. There are females of every age who are desiring a male's company-any male. The boy finds himself much desired. However, he has a crush on an older teen girl who doesn't seem to like him too much. He has difficulty dealing with this, and all the other attention that comes this way. Since this is a David Hamilton work, there is nudity, but not as much sensuality as his other movies.

Dubbed Version
This VHS version is dubbed into english, and the quality of the recording is not the best. I would recommend getting Tender Cousins instead (same film but in french with english subtitles).

I first saw the french version of this film on cable when I was 15. I was glued to the set - The beautiful young ladies, fantastic cinematography, and wonderful scenery from the french countryside in 1939.

The plot is a little thin, namely that Julien, a young maturing lad has just returned home at the family farm, and he starts discovering the ladies, or more appropriately that they start discovering him. However his heart desires his beautiful cousin, and alas she doesn't seem too interested in him, at least not at first.

There is quite a bit of nudity in this film, but it is tasteful, albeit often gratuitous. I definitely would give the film 5 of 5 stars, but I gave it 4 because the dubbed voices aren't the best - you'd think that with a french title it would have been in french, but it's dubbed in english.

Also, female viewers will probably think the film is stupid because of the gratuitous nudity, whereas most heterosexual men will probably appreciate the film as an art form.

Hamilton Fans will Enjoy
Yes, it is kind of slow and a bit 'corny' in parts but the topic and the videography are sure to please. I wish he'd put this title on DVD. For those with DVD players, I recommend 'Rituals of Summer' DVD available thru Amazon. ... Read more

Amazon.com

This brilliant film manages to reinterpret the story of Victor Hugo'sclassic novel, critique it, and investigate the nature of art and life on top ofthat--all in three hours that zip past, fueled by the dynamic performance ofFrench icon Jean-Paul Belmondo (Breathless, Le Doulos). In 1900,Henri Fortin (Belmondo) is wrongfully imprisoned for murder; his loyal wife isforced into menial labor and prostitution; then in the beginning of World WarII, Fortin's son (Belmondo again) helps a Jewish family elude the Nazis, settingin motion his own imprisonment, escape, and adventures as a criminal. Not onlyis that just the first half of the movie, there are also the story lines of thehusband, wife, and daughter of the Jewish family, who each have their ownstruggles. The conclusion is joyous and heartbreaking. Director Claude Lelouch(A Man and a Woman) handles the entire movie with supreme skill, humor,and compassion. --Bret Fetzer ... Read more

Reviews (24)

A grand romantic gesture
Claude Lelouch's audacious and exciting epic is neither a film version of the long-running musical nor a traditional adaptation of Victor Hugo's classic novel. Rather, it is a sweeping and sensationally passionate drama that succeeds brilliantly on its own merits as a celebration of storytelling (and, of course, moviemaking) as inspiration and illumination. A magnificently ravaged Jean-Paul Belmondo plays Henri Fortin, an ordinary man whose life spans an extraordinary period in French history: Born at the turn of the century, he lives long enough to endure the cruelties of the Nazi occupation. Rootless and illiterate, he is introduced to "Les Miserables" at an early age -- in a silent movie! -- and embraces Jean Valjean as his hero, mentor and alter ego. So much so, in fact, that Henri agrees to help a Jewish family escape from Paris, setting into motion a fateful series of betrayals, reconciliations, reversals of fortune and triumphs of the spirit. There are images in "Les Miserables" that are as hauntingly beautiful as any in the history of cinema. And there are entire sequences that are nothing short of astonishing. Lelouch is one of the few contemporary filmmakers who remains capable of the grand romantic gestures that made many of us fall in love with movies in the first place.

One of the greatest films ever made.
This is one of the greatest films ever made. Mark my words. History will bear me out. Acclaimed French filmmaker Claude Lelouch, whose classic examinations of intimate emotions include the Oscar-nominated "A Man and A Woman," paints a sweeping portrait of the human condition in his epic drama "Les Miserables," a twentieth-century tale inspired by the nineteenth-century masterpiece of French writer Victor Hugo. Lelouch's "Les Miserables" focuses on two French families who struggle, hope, suffer and ultimately find love and friendship in the face of nearly insurmountable odds.

The film stars international acting legend Jean-Paul Belmondo as Henri Fortin, a humble man whose life takes him through some of the most important events of contemporary times. As he alternately rises to heroism and sinks to criminal desperation, Fortin's existence mirrors the struggle between good and evil that illuminates Victor Hugo's character, Jean Valjean.

When Fortin meets and befriends the wealthy, intellectual Ziman family (Michel Boujenah, Alessandra Martines and Salome) who are fleeing French and German Nazi persecution of the Jews, he builds an unusual friendship with the brilliant but desperate trio. And for the first time, he learns the story of Jean Valjean and comes to see himself as a real-life extension of Hugo's protagonist.

The Zimans read Les Miserables to the illiterate Fortin as he smuggles them across the country, and by the time their momentous journey is finally complete, they have all come to realize their roles in the parallel epics of literature and life.

With a stellar cast that includes Annie Giradot, Philippe Leotard and Clementine Celarie, Claude Lelouch incorporates vignettes from Fortin's past, from the lives of Fortin's and Lelouch's own parents and from Hugo's novel into the saga, spanning generations and delineating his-and Fortin's-belief that, in the words of Willa Cather, "there are only two or three stories in the world and we must all live them over and over."

"Les Miserables," written, produced and directed by Claude Lelouch, and freely adapted from the novel by Victor Hugo, begins at the start of the twentieth century, with a glittering New Year's celebration that soon leads to a man's suicide. Before we know it, another man-the lowly Fortin-is convicted of murder and serving time in a cruel prison.

The prison scenes were filmed at Fort Joux, a real jail hundreds of years old. The forbidding setting brought a sense of gravity to all of the actors and an air of timelessness to the story of man's eternal suffering on Earth.

Meanwhile, Fortin's adoring wife and young son await his release and try their best to survive until they are re-united. However, it is not to be. Fortin suffers in jail and dies, and his wife is turned to prostitution by the venal innkeepers who employ her. The young Henri lives a miserable existence, swallowed by sorrow, until he is taught to box.

After Henri Fortin leaves the inn and becomes a young soldier, the viewer encounters him about to begin a boxing match in an open hospital courtyard. He is surrounded by hundreds of wounded World War I soldiers; the year is 1918 and snow is falling heavily, giving the scene a hallucinatory air. Before the fight can begin, the end of the war is announced, and the soldiers begin joyously chanting "Fortin, Fortin!"

Scene after scene of spectacle and personal revelation follow, spanning decades and moving from elegant drawing rooms to wartime prisons to expansive outdoor landscapes. As the Nazi occupation of France begins to cast its shadow over the country, town after town and peaceful countrysides as well are transformed into terrifying traps for the Zimans and the thousands of other French Jewish families. The Zimans travel by train, by truck and by car, hiding in small towns and under floorboards, far from their beautiful home and fearing death every minute.

As they flee one house, merely steps ahead of their pursuers, they find themselves in the hands of Henri Fortin, and at the beginning of a friendship that is as strong as it is unlikely. Throughout the enormous events that follow for all of them, the focus remains on the personal fortunes, emotions and actions of the people who so fascinated Lelouch and his creative predecessor, Victor Hugo.

Many years after his sad childhood, Fortin returns to the Guillaumes' inn as an adult, accompanied by three criminal accomplices, known as Addition, Blame and Bonnard (Ticky Holgado, Antoine Dulery and Jacques Bonnot). Fortin is pained by the memories of the treatment that sent his mother to her death, and determined to confront the brutal innkeepers who were responsible. But once he arrives he learns that the Guillaumes have died and their son and grandson, a much kinder duo, now run the inn.

After spending the night at the inn, Fortin's group awakes to discover Allied ships lining the horizon. Though they are thrilled by this development, their happiness quickly turns to terror as they find themselves the target of a vicious shelling. Fortin once again demonstrates heroism in, ironically, defending the inn.

This is a film made by an artist at the zenith of his powers. The breadth and scope of this film reaches a level very rarely seen, and is usually accomplished by a director who has reached the age where his life's experiences, knowledge of the artistry of cinema and imaginative fortitude all mesh to create an act of pure magic. Think of Ingmar Bergman's Fanny & Alexander, Akira Kurasawa's Kagemusha, or Laurence Olivier's King Lear. The way every scene, character, episode, even the music is integrated is absolutely flawless. It is equal parts funny, despairing, poignant, courageous, thoroughly engrossing, beautifully photographed, supremely edited, perfectly paced. The casting of Jean-Paul Belmondo, with his hounddog face, as Jean Valjean is a stroke of genius because he is so genuinely able to show confusion, delight, joy, understanding, patience, anger, practically EVERY human emotion there is, which Hugo used and Lelouch utilizes, so brilliantly. And the beautiful French actress Alessandra Martines, who has not done as much acting in her life as she has dancing, gets the honor of embodying the film's climax, which is one of the most satisfying emotional conclusions I've ever seen.

Beautifully Artistic Film
Where to begin?

The piano music is so dramatic and appealing to the situations. Is the piece the German fellow plays a Mahler composition? Sounds like Mahler. Email me if you know! :)

The recurring themes might be hard to pick up on the first time you view the film...re-watching is greatly recommended.

The plight of La Resistance as well as the Jews is artistically overlapping in betrayal, greed, and especially rage.

Most importantly, for me, is the urge to simply cry. The pathos in this film are so common and low that anyone could empathize with the characters. But, in their misery, they lived a life of perpetual memory making. We should be so lucky to have a such a meaningful existence as the ones who have died and fought to keep their lineage alive.

dissapointed
However excellent Liam Neeson's version is, I insist that I asked for the one with Jean Paul Belmondo, the French one. I hate it when I have no choice over things. I was given the same treatment with 'Around the World in 80 Days.' I asked for D.Niven's version, and I was sent a cartoon one(!)

The Greatest Movie in history
I loved the movie. It is one of the best movie ever made. It potrays a parallel with les miserables and it shows history in World War 2. One of the best movies. ... Read more

Reviews (18)

Romuald et juliette
This beautifullly funny film was originally titled Romuald et Juliette which gave a much better impression of the twists and turns in store for the lucky watcher than Mama, there's a man in your bed. Daniel Auteuil gives a fantastic performance as the self absorbed company president too important to see what's going on around him, and in the comedy of errors that follows he sees, perhaps for the first time, love beauty and happiness. My favourite all time romance film, I smile the whole way through.

One of my newest favorite films!
A funny film! I really love the leads in this film. Daniel Auteuil is great, as always! He's got a great body of work and this comedy doesn't taint but adds to the shine of his film career!

Even though the film is a comedy, there is a lot to say about the social issues embedded in the story. Class, race, crime and gender relations all play an important part in the film.

This film should not be remade in any language. It should stay intact the way it is and seen by everyone!

The opposite of 'Jungle Fever'
Although the translated title of this film may not convince you to watch it, let me assure you that you should. First, the bad: sometimes the story is less than believable and doesn't flow the way it could have. However, even with these problems this movie is well worth watching--more so than most.

Mama, There's a Man in Your Bed is sweet without striving to be, and entertaining without sinking into the depths of typical Hollywood depravity. Best of all, it addresses the interracial relationship which is the center of the film without dramatizing it or presenting it as nothing more than a desire for exoticism. Though one could successfully argue that the script glosses over the potentially problematic aspects of such a relationship, it is nevertheless refreshing to watch a film about an interracial couple where race is not the main theme.

The unexpected heroine and the yuppie
In Finland this was named: "Mama, there's a white man in your bed!" as one of Juliette's children says in the movie. A nice twist that makes you wonder, what the movie is about.

I saw this on TV and was later very happy to find the video about these unexpected lovers, Romuald and Juliette. Romuald is a real yuppie, a director of Blanlait-company that makes yoghurt and is aiming to conquer new international markets. Juliette is an African cleaning-woman in the same company - and when she moves around unseen by 'important people' and empties the waste baskets, she stumbles on the office plots, which escape the director entirely, as he is being busy and powerful. And then one day everything seems to go wrong and Romuald works late to find out, what really happened...

Juliette comes in and suddenly asks, why he doesn't contact one of his employees. "Because he's in Lyon", Romuald answers politely but arrogantly. "People aren't always where you think they are", Juliette says. She asks him to call the man at his home in Paris and dictate to the answering machine: "I know everything, it has all come out" and in less than 15 minutes the man would come. And he should also call home, because her wife isn't there. And she leaves - and finally he calls. Juliette was right...

So starts this coalition: Romuald asks Juliette about everything, about his own secretary, money laundering, poisoning at the factory and so on - and lives in the run down apartement of Juliette and her children - all with different fathers. He hides from problems and acts like a polite but selfish hotel guest. Until he leaves to take back his place in the Blanlait company and his family. And realizes, he's in love with Juliette - who in turn has had enough of him. Romuald must win her over.

Daniel Auteuil (Romuald) is really charming in this movie, his haircut is by the way very becoming. He doesn't look this good in most of his movies. And Firmine Richard is delightful - as are the children. I've seen this over and over again, it is a really nice movie, it believes in people and goodness though shows people as flawed as they are - cheating wives and husbands, selfish children and plotting business men. If you're down and you can't think of a sure pick-me-up, this is it.

I fell in love
I fell in love watching this film with a girl, and now she's my wife! Magnifique, but let's have the original name back. And for that matter, let's get some reprints of the video, or even better, a release on DVD, as we can't find a new copy anywhere!
one of the funniest most unknown feel-good films out there! ... Read more

Reviews (9)

Tender Cousins
Unless you are a David Hamilton collector, I would suggest you buy another movie. The amount and duration of early teen nudity was very disappointing. While there are a few adult nude scenes (also short in duration), teen and pre-teen nudity is seriously lacking. For a brief moment you get to see one nude teen (full frontal nudity) lying in the grass outside. Later you get to see her bathing with only a slight glimpse of pubic hair. The prettiest and youngest girl in this movie you don't get to see nude at all. Such a disappointment for a David Hamilton film. If you're looking for movies with good story lines, good acting and pre-teen or child nudity look at "Pretty Baby", "Tom and Lola" and "The Annunciation".

I hope this review provides potential buyers with information that other reviewers seem to overlook. While many of these movies have great acting and solid story lines, what many people are interested in is nudity, so to that end all GateKeeper reviews will focus on providing that information.

Interesting for David Hamilton Fans
David Hamilton, who began as a fashion photographer, made his considerable reputation from a large number of glossy and beautifully executed coffee-table-sized photobooks of undraped adolescent girls, soft-focused, highly romanticized, and decorous almost to the point of being chaste. In 1977 he began making motion pictures with the same general theme as his books. He made five altogether: "Bilitis" (1977), "Laura" (1979), "Tendres Cousines" (1980), "Premiers Désirs" (1983), and "A Summer in Saint-Tropez" (1984). Four of these are available on VHS. The fifth, "Premiers Désirs," notable for featuring the 18-year-old Emmanuelle Béart in a minor role, has never been released in the US.

Unfortunately, Hamilton, while brilliant at photographic composition and with a keen eye for the sensuous, fails as a motion-picture director. Apart from the images, his films are not very interesting. The scripts are dull and predictable, and the mostly wooden dramatic performances of his adolescent and adult stars are less than praiseworthy. If you are a David Hamilton fan and collector as I am, you will not be able to pass up the opportunity to have any of his films on VHS or, better still, DVD. Otherwise, rent before you buy.

A Boy's Dream Summer-done by David Hamilton
A teenage boy is left on a farm during the war when all the men have gone. There are females of every age who are desiring a male's company-any male. The boy finds himself much desired. However, he has a crush on an older teen girl who doesn't seem to like him too much. He has difficulty dealing with this, and all the other attention that comes this way. Since this is a David Hamilton work, there is nudity, but not as much sensuality as his other movies.

Dubbed Version
This VHS version is dubbed into english, and the quality of the recording is not the best. I would recommend getting Tender Cousins instead (same film but in french with english subtitles).

I first saw the french version of this film on cable when I was 15. I was glued to the set - The beautiful young ladies, fantastic cinematography, and wonderful scenery from the french countryside in 1939.

The plot is a little thin, namely that Julien, a young maturing lad has just returned home at the family farm, and he starts discovering the ladies, or more appropriately that they start discovering him. However his heart desires his beautiful cousin, and alas she doesn't seem too interested in him, at least not at first.

There is quite a bit of nudity in this film, but it is tasteful, albeit often gratuitous. I definitely would give the film 5 of 5 stars, but I gave it 4 because the dubbed voices aren't the best - you'd think that with a french title it would have been in french, but it's dubbed in english.

Also, female viewers will probably think the film is stupid because of the gratuitous nudity, whereas most heterosexual men will probably appreciate the film as an art form.

Hamilton Fans will Enjoy
Yes, it is kind of slow and a bit 'corny' in parts but the topic and the videography are sure to please. I wish he'd put this title on DVD. For those with DVD players, I recommend 'Rituals of Summer' DVD available thru Amazon. ... Read more

Description

Named one of People Mag's "Most Beautiful People", Charlotte Rampling gives one of her most acclaimed performances in Francois Ozon's mesmerizing tale of loss and grief.For many years, Marie and Jean have happily spent their vacations together at their country house.One day at the beach, Marie naps in the sand while Jean goes for a swim.When she awakens, he is gone.Did he drown? Did he run off? Distraught, Marie notified the authorities but after an extensive search, no body is found. ... Read more

Reviews (11)

Never Underestimate The Power Of Denial...
a married couple of 25 years goes on a vacation. one day at the beach, the husband decides to go for a swim.

only he doesn't return.

and so begins " under the sand, " a tale about a woman who spends the the length of the movie wondering if he is dead or alive. she also tries to deal with her grief. she wonders if she was the reason for his dissapearance. marie, played by charlotte rampling, gives a riveting performance of a woman who cloaks herself in denial to the point that she keeps her husband alive, even as the signs become obvious that he is dead.

francois ozon's narrative is straightforward, though with the prescence of bruno cremer as jean, marie's late husband, in later scenes, one might suspect the narrative is nonlinear,bringing anxiety and tension to the story.

marie does her best to move on. even becoming involved with another man but her husband still haunts her-literally. one scene shows her with her lover as her late husband watches on, giving it an eerie feeling.

this film is a perfect testimony about the hold a person can have on another, even when they are no longer around...

A Rampling classic
Under The Sun is Ozon's most ambitious and sublime film to date. It manages to transcend its echoes of Bunuel, Antonioni, and Polanski due in large part to a mesmerizing performance by Charlotte Rampling. In films as varied as Night Porter, Stardust Memories and The Verdict, Rampling has brought an enigmatic brand of eroticism that lingers in the mind for ages. Sure, like her fans, Rampling is older and wiser, but she is still beautiful and in the right role, she never delivers a false note. In Ozon's film, she gets just the right balance of neurosis, dread, madness, and longing. This is one of the more convincing and truthful films about sex, death, and the daily ravages of time and memory in a very long time. The great European art film is not dead, just somewhat reduced in numbers, but I am happy to report Under The Sand is one of those films.

Truly amazing...
Superb acting. Charlotte Rampling is amazing as always. Very realistic portraying of people unable to accept reality of the loss... Emotional and realistic, this movie will make you think about it for days after.

Mesmerizing
Marie (Charlotte Rampling) and her husband, Jean arrive at their summer home for their annual holiday. As they re-open the house and prepare meals, they move about their tasks almost wordlessly. Their relationship is clearly strong, and there is an atmosphere of contentment. They obviously love each other and revel in each other's company.

The next day, they go to the beach. After massaging oil onto Marie's back, Jean tells his wife he is going for a swim. She sleepily adds that she will take a nap, and she does.

Jean never returns, and his body is not found. Marie returns to her teaching job in the city.

Marie cannot accept the idea that her husband may be dead, so she doesn't. She has conversations with him, rushes home to be with him, and even shyly admits that she may date Vincent, a man her friends think would be good for her. She talks of Jean in the present tense, and her acquaintances seem unable to confront her about this.

Charlotte Rampling is a wonderful and much under-appreciated actress. She is amazing in the role of Marie--a woman who finds the truth simply too difficult to bear, and yet on the surface she appears to have remarkable self-restraint.

Keep your eyes open for Marie's mother-in-law. She should get the Mother-in-Law of the Year Award!

Beautifully filmed, Interesting
This is definitely a beautiful, well-filmed movie. The story stays a bit of a mystery throughout. Ms. Rampling is quite good. When I looked at her career and the movies in her filmography, I was surprised to see that such a fine actress really hasn't been in that many good movies. Not a young woman anymore, Ms Rampling is still very alluring. This film has a few erotic moments, but not to the degree that some reviewers are stating. If you like a thought-provoking type of character study and a beautiful loking film this could be a good one for you. ... Read more

Reviews (1)

DVD please...
Although somewhat neglected in the world of cinema, this charming little tale of love in Paris remains a classic of the genre, and unfortunately, hasn't yet been released on DVD!

Give New Line some time, and this will be rectified, I'm sure. But I fell in love with the final scene with its Romeo And Juliet recitation amongst a crowd of people which was nothing if not cinematic magic.

If you can find a copy, do yourself a favour and please check it out. One of the best date movies of all time. ... Read more

Reviews (2)

Plastically impressive
1/2 star for the cinematography, 1/2 star for the editing, and 1 star for the regretted Marie Trintignant.
I am a fan of most films by director Claude Chabrol, but this was very disappointingly static to me, as Hollywoodian screenplays go (and this, French as it might be, is Hollywoodian cinema after all).
Watch two girls talk, get laid and drink ridiculous quantities of liquor... And watch Stéphane Audran sit and try to look sincere (or sincerely insincere) for a good while... Some other actors are pretty bad also.
Masterful, but formally only. But Chabrol is very proud of it, so maybe that's ill-advised for you.

"She'll spend her life looking."
In Claude Chabrol's film "Betty," Betty drunkenly stumbles out of a Parisian bar one wet evening in the company of a drug-addicted doctor who offers to take Betty to a bar known as The Hole. The Hole is a rather peculiar place with one item only on the menu on any given night. No one really seems to notice what's to eat, though, as the bar is full of drug addicts, alcoholics, and other lost souls. Betty collapses, but she is befriended by fellow sufferer, Laure. Laure is a confident, well-to-do widow in her late 40s. She takes Betty to her hotel, and here she tries to nurse Betty back to health. Betty is, at first, reluctant to talk about herself. Laure acknowledges, "it is sometimes easier to listen to the stories of others than tell your own." Laure also went through a period of self-destruction, so she is capable of handling Betty's rebuffs at kindness. Laure explains that her boyfriend, Mario, the owner of The Hole, has a history of relationships with desperate wealthy women. Betty may look like a bedraggled streetwalker when she stumbles from bar to bar, but Laure is shocked to discover that Betty is the wife of wealthy Guy Etamble.

Holed up in Laure's hotel, the days slip by with Betty passing in and out of drunkenness. Betty recalls the mistakes she has made in her past through flashbacks beginning in her childhood. As story unfolds, it becomes clear how Betty degenerated from being the spoiled wife of a wealthy man to the pathetic creature salvaged by Laure. Betty is powerless to resist the lure of the bohemian, and even the close-knit, suffocating presence of the Etamble family cannot stop Betty from plunging into increasingly bold and self-destructive behaviour. One of my favourite scenes shows how Betty's mother-in-law secures the spot as the centre of attention just as Guy and Betty experience the most devastating moment of their marriage.

This lesser-known film from prolific French director, Claude Chabrol seems to be slipping into oblivion, and that is a great pity. The film is based on a novel from Georges Simenon, and the story flows seamlessly with the flashbacks appropriately placed. The star of "Betty" is the immensely talented Marie Trintignant, and her shocking death (she was beaten to death 8/03) really is a tragic loss to French cinema. Trintignant had many supporting roles, and in this film, as the lead, she was quite magnificent. Her dark eyes are deep pools full of countless secrets, and she is entirely believable as the mysterious, self-destructive Betty. Betty's character is complicated--and ugly at times. I doubt that many actresses could play this role as convincing as Trintignant. The film also delves into the idea of the power of the first sexual experience, and no doubt Freudians will have lots to discuss after watching this film--displacedhuman ... Read more

Reviews (3)

"You have to dream of him and imagine his dreams."
Best known for the beautifully framed but now almost comically elusive and incomprehensible Last Year at Marienbad, Stavisky is one of Alain Resnais' most accessible films and one where he manages to marry style and narrative structure to his subject perfectly. While it helps to have some grounding in the disastrous pre-WW2 financial scandal his anti-hero precipitated to get the most out of the film, his approach is particularly well-judged.

For much of the movie we meet Stavisky, financier and con-man, at the height of his powers and the film concentrates both on his style and extravagance - he passionately believes that you have to be seen to lose money on frivolities to make money - and his play-acting - he is even seen reading a part onstage opposite an auditioning actress. Stavisky is a constant contradiction, a man who spends money to be remembered when he would be better spending it to be forgotten, whose need to be loved for the moment makes him unable to deal with oncoming disasters when they can still be averted. As Michel Lonsdale's doctor notes, "To understand Stavisky sometimes you have to forget files. You have to dream of him and to imagine his dreams." Stavisky remains an enigma simply because he is so simple - there is no real secret to him. Like his fortune, he simply invents himself.

Jean-Paul Belmondo is superb in the lead, at once at home in luxury and high society but still able to pull a petty swindle over stolen gems, supremely confident and alive in company yet in private haunted by his father's suicide over the dishonor his early arrests bought on the family name that drives him to strive to live purely in the present. He's complimented by Charles Boyer's wonderful final performance as an aristocrat who has happily wasted the fortune his ancestors took generations to amass over the course of his single lifetime and can forgive his friend anything for the joy to be alive that his company brings. The moment his casually anti-semitic right-wing aristocrat discovers that Stavisky is not only not French but a Jew is beautifully observed: he stands by him as a friend, but is disappointed that he was not honest to him, while displaying just a trace of awareness that had Stavisky been honest, he never would have become his friend.

But this is the story of a fall from a great height - indeed, our first view of Stavisky is of him descending in an elevator as Trostsky arrives in France to seek asylum. It is only in the last third that the dominoes start to fall and the real conspiracy starts to emerge. Stavisky is a criminal, a former petty informer who now has somehow managed to reverse roles and now has most of the government and police in his pocket and acting as his informers, but he himself is being used. Not only is he planning to block funds to facilitate the beginning of the Spanish Civil War (to him simply a financial opportunity: he has no conception of the moral consequences of his actions) but his downfall is used to destroy the left in French politics. (It is only here that the initially clumsy device of paralleling Stavisky's fall with Trotsky's brief period of exile in France comes into focus.) Although his end is not shown, it is left clear that he was more pawn than prime mover. Ultimately his fall leaves the left destroyed, the far right in control and only the most innocent imprisoned.

In a film full of pluses, the script is superb, Resnais' use of the camera impeccable and there's even a good score from Stephen Sondheim. The only major minus is Resnais' handling of the actresses - more vacant than vital, as is so often the case in his films of this era - and the tendency to turn the left-wing characters into purely walking-talking ideological monologues.

Sadly, the Image DVD is a little problematic - aside from it not always being recognised by my player, the transfer is acceptable but not entirely without problems (it appears to be a standards conversion from a PAL master) and none of the few extras (including an audio interview with the camera-shy Resnais) from the StudioCanal disc in France that it has been cloned from have made the leap across the Atlantic. Highly recommended, nonetheless.

(A version of this review appeared in Movie Collector magazine)

Reverie
Alain Resnais's "Stavisky..." provides a fictionalized account of the last months of the notorious swindler (played by Jean-Paul Belmondo), whose financial shell games brought down the French government in the early 1930s. I sometimes think that the word "exquisite" was coined to describe this film and I don't mean that entirely positively. Immaculately designed, shot, lit and cut, nearly perfect in its way, "Stavisky..." is designer filmmaking at its most refined, elegant and yes, precious.

Resnais and screenwriter Jorge Semprun are very conscious of the fictional nature of what they are presenting, to the point of beginning the film with a disclaimer. Whatever the historical reality of the Stavisky character, we certainly believe that as portrayed by Belmondo, he could sell coals to Newcastle. He is aided by a host of first-rate French actors, including Michel Lonsdale, François Perrier and especially Charles Boyer, in a final performance that makes every gesture into the physical equivalent of an aphorism. The force of the actors' personalities, the fastidious period recreation, Stephen Sondheim's jazzy score, all contribute to the film's point: no matter what evil Stavisky may have caused, it was impossible for those who knew him well not to be taken in by the romance he could conjure out of thin air.

This willingness to excuse corruption by dint of style seems very French, and as an alternative to the easy moralizing of American culture, very refreshing. Still, the glamorized decadence may be easy to enjoy as the intricate surface of a movie, but not so easy to imagine forgiving in reality, particularly for the victims of it. (Among other things, Stavisky was responsible for flooding France with millions of francs of worthless government bonds.) I'm not suggesting that the film would be improved by a sanctimonious, Hollywood-style reminder of the evils of corruption. It would be ruined by such a banality. Rather, because we cannot ever quite forget the reality of the period (the actions take place in the depths of the Great Depression, after all), we also can never quite accept the film's aestheticized vision as anything other than an extremely beautiful evasion.

In a sense, that evasion does get at a reality of the thirties, the willingness of the rich and powerful to turn away from the ever-deepening crises around them. The problem is that in so successfully achieving the world view of a thin-blooded, exhausted society, "Stavisky..." seems a tad removed itself. But exquisitely so.

AMAZING TRUE TALE OF FRENCH SCAM ARTIST
"STAVISKY" is the true story of Serge Alexandre, known to the world as Stavisky. And Belmondo is terrific as the titular con artist who looted France during the 1930s. Acclaimed director Alain Resnais shepherds a consummate cast that includes Charles Boyer through this lavishly mounted saga of deception, romance, and bittersweet justice. Stephen Sondheim's big score is memorable and evokes the era as well as the moral corruption. You will believe the time and place and characters as the events unfold like a grand, medievel morality play but with superb production values. An odd and interersting film about an amoral character driven by greed and power. Deadly sins both. Belmondo is pitch perfect. ... Read more

Reviews (3)

"You have to dream of him and imagine his dreams."
Best known for the beautifully framed but now almost comically elusive and incomprehensible Last Year at Marienbad, Stavisky is one of Alain Resnais' most accessible films and one where he manages to marry style and narrative structure to his subject perfectly. While it helps to have some grounding in the disastrous pre-WW2 financial scandal his anti-hero precipitated to get the most out of the film, his approach is particularly well-judged.

For much of the movie we meet Stavisky, financier and con-man, at the height of his powers and the film concentrates both on his style and extravagance - he passionately believes that you have to be seen to lose money on frivolities to make money - and his play-acting - he is even seen reading a part onstage opposite an auditioning actress. Stavisky is a constant contradiction, a man who spends money to be remembered when he would be better spending it to be forgotten, whose need to be loved for the moment makes him unable to deal with oncoming disasters when they can still be averted. As Michel Lonsdale's doctor notes, "To understand Stavisky sometimes you have to forget files. You have to dream of him and to imagine his dreams." Stavisky remains an enigma simply because he is so simple - there is no real secret to him. Like his fortune, he simply invents himself.

Jean-Paul Belmondo is superb in the lead, at once at home in luxury and high society but still able to pull a petty swindle over stolen gems, supremely confident and alive in company yet in private haunted by his father's suicide over the dishonor his early arrests bought on the family name that drives him to strive to live purely in the present. He's complimented by Charles Boyer's wonderful final performance as an aristocrat who has happily wasted the fortune his ancestors took generations to amass over the course of his single lifetime and can forgive his friend anything for the joy to be alive that his company brings. The moment his casually anti-semitic right-wing aristocrat discovers that Stavisky is not only not French but a Jew is beautifully observed: he stands by him as a friend, but is disappointed that he was not honest to him, while displaying just a trace of awareness that had Stavisky been honest, he never would have become his friend.

But this is the story of a fall from a great height - indeed, our first view of Stavisky is of him descending in an elevator as Trostsky arrives in France to seek asylum. It is only in the last third that the dominoes start to fall and the real conspiracy starts to emerge. Stavisky is a criminal, a former petty informer who now has somehow managed to reverse roles and now has most of the government and police in his pocket and acting as his informers, but he himself is being used. Not only is he planning to block funds to facilitate the beginning of the Spanish Civil War (to him simply a financial opportunity: he has no conception of the moral consequences of his actions) but his downfall is used to destroy the left in French politics. (It is only here that the initially clumsy device of paralleling Stavisky's fall with Trotsky's brief period of exile in France comes into focus.) Although his end is not shown, it is left clear that he was more pawn than prime mover. Ultimately his fall leaves the left destroyed, the far right in control and only the most innocent imprisoned.

In a film full of pluses, the script is superb, Resnais' use of the camera impeccable and there's even a good score from Stephen Sondheim. The only major minus is Resnais' handling of the actresses - more vacant than vital, as is so often the case in his films of this era - and the tendency to turn the left-wing characters into purely walking-talking ideological monologues.

Sadly, the Image DVD is a little problematic - aside from it not always being recognised by my player, the transfer is acceptable but not entirely without problems (it appears to be a standards conversion from a PAL master) and none of the few extras (including an audio interview with the camera-shy Resnais) from the StudioCanal disc in France that it has been cloned from have made the leap across the Atlantic. Highly recommended, nonetheless.

(A version of this review appeared in Movie Collector magazine)

Reverie
Alain Resnais's "Stavisky..." provides a fictionalized account of the last months of the notorious swindler (played by Jean-Paul Belmondo), whose financial shell games brought down the French government in the early 1930s. I sometimes think that the word "exquisite" was coined to describe this film and I don't mean that entirely positively. Immaculately designed, shot, lit and cut, nearly perfect in its way, "Stavisky..." is designer filmmaking at its most refined, elegant and yes, precious.

Resnais and screenwriter Jorge Semprun are very conscious of the fictional nature of what they are presenting, to the point of beginning the film with a disclaimer. Whatever the historical reality of the Stavisky character, we certainly believe that as portrayed by Belmondo, he could sell coals to Newcastle. He is aided by a host of first-rate French actors, including Michel Lonsdale, François Perrier and especially Charles Boyer, in a final performance that makes every gesture into the physical equivalent of an aphorism. The force of the actors' personalities, the fastidious period recreation, Stephen Sondheim's jazzy score, all contribute to the film's point: no matter what evil Stavisky may have caused, it was impossible for those who knew him well not to be taken in by the romance he could conjure out of thin air.

This willingness to excuse corruption by dint of style seems very French, and as an alternative to the easy moralizing of American culture, very refreshing. Still, the glamorized decadence may be easy to enjoy as the intricate surface of a movie, but not so easy to imagine forgiving in reality, particularly for the victims of it. (Among other things, Stavisky was responsible for flooding France with millions of francs of worthless government bonds.) I'm not suggesting that the film would be improved by a sanctimonious, Hollywood-style reminder of the evils of corruption. It would be ruined by such a banality. Rather, because we cannot ever quite forget the reality of the period (the actions take place in the depths of the Great Depression, after all), we also can never quite accept the film's aestheticized vision as anything other than an extremely beautiful evasion.

In a sense, that evasion does get at a reality of the thirties, the willingness of the rich and powerful to turn away from the ever-deepening crises around them. The problem is that in so successfully achieving the world view of a thin-blooded, exhausted society, "Stavisky..." seems a tad removed itself. But exquisitely so.

AMAZING TRUE TALE OF FRENCH SCAM ARTIST
"STAVISKY" is the true story of Serge Alexandre, known to the world as Stavisky. And Belmondo is terrific as the titular con artist who looted France during the 1930s. Acclaimed director Alain Resnais shepherds a consummate cast that includes Charles Boyer through this lavishly mounted saga of deception, romance, and bittersweet justice. Stephen Sondheim's big score is memorable and evokes the era as well as the moral corruption. You will believe the time and place and characters as the events unfold like a grand, medievel morality play but with superb production values. An odd and interersting film about an amoral character driven by greed and power. Deadly sins both. Belmondo is pitch perfect. ... Read more

Description

For many years, Marie and Jean have happily spent their vacation togetherin the Landes region of western France. But this summer, while Marie napson the beach, her husband goes swimming and vanishes without a trace.Did he drown? Did he run off? Distraught, Marie notifies the authorities, butan extensive search leads nowhere. Tenaciously and disquietingly, Mariekeeps the memory of her husband alive, often speaking of him as if he neverdisappeared. She finally strikes up an on-again, off-again relationship witha friend, Vincent, and grapples with her life alone while coping with her eroticstirrings and fantasy life. An offbeat study of the grieving process that willring true for anyone who has gone through a similar personal loss. From themaker of Criminal Lovers and Water Drops on Burning Rocks. ... Read more

Reviews (11)

Never Underestimate The Power Of Denial...
a married couple of 25 years goes on a vacation. one day at the beach, the husband decides to go for a swim.

only he doesn't return.

and so begins " under the sand, " a tale about a woman who spends the the length of the movie wondering if he is dead or alive. she also tries to deal with her grief. she wonders if she was the reason for his dissapearance. marie, played by charlotte rampling, gives a riveting performance of a woman who cloaks herself in denial to the point that she keeps her husband alive, even as the signs become obvious that he is dead.

francois ozon's narrative is straightforward, though with the prescence of bruno cremer as jean, marie's late husband, in later scenes, one might suspect the narrative is nonlinear,bringing anxiety and tension to the story.

marie does her best to move on. even becoming involved with another man but her husband still haunts her-literally. one scene shows her with her lover as her late husband watches on, giving it an eerie feeling.

this film is a perfect testimony about the hold a person can have on another, even when they are no longer around...

A Rampling classic
Under The Sun is Ozon's most ambitious and sublime film to date. It manages to transcend its echoes of Bunuel, Antonioni, and Polanski due in large part to a mesmerizing performance by Charlotte Rampling. In films as varied as Night Porter, Stardust Memories and The Verdict, Rampling has brought an enigmatic brand of eroticism that lingers in the mind for ages. Sure, like her fans, Rampling is older and wiser, but she is still beautiful and in the right role, she never delivers a false note. In Ozon's film, she gets just the right balance of neurosis, dread, madness, and longing. This is one of the more convincing and truthful films about sex, death, and the daily ravages of time and memory in a very long time. The great European art film is not dead, just somewhat reduced in numbers, but I am happy to report Under The Sand is one of those films.

Truly amazing...
Superb acting. Charlotte Rampling is amazing as always. Very realistic portraying of people unable to accept reality of the loss... Emotional and realistic, this movie will make you think about it for days after.

Mesmerizing
Marie (Charlotte Rampling) and her husband, Jean arrive at their summer home for their annual holiday. As they re-open the house and prepare meals, they move about their tasks almost wordlessly. Their relationship is clearly strong, and there is an atmosphere of contentment. They obviously love each other and revel in each other's company.

The next day, they go to the beach. After massaging oil onto Marie's back, Jean tells his wife he is going for a swim. She sleepily adds that she will take a nap, and she does.

Jean never returns, and his body is not found. Marie returns to her teaching job in the city.

Marie cannot accept the idea that her husband may be dead, so she doesn't. She has conversations with him, rushes home to be with him, and even shyly admits that she may date Vincent, a man her friends think would be good for her. She talks of Jean in the present tense, and her acquaintances seem unable to confront her about this.

Charlotte Rampling is a wonderful and much under-appreciated actress. She is amazing in the role of Marie--a woman who finds the truth simply too difficult to bear, and yet on the surface she appears to have remarkable self-restraint.

Keep your eyes open for Marie's mother-in-law. She should get the Mother-in-Law of the Year Award!

Beautifully filmed, Interesting
This is definitely a beautiful, well-filmed movie. The story stays a bit of a mystery throughout. Ms. Rampling is quite good. When I looked at her career and the movies in her filmography, I was surprised to see that such a fine actress really hasn't been in that many good movies. Not a young woman anymore, Ms Rampling is still very alluring. This film has a few erotic moments, but not to the degree that some reviewers are stating. If you like a thought-provoking type of character study and a beautiful loking film this could be a good one for you. ... Read more