Amazon.com

A high point from the middle career of French New Wave original Claude Chabrol, Les Biches is one of the director's tales of complicated, intertwined fates leading to horrifying ends. Chabrol's then-wife, Stephane Audran, plays a rich bisexual who picks up an impoverished young woman (Jacqueline Sassard) and takes her to her home in St. Tropez. There, much to her hostess's consternation, the visitor strikes up a romance with a handsome architect (Jean-Louis Trintignant), only to find that Audran's character is involved with him as well. The overlapping relationships grow full of rich mystery and dark possibility as the unwieldy situation begins to beg for a resolution. A study of class, desire, and compulsion, Les Biches has the hallmarks of Chabrol's streak of fascination with operatic fatalism. --Tom Keogh ... Read more

Reviews (3)

The blasé Frédérique seeks diversions...
The blasé Frédérique (Stéphane Audran) constantly seeks diversions as she finds Why (Jacqueline Sassard), a female street artist, with whom she initiates a love affair. Frédérique shows off her luxurious apartment in Paris and her mansion on the French Riviera as well as her company for Why. Why, who has nothing, is drawn into Frédérique's steel grip where she is dominated and controlled. The love affair between the two women seems to lead toward an end as Why falls in love with Paul Thomas (Jean-Louis Trintignant), but Frédérique becomes intrigued by the situation and finds a way to get things her way. Chabrol creates an excellent atmosphere in Les Biches, a dark drama, that depicts several concepts such as wealth, the bourgeoisie, domination, and rebellion. These concepts initiate a self-destructive pattern which influences the psychology of Why as she looses control of her own will and life. In the end, Chabrol leaves the viewer with a terrific psychological thriller with an open ending leaving much room for thought.

Powerful, Hypnotic film experience
I viewed Les Biches when I was 13 years old and have never been as affected by a film as much. This film ranks up with films masked in sorrow such as, Bertolucci's Last Tango in Paris, Bergman's Cries and Whispers, and Truffaut's Les Quatre Cents Coups. I am somewhat saddened that this film hasn't been released as a Criterion Collection DVD which I deeply belive it should. All the characters played in this film are very much enigmas especially Jacqueline Sassard's character, Why. At first Why appears to be naive and dull, but within the course of the film soon turns psychotic and violent.

The basic storyline is a bisexual Parisean socialite, Frederique, picks up a waif, Why, who earns her living drawing does on the streets of Paris. Soon Frederique brings Why to what is left of St. Tropez on the off season to meet the chic crowd. Why meets and falls in love with suave architect,Paul. When Frederique tries to get back at Why, she finds true love in Paul and gets between Why and Paul. Paul seduces Frederique and after a while goes back to Paris with him. Why goes back to Paris also.

The scene of Why going back to Paris, filmed from a moving car, focusing on Notre Dame on an overcast afternoon for about ten seconds is etched forever in my memory along with the ultimately distrurbing and murky ending.

This is a truly great film experience that has been unseen for too long.

A beautiful movie full of woman-to-woman sexual intensity
A beautiful movie full of sexual intensity. The movie revolvesaround the lesbian relationship of a wealthty french woman(StéphaneAudran) and a street artist who becomes her lover/protogee(Jacqueline Sassard).

Both woman are physically stunning and the scenes of them together, though never explicit, are thoroughly sensual. The plot thickens with the intoduction of a third character - an attractive male architect(Jean-Louis Trintignant). The protogee's sway towards him causes a facinating shift in the relationship between all three.

Keep in mind that director Claude Chabrol is something of a French Alfred Hitchcock

Most of the film is shot in St Tropez and Paris. The scenery is breathless. ... Read more

Amazon.com

In 1965 six French New Wave directors took a Paris neighborhood and concocted a short sketch around it. The results sometimes favor character and story, and sometimes local flavor, but almost all are engaging in their own right. Jean Douchet and Jean-Luc Godard (repsectively) offer gloriously French slices of romantic comedy in the sexually open 1960s with "Saint Germain des Prés" and "Montparnasse et Levallois." Jean Rouch's"Gare du Nord" is slight of substance but beautifully explores the neighborhood in a gorgeous tracking shot. Jean-Daniel Pollet's "Rue Saint-Denis" offers two delicious characters in a witty comedy of a mousy dishwasher who brings a brassy streetwalker to his dumpy apartment. Eric Rohmer's "Place de l'Étoile," a sometimes silly but deftly managed little comedy of a manwho strikes a panhandler and is terrified he killed him, displays a giddy goofiness unseen in his later work. Claude Chabrol's shiver-inducing slice of urban life "La Muette" ventures outside the oppressive hallways and tiny rooms only once, at the end, as if to celebrate the escape of the rebellious boy from his bickering parents. The strongest of a solid collection, Chabrol's chilly view of dead-end relationships in a splintered upper class family concludes the otherwise lighthearted collection on a devastating, dark note. Released in France under the more evocative title Paris Vu Par... (Paris Seen By), this is one of the strongest and most entertaining anthology films to emerge from the 1960s. --Sean Axmaker ... Read more

Reviews (3)

Love At First Sight!
I fell in love instantly when I first saw the first story "Saint Germain de pres". The second one "Gare Du Nord" had an equally amazing impact. Each director had an amazing eyes for details in capturing moods, lighting and expressions. The stories of life were presented in a way you'll never have imagined before. Left me with dreamy dejau vu feeling that I can't quite shake myself off days later. I watched the VHS three times before returning it to the store, and got myself a brand new one that I'm sure I'll watch it another 1000000000 (infinite) more times. If I have more stars, I'll definitely give it a million stars.

Perfectly Paris
This film has got to be one of the most definitive expressions of what "Paris" means. Six shorts, in six neighborhoods of Paris. If you love Paris you will love this film. I especially liked the one about the arguing couple. The wife has an encounter with a gentleman on the street. I won't give it away, but it's fantastic. This grouping of Directors cannot be beat.

A sparkling , unusual snapshot of cool, sixties Paris.
What a wonderful gem of a film. It perfectly captured the mood and characters of Sixties Paris. A mood much different than ours in America at that time. For lovers of Cool European culture each individual film has something to offer. At times humorous and at times poignant, I felt as if I had discovered something hidden for a long time. The directors involved in these films are all now quite famous for their contributions to modern cinema, but in Six in Paris you get the feeling you've been invited to their coming out party. Many of the techniques used in the directing of these films are now embraced by many, but no one today uses them like they are used here. Most importantly we get a strangely beautiful portrait of an edgy, sometimes gray, hip Paris which may be long gone. Stylish clothes, bustling cafe's, and plenty of Citroens and scooters buzzing around the streets - I would recommend this film to anyone looking to slip back into another time for an evening. ... Read more

Reviews (1)

Seven Deadly Sins - 1962
This is an awesome classic!!!

In the 'sloth' segment I saw the most beautiful body on earth. I was a twenty year old college student when I viewed this movie at the Times Fine Art theater in Milwaukee in 1962.

Her name, I believe, is Danielle Aubry. I have made love to women with gorgeous... but Danielle is still #1 even after all these (40) years.

There are also some socially redeeming qualities about this film but I forgot what they were.

GM ... Read more

Amazon.com

In the 1960s and early '70s, Claude Chabrol was celebrated as the Gallic Hitchcock for his crisp, character-rich thrillers. LaCérémonie, his 1997 hit adapted from Ruth Rendell's novel A Judgement in Stone, is a return to form, an assured domestic drama set in the upper-class household of the kind but condescending Lelievres family. Sandrine Bonnaire, excellent in an enigmatic, uncommunicative role, stars as their new, neurotically silent maid Sophie. She performs her duties efficiently and emotionlessly, staring out from behind an implacable, mask-like face born of loneliness and defensiveness. Isabelle Huppert is the town's gleefully misanthropic postmistress Jeanne, a gossipy, energetically insolent misfit who hates the Lelievres. When she becomes Sophie's best friend, her pathological game of taunts and gossip goes into overdrive with her sudden access to their house, and an already simmering class conflict boils over in unleashed anger. Chabrol charts the cascade of mischief and misunderstandings to its shattering conclusion, with a sensitivity to character and an eagle-eyed remove that makes the explosive climax all the more chilling. It's a devastating thriller, one of Chabrol's best, and a powerful portrait in hate and psychosis pushed over the edge in misunderstanding, manipulation, and mistrust. Jacqueline Bisset is the fumbling but sincere Mme. Lelievres, Jean-Pierre Cassel her complacent husband, and Virginie Ledoyen (A Single Girl) their sensitive young daughter. --Sean Axmaker ... Read more

Reviews (8)

Chabrol at his absolute best
Perfect casting contributes to the intense momentum that Chabrol develops in this archetypal tale (for Chabrol) of upper middle class rude luxe and working class desperation. Sandrine Bonnaire is the soft-spoken girl whom Jacqueline Bisset, the idly rich wife of a well-to-do industrialist, hires as the family's housekeeper. Bonnaire's character is hiding a secret from the family which is gradually revealed.

In the course of that revelation, Bonnaire befriends the town postmistress, brilliantly played by Isabelle Huppert, who is essentially incapable of rendering a bad performance in any work she appears in. Huppert's postmistress is the opposite in character to Bonnaire's wallflower. Brash, intense, and happy to flaunt authority, the postmistress encourages the housekeeper to express herself, to break out of her shell regardless of the secret she wishes no one to know about, to enjoy life even without the wealth that Bonnaire's employers have and that Huppert resents so vehemently.

As the housekeeper comes to trust the postmistress more and more, and, based on that, becomes more assertive, the postmistress tells her what she really wants. The psychological interplay between these two characters is done so superbly that the tremendously shocking ending is completely credible and all the more powerful for it.

The film's setting, a small rural French town, also contributes to its power, and is an equally superb choice that subtly underlines the contrast of the highly educated wealthy who retreat from the world, and the street smart working class who make the world what it is--in particular, foisting it when and where they can on their bitter rivals, the rich, for position in the world they know.

Based on a true set of events, La Ceremonie is a perfect convergence of Chabrol's continuing, near-obsessive focus on the corrupt wealthy who consistently degrade the have-nots, and the latter who deplore the former. A number of Chabrol's films have been released on DVD as of this writing (November 2003), but this has not, which is truly a shame.

Life is so unfair.
Two intelligent but mean-minded and resentful young women, who have been made that way by a lifetime of emotional deprivation, meet in this small village where Sophie (Sandrine Bonnaire) has come to apply for a job as a housekeeper to a prosperous middle-class family. They are both alone in the world, and to each other they display a genuine warmth and affection that is terribly at odds with their attitude towards everyone else. And it doesn't help that the family that Sophie goes to work for has everything; both material wealth and a happy, contented family life. The contrast between their lot and Sophie's couldn't be greater. And the fact that they are such close-knit happy family makes the denouement so much more painful to watch. They reach out to sophie and try to make her feel as much at home and part of the family as possible. But she can't stop feeling envious, nor get over her sense of injustice; why should they have so much when she has nothing? And her sense of injustice is aggravated by a secret shame; she cannot read or write.

In the beginning the family are well pleased with her work; she is conscientious and hard working. But this is eventually undermined by the bad influence of her friend Jeanne (Isabelle Huppert), and the fact that she keeps disappearing to meet Jeanne - who the husband hates because, at the post office where she works, she keeps opening his mail.
And then she begins smuggling Jeanne into the house to watch television, something which, when he finds out, angers the husband. But the final straw comes when she tries to blackmail the daughter into not telling her parents about her inability to read or write. This leads to her instant dismissal which enrages Jeanne. They want vengeance, but what they eventually do seems a spur of the moment thing.

You feel deeply sad about what happens to this charming family and almost as sad about what happens to Sophie and Jeanne. The overriding feeling at the end of the film is a sense of loss.

If the two girls had never met they would have continued to be bitter and resentful but it would have ended there. It was their coming together which enlarged and reinforced their feelings and gave them the confidence to act - with awful consequences for both themselves and the family. They were victims of a kind of mob-mentality.

Chabrol's Career Crowning Masterpiece
In the sixties Chabrol was known as the French master of suspense or the French Hitchcock. With 1968' La Femme Infidele & 1969's Le Boucher he was at the peak of his form. he made a few good pictures in the early seventies like La Rupture and Wedding in Blood but his work of the latter half of the seventies and eighties(with one notable exception, Cry of the Owl) was uneven and sometimes just forgettable. Then in the nineties Chabrol made a steady comeback and made what is perhaps the best movie of his career and one of the best films by anyone in the nineties with La Ceremonie. The Hitchcock influence is still there but Chabrol has evolved it into something completely his own. La Ceremonie has a plot which could best be described perhaps as a mystery but there are so many well drawn characters that the film transcends the normal bounds of that genre. Its a first rate drama with three incredible leading actresses. Jaqueline Bisset has never been better or better looking than here as the ex-model and current society wife who hires a mysterious maid with a vacant stare and uncertain past. That maid is played by France's top actress Sandrine Bonnaire and her every move is captivating. Isabelle Huppert plays the pig tailed postal employee who befriends Bonnaire and the two create onscreen magic together. Chabrol's brand of mystery puts character over plot so though you have an intereting plot unfolding you are in no hurry to get there. The wealthy family that Bonnaire works for(Bisset, husband and two children) are each given at least one interesting dimension and subplot line of their own to make this one rich movie experience. A movie you will feast on more than once. Chabrol endings are highly original and you never see them coming so sit back and enjoy with full knowledge you are being entertained by a master.

Stark, naturalistic shocker, brilliantly presented
In this character study of two hateful middle-aged women (not so middle-aged in the movie, however, as in the novel by Ruth Rendell) we are made to fathom the bad that may befall the good.

Claude Chabrol's direction is clean, crisp and uncluttered--which isn't always the case, witness his Madame Bovary (1991), which is a bit too leisurely and L'Enfer (1993) which muddles a whole lot. Maybe it's the editing. Anyway this is more like his quietly brilliant Une affaire de femmes (1988) with a fine script and striking performances by Sandrine Bonnaire and Isabelle Huppert, handsomely supported by Jacqueline Bisset, Jean Pierre Cassel and the very pretty Virginie Ledoyen.

Bonnaire plays Sophie, an intense taciturn woman harboring dark secrets, whom the Leliévres have hired to cook and keep house at their country home. Bisset is Catherine Leliévre and Cassel her husband. They exist in bourgeois heaven avec matrimonial bliss with two teenagers, a family so closely knit and so charmingly together that they watch a two-part production of Mozart's Don Giovanni on TV, just the four of them cosily on the couch.

Well, this sort of unobtainable happiness doesn't sit well with Jeanne (Huppert) who is a lowly postal clerk living alone whose past includes the (accidental?) killing of her four-year-old daughter. Jeanne takes a fancy to the Leliévre's strange new maid with the idea of showing her something besides work. They strike up a fateful friendship that we know is leading to something horrible.

Huppert is as good as I've seen her, which is very good indeed. She is particularly striking here in an uncharacteristic role as a spiteful, working class woman with a heart of vengeance against anybody better off than she is. There is just a touch of sly irony in her performance suggesting that she is having a particularly good time playing the nasty. Bonnaire's stark performance as the unbalanced and humorless, reclusive Sophie will remain etched in your brain. Apart they are like inert, harmless chemicals. Together they catalyze one another and become brazen and explosive.

The story, filled with little foreshadowing of the tragedy to come, gilds the lily of our tristesse by making the Leliévres so very, very nice. We are reminded of the violent hatred by the proletariat toward the privileged classes, in this case acted out by two loonies against an innocent, but representative family, echoing not only the Russian Revolution but even more so the French Revolution, now two hundred years old.

What I am trying to figure out why this is called La Cérémonie. Maybe it is a ceremony of execution.

Fascinating and disturbing
Based on Ruth Rendell's novel A Judgment in Stone, Claude Chabrol's 1995 film is fascinating and disturbing. Illiterate Sandrine Bonnaire joins the French countryhouse of Jacqueline Bisset and Jean-Pierre Cassell as a maid and along the way befriends postal clerk Isabelle Huppert. Chabrol's previous concerns have been about the bourgeoisie exploiting the working classes but Bisset and her family are nothing but kind to Bonnaire so their fate seems cruel and unwarranted. Bonnaire's Sophie is meant to be dim because she eats chocolates and watches TV indiscriminately. We're left to ponder Huppert's character, who is clearly unbalanced and who leads Bonnaire astray. Huppert is Chabrol's favourite modern actress and he rewards her with big closeups. Her Jeanne is funny, wears plaits and chews gum and is dangerously irrational. She has a great monologue in profile about the death of her daughter which she delivers in one take while she drives, knifing away sentiment yet still conveying the sadness in her Garbo-like mask face. It's interesting to see the still beautiful Bisset play a mother of teenage children and to hear her speak in French. You can sense her pleasure in this role and Chabrol let's us see her great legs. Chabrol is too subtle a director to manipulate us with the conventions of the thriller. His soundtrack is bare and the climactic violence leaves us shocked yet not unsurprised. I like the use of colour in the film - Bisset's yellow teacups, Huppert's salmon car, Bonnaire's blue jumper with daisies - and the way the final irony repeats the shock of the murder we have already witnessed. ... Read more

Amazon.com

Often considered the real beginning of the French New Wave movement,this 1958 film, the first feature by Claude Chabrol, is also--strangely--underrated on its own terms. The story of a theology student (Jean-Claude Brialy) who returns to his provincial home town for convalescence and reunites with his unhappy childhood friend (Gerard Blain), the film introduces many of Chabrol's pet themes and interests, particularly the Hitchcockian relationship between two characters who transfer or implicitly share a private experience or fate. Chabrol's consideration of that idea would naturally deepen and become more complex over the years (brilliantly in 1969's La Femme Infidele andLe Boucher), but at this career flashpoint it is a little overstated and obvious in religious allusions. Still, Le Beau Serge is an engrossing film with no shortage of dramatic momentum. The final act, driven by the main character's efforts at self-sacrifice, is as affecting as ever. --Tom Keogh ... Read more

Reviews (2)

Many Stars for ~Le Beau "Francois"~
I feel that "Le Beau Serge" is a very sweet and well thought out film. It tells a story of a young student (Francois Bayon) who returns to his countryside hometown to recuperate. Upon arrival, he runs into a drunkard whom he recognizes to be his childhood friend (Serge). Francois' friend Michel tells him how Serge is on the verge of self-destruction after failing to get his architectural degree. Later, both friends are reunited and have an opportunity to catch up on old times. Francois observes Serge's inconsistent and erratic behavior and tries to help him mend his way. Along the way, Francois meets Serge's wife (Yvonne) and her sister (Marie). Francois has a brief affair with Marie before finding out she is raped by her "father". One night during the village dance, their affair ended with everyone humiliating and ridiculing Francois. Serge, angry with Francois for coming to his life while he's at his lowest point begins to despise beat him up in public. After the incident, Francois realizes that the people in the old village he used to remember are no longer the same. His conversation with the village priests destroyed all the innocent illusions he initially had. While the priest advises him to leave the village, Francois vows to stay on to help Serge and his family mend their lives.

I believe "Le Beau Serge" was Chabrol's first feature film. He later went on to make another feature "Les Cousins" which might be intended to complement "Le Beau Serge". Chabrol engaged actors Jean-Claude Brialy and Gerald Blain for both films with their roles and situations reversed. I first saw "Les Cousins" before "Le Beau Serge". Jean-Claude Brialy, being a brilliant actor that he was, gave out a stellar performance in both films. He's so good that I could not identify him as Jean-Claude Brialy anymore. Instead, I was so taken in by his acting ability that he became a sly, cunning snake whom I hated so much (Paul) in "Les Cousins" or a gentle, sensitive and wonderful young man whom I fell in love with (Francois) in "Le Beau Serge".

You have to watch both films to appreciate a surreal, mocking quality and ironic effects that Chabrol wanted to create. I love both films very much. Chabrol has an amazing eyes for details (scenes, storyline) as well as depth for the films' dialogues, story lines and plots. If I have a choice, I think the title of this film should be changed to "Le Beau Francois" instead :P Once again "Le Beau Serge" is a beautiful film that deserves many stars.

Handsome Serge
Credited as the first feature of the French New Wave, Claude Chabrol's first film as writer/director has little of the controlled tension that defines his best work. This study of a village which witnesses the return of Francois, who left 12 years ago to seek a future in Paris, has Chabrol's customary exploration of the class divisions in French society, with the prodigal son the bourgeoisie, and the villagers the pagan primal proletariat. Francois is determined to "help" his friend Serge and the lifestyle Francois clearly disapproves of. However the idea that these people need help is a sign of superiority and impertinent presumption, signified by Serge's wife's claim that Serge wasn't disatisfied with his life until Francois returned and pointed out that he should be. Chabrol makes Serge's wife pregnant, with her first child born mongoloid and dead, so that the condition of the unborn child symbolises the future, at least as seen through Francois. Chabrol's dialogue has occasional lapses into exposition which betray him as a novice storyteller and odd bursts of melodramatic music, and the only New Wave touch is the use of a torch to light one scene, where it points straight into the camera. Chabrol presents the bleakness of the village with Serge walking drunkenly through the cemetary, a lone dog walking the streets, and a gang of school children travelling to and from their school. His scenes of violence have an immediacy compared to the exchanges between Francois and Serge. and a romance between Francois and Serge's half-sister, and Chabrol provides memorable images - an overlap of Francois' face and falling snow, an ominous slow closing of a door, a long closeup of a woman crying, and cutting from Serge's wife in labour to Francois falling and Serge being dragged along the ground. There is also an interesting dance sequence, which shows the villagers in a more sophisticated environment, and also featuring two women dancing together for one to interpret as you may. ... Read more

Reviews (4)

Really great!
It's got all a girl needs! Beautiful character design (especially on Zell-sama! He's so pretty!), a hot plot, snazzy outfits, love, odd dreams and fantasies, and a few 80's flashbacks! Shoujo fans, stop here! The sad thing is the few seconds of screen time given to big robots and machinery. The robot's presence is the sole reason I didn't give this five stars. I just detest robots. The cover of the sub is simply fantastic! In case you want to search for and Japanese-ish stuff regarding the movie, it's original Japnese title is "Genmu Senki Leda".

A Strange Adventure into Early Shoujo Anime
This is a pretty fantastic video. A schoolgirl loves a boy at her school, and composes a beautiful piano peice to express her love for him. Before she can play it for him though, she is sucked into a strange planet in another dimension, and gets caught up into a strugle to take over the Earth. This might seem like sci-fi, but it's almost pure fantasy. It has everything a girl needs: Beautiful male villains, love, music, adventure... It has good (if odd) music, decent animation, and a great storyline. You should probably go for the Japanese dialogue/English subtitled edition though (they're both the exact same price, and how many times does that happen?). The English dubbing features odd accents, and the typical crazy voices that most anime got in the 1980's (sometimes it gets so bad that you'll be laughing). A little warning though, sometimes Right Stuf (the publisher) runs off flawed VHS tapes. They have a comment card inside each box. If you have a problem, go to their website and they'll exchange it for free. I really recommend this tape highly to any girl out there who has liked Shoujo Kakumei Utena, Rayearth, CardCaptor Sakura, Sailor Moon, or any of the other various shoujo anime out there. This title gets overlooked a lot. But don't think that just because it isn't famous it isn't good. Unlike most of Right Stuf's unknown titles, this is a really great video.

Cool, but very very strange.
Picture if you will the following; a teenage girl listening to her own, self-composed song as her school crush walks by. Now picture a dazzeling display of light, then imagine the teen in a lush forest area. Her name is Yohko. Yohko suddenly finds herself on the back of an enourmous tirtle creature with moss on its back. Yohko losses grip of her tapeplayer, along with her sacred song, which is a love song that bassicily confesses Yohkos love to her crush. She is befriended by a flying dog that can talk english. Then Yohko and her new found friend get chased by a group of carrot monsters. But Yohko falls into a giant flower and transforms into a warrior with magical powers. She defeats the evil carrot monsters and then proceeds to chase after the carrot-riders on a speeder-thing. Soon, they reach a strange ruins, and a huge mech that looks like a cross between Carrot Top and the Tin Man from the Wizard of Oz; the Mech is controled by a somewhat kawaii girl. Sound a little weird? It should. But there's more. The Enemy is a raging transvestite (well, I'm not sure what he/she is, but "transvestite" is a pretty close label).It acually trys to comes on to Yohko! But the weird thing for me is that this anime is meant to be serious. Despite the witty plot summary on the back of the box, the anime never once tries to crack a joke. It's strange, but I was really entertained by this title. The plot is fairly coherent, but again, its very strange. Surreal is a good word to describe this title. The final verdict is...well...it mostly depends on your taste. Maybe it's Yohko's song, maybe its its character, its fantasy concepts, but this anime is quite enjoyable. All I can say is see it for yourself and decide.

a cute anime
IT WAS A FAD FOR FANTASY ANIMES TO HAVE YOUNG CHARRECTERS TO BE TRANSPORTED TO ANOTHER DIMENSION, AND MAY BE THE ONLY FORCE TO SAVE IT. Leda,Fantastic Adventures Of Yohko IS ONE OF THOSE ANIMES.IT'S SOTRY BEGINS WHEN A YOUNG GIRL NAMED YOHKO WANTS TO EXPRESS HER LOVE TO A POPULAR GUY IN SCHOOL.BUT IS ALITTLE SHY TO SAY IT.SO SHE WRITES A SONG TO GIVE HER THE COURAGE TO EXPRESS THAT LOVE.AS SHE WALKS TOWARDS HIM,SHE'S SUCKED INTO ANOTHER WORLD CALLED ASHANTI.THE WORLD WE KNOW OF IS CALLED "NOAH."ASHANTI WAS ONCE GOVERNED BY A GODDESS NAMED LEDA.BUT SOME FORCES THREATENED THE PEACE SO SHE SEALED NOAH AND ASHANTI.YOHKO DISCOVERS HER MUSIC IS PART OF LEDA'S POWER,AND A POWERFUL MILLITARISTIC FORCE WANTS TO LEAVE ASHANTIC IN RUINS AND CONQUER NOAH,BY USING YOHKO'S MUSIC.NOW FINDING OUT SHE'S THE WARRIOR SERVANT OF LEDA'S POWER,YOHKO MUST FIGHT HER WAY TO RETRIEVE HER MUSIC,AND SAVE HER WORLD. A CUTE ANIME,NICE MUSIC,AND FUILD AND BEAUTIFUL CHARRECTER DESIGHNS BY MUTSUMI INOMATA.THE DESIGHNS AND SETTINGS THEM SELVES ARE PRETTY ORIGANAL.IF YOU LIKED EL HAZARD,ARUA BATTLER DUBINE,GRAZEY'S WING,MAGIC KNIGHT RAYEARTH,AND CORRECTER YUI....Leda:Fantastic Adventures Of Yohko is a sweet treat. ... Read more

Amazon.com

Gustav Flaubert's celebrated novel of obsessive ardor undergoes a dazzling retrofit for the screen, courtesy of French neurosis-master Claude Chabrol. The basic story (a woman's selfish quest for happiness ends up obliterating all she holds dear) may be the same, but Chabrol's talent for biting through to the dark marrow of passion makes this a startling experience, even for people familiar with the source material or the numerous other cinematic adaptations. Casting Isabelle Huppert in the title role (she's at least a decade older than the standard conception of this willfully tragic heroine) was a potentially risky gambit that paid off big; underneath her glorious surface lies a startling foundation of brilliant ice. The same can be said about this stunning film. Viewers intrigued by this potent actress-director pairing may also want to check out The Story of Women and the wonderful La Ceremonie. In French with English subtitles. --Andrew Wright ... Read more

Reviews (9)

flatter than the DVD
Anyone who claims to have liked this movie can only have said so after
having read the book. Without the book as background there is no point of watching this movie. It was loyally re-enacted but skipped through scenes of the book like a skipping stone over water,
never getting below the suface. The cinematography for a movie about passion
was flat. The lighting was probably done with two hardware
store flood lamps. The scenes were layed out like a low budget neighborhood cultural center production. No great scores. No ones eyes ever meet. Never a breathtaking moment. I just rented this movie after spending
the last week getting through the book. I wasn't moved by the book's plot but I had imagined a movie adaptation enhancing the storyline. I love Isabelle Huppert but she was totally miscast for the role. She's way too old and there's nothing provincial about her. See her instead in Merci Pour le Chocolat. I was expecting something along the lines of The Piano, but got instead someting along the lines of a cardboard box.

flatter tham the DVD
Anyone who claims to have liked this movie can only have said so after
having read the book. Without the book as background there is no point of watching this movie. It was loyally re-enacted but skipped through scenes of the book like a skipping stone over water,
never getting below the suface. The cinematography for a movie about passion
was flat. The lighting was probably done with two hardware
store flood lamps. The scenes were layed out like a low budget neighborhood cultural center production. No great scores. No ones eyes ever meet. Never a breathtaking moment. I just rented this movie after spending
the last week getting through the book. I wasn't moved by the book's plot but I had imagined a movie adaptation enhancing the storyline. I love Isabelle Huppert but she was totally miscast for the role. She's way too old and there's nothing provincial about her. See her instead in Merci Pour le Chocolat. I was expecting something along the lines of The Piano, but got instead someting along the lines of a cardboard box.

C"EST MAGNIFIQUE...
This is an excellent adaptation of the Gustave Flaubert novel of the same name. Isabelle Huppert is superb as the central character, Emma, a prosperous farmer's daughter, who marries a doctor, Charles Bovary (Jean Francois Balmer). He is a kind and gentle soul who adores her and wants nothing more than to make her happy. The problem is that he does not know how. Even Emma does not really know what would make her happy.

This is the story of Emma Bovary and her unhappy, wasted, shallow life. She is a woman who on the surface seems to have everything, an adoring, doting husband, a lovely, healthy daughter, an attractive well appointed home. Yet, she is unhappy. She loathes her husband, finding him pedantic and dull. She has little time for her daughter and seems to have little motherly instincts. What worldly goods she has never seem to ber enough.

Seeking fulfillment, she takes lovers who always seem to fail her in the end. She mistakes passion for love and never fails to be disappointed when that love turns out to be fleeting, blind to the love that exists under her very own roof. As her unhappiness and dissatisfaction grow, so does the beauty of her wardrobe. Beautifully gowned and accessorized, Emma Bovary is as beautiful as she is shallow. She spends what she does not have on passing fripperies, only to have her world eventually come crashing down around her. She takes the easy way out of her self inflicted misery and, in doing so, consigns those who had the misfortune to truly love her to a doomed existence.

Claude Chabrol deftly directed this arresting period piece, exacting wonderful performances from the entire cast. Isabelle Huppert is perfectly cast as Emma Bovary with her icy beauty and gives a performance that is on the money. Jean Francois Balmer is also notable for his portrayal of her doting and supportive husband. This is an excellent, value priced film, one that is well worth having in one's collection. Period piece lovers will especially enjoy this film.

A true Madame Bovary
This movie is one of the best renditons of Gustave Flaubert's classic novel. The actors do a wonderful job giving depth to the characters and it is a wonderful adaptive screenplay. I recommend this version of all others except for maybe the one with Francis O'Conner.

Madame Bovary
Nobody could play the role better than Isabelle Huppert! I have red the book and seen the film. Never have I seen a film more "loyal" to such a wonderful book, than the film made by Claude Chabrol. And Isabelle Huppert gives us the most wonderful representation of the young Madame Bovary. She truely transmites us the idea of a woman who lives in another world; whose soul is restless, sufering, bored and longing for a glamourous life. If one likes the book, the film by Claude Chabrol will certainly not be disappointing! ... Read more

Amazon.com

Paul (François Cluzet) and Nelly (Emmanuelle Béart) havewhat seems to be a storybook marriage. They love each other madly and have worked together to turn their little lakeside inn into a gorgeous resort getaway while raising an adorable son. But there's a problem: Paul is convinced Nelly is having an affair and his jealousy spins to insane proportions. Hallucinations and nightmares twist his dementia until he imagines her sleeping with every man in sight, and his obsessive spying turns Nelly's life into a living hell. Claude Chabrol (director of LaCérémonie, known as the Gallic Hitchcock for his cool thrillers of obsessive love and homicidal passion, created his film from an original unfilmed screenplay by Henri-George Clouzot (Les Diaboliques). He injects Clouzot's dark, misanthropic tale with a soupçon of Hitchcock's voyeuristic obsession,but ultimately makes the film his own with unexpected sympathy for Paul, whose pathological jealousy spins out of control in a chilling conclusion that leaves the viewers uncomfortably nestled in his madness. The film faced charges of misogyny upon release largely because Chabrol remained steadfast in his portrayal of Paul not as a monster but a victim of madness (somewhat at the expense of Nelly, an angelic sexpot whose loyalty and love is almost sacrificial), but ultimately that's what gives L'Enfer its unsettling power. --Sean Axmaker ... Read more

Reviews (10)

A man¿s own personal hell¿.
Reality, or fantasy is the immediate question posed in Claude Chabrol's L'Enfer. The man who carries the mantel the"French Hitchcock" Chabrol delivers a taut, bare to the bones thriller.

When husband Paul (Francois Cluzet) begins to believe his beautiful, flirtatious wife Nelly (Emmanuelle Beart) is fooling around, his psychological demise is quick, and intense.

Chabrol brings us the story primarily from Paul's point of view, leaving many of the ambiguities, as well as the uncertainties of this tale to our own imagination.

From a script of Henri-Georges Clouzot (Diabolique, Wages of Fear) written in 1964, Chabrol updates the original (Clouzot never finished his version due to failing health, he died in 1977) giving it the contemporary setting and dialogue, but maintaining a style of presentation consistent with the thrillers of that era.

I love this early exchange: Nelly: "You're following me, Paul." Paul: "Why would I, is there any reason?" Nelly: "No, but if you keep it up, there will be."

Emmanuelle Beart shows why she is one of the world's great stars. American audiences have yet to have the best of Beart, who's English speaking debut (Mission:Impossible) seemed uneven, almost clumsy. But here she delivers on all cylinders: a beautiful seductress. Calculating? Unfaithful? We'll see.

Highly recommended.

Obsessive jealousy
Although Emmanuelle Béart (Manon des sources (1986), Un coeur en hiver (1992) etc.) is particularly beautiful in this Claude Chabrol film and entirely compelling in the role of a free-spirited wife suspected of adultery, and even though her co-star Francois Cluzet (Une affaire de femmes (1988)) does a fine job as a man obsessed with jealousy, this turns out to be an almost boring movie.

I think the problem is in the ambiguity about Nelly's infidelity that director and scriptwriter Chabrol relied on. Ambiguity by itself does not create tension. Artistic tension comes from an interplay within the mind of the viewer between an anticipated or expected result and its actual delineation. Thus in comedy we know that they will live happily ever after, and in tragedy, the fatal flaw will lead to something horrible. We can even know the end of the story, as in Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet or in the Swedish film, Elvira Madigan (1967), or indeed in any number of war films, and still eagerly anticipate how it happens. In fact, I think it is always the case that we anticipate the end of a story at least in a general way: "good" will triumph over "evil," the evil person will get his or her comeuppance, the British army will win the war, etc. In modern cinema this may not seem always true since the bad guys sometimes triumph, as in noire movies. Nonetheless I think the ending of such movies is really what we expect, the revelation of the essential unfairness of the world. It becomes then only a question of just how this unfairness manifests itself. As in classic drama, the modern comédie noire may be seen as a tragedy, with society or the meek or the slow or the trusting being devoured by the wild animals of the city.

Regardless, here I think it might have been better to clearly reveal Nelly's infidelity or lack of it, early on, and then focus on its discovery or the revelation of a delusion. Obsessive jealousy is a theme that should work, but may be harder to put on film than Chabrol realized. I think too that the character of the irrationally jealous man be made manifest in some collateral way; perhaps we should see his insecurity before hand somehow; perhaps he should have some obvious shortcoming of appearance or character or there should be something from his past that leads him to irrational jealousy. Clearly an older man with a young and beautiful wife may be jealous in anticipation of the inevitable; or any man with a flirtatious wife. This is not necessarily irrational. Béart's Nelly reminds me of Brigitte Bardot from the days of her youth as in And God Created Woman (1957), a naturally warm and sensuous being, full of affection for others, very beautiful and impossibly sexy. The way Nelly walks and swings herself owes something to Bardot. The psychology of the Roger Vadim film from the fifties advanced the controversial "argument" that a woman like that needs a firm hand. Here the suggestion is that the husband's jealousy can only lead to pain and disaster, and that the only hope is complete trust. What I am trying to say is that the psychology, like the tension of the film, seemed at loose ends. It is clear before we are halfway through that Nelly really loves her husband, the real question being, is he enough for her? I also think that Nelly's character should have included something negative in it (she seems a little too good to be true), something the viewer could relate to, perhaps a past infidelity or betrayal.

Charbol is a better director than this film might indicate. See the aforementioned Une affaire de femmes (1988) starring Isabelle Huppert as an example of what he can do.

A choice piece of Cinematic presentation
This is a wonderful piece of work. It makes you tingle they way in which jealosy is portrayed as a person living in fear, anger and desperation. The iterview and commentary from the the director was also profound.

One of the best films I've ever seen.

This don't Be-art
The film: "What a horrible little film Claude Chabrol has made!" [I translate loosely.] The French reviews must have gone something like this. When the critics of Cahiers du Cinema gave the nod of approval to an "auteur", it was nearly impossible for him to fall from grace. In re-watching "l'Enfer", I can at least speak for myself in saying that he wrote himself off of the list of directors in whom I place some trust... and into the shadowy realm of "has-been"s. I would be surprised if the critics felt differently.

Why do I despise this film so intensely? First and foremost, none of it is in the least bit original... or believable. Paul and Nelly meet one afternoon at his newly purchased hotel, as by chance. He looks her over, clowns around a bit, etc. Flash forward to wedding. And so on. There is no relationship developed between the two, nor any reason for their love to exist at all. I can forgive one such transgression in the first five minutes of a film, but come on! I mean... to call this plot Swiss cheese does cows everywhere a helluva disservice! Paul's reasons for doubting his wife's fidelity are based on loose, circumstantial evidence, yet, somehow, this kind father and doting husband slips into a personal hell of his own creation: INSANE jealousy! Is Chabrol kidding with this crap? I can't believe that this is the same director who gave us such an honest, compelling vision of psychosis 25 years earlier in "Les Bonnes Femmes". What could have happened over that time for to have regressed to creating this imbecilic, one-sided portrait of obsession that is nearly as silly a cautionary tale as "Reefer Madness".

It is almost pointless to evaluate the performances of the cast, given the poor quality of the script (not to mention editing that manifestly shows that Chabrol's cinematic "language" never made it out of the 1960s)... but I will. Emmanuelle Beart is superb, as she usually is, as a bouncy, innocently flirtacious young wife and later as a battered, defeated prisoner of the evil Paul. Her talents are utterly wasted here, for, as one of the garage mechanics said in Stephen King's "Christine", "You can't polish a turd." Francois Cluzet delivers an over-the-top Paul that ranks up there with Eric Roberts' performance in "Star 80" (though not nearly as convincing.) Sure, he's got ample reason to be insecure... but the dizzying heights to which he carries his all-consuming distrust simply aren't warranted by the scanty clues of his cuckolding. The rest of the cast are fine in their nearly invisible roles.

Final words on the film: If this is supposed to be "mature" work, it is little wonder that Chabrol has been excluded from winning nearly every major award. I am frankly shocked that the great Clouzot wrote the majority of this screenplay. I'd like to think that Chabrol's adaptation is at fault, but perhaps there was a reason that Clouzot never shot it. In sum, the only "hell" is sitting through this mindless exercise in misogyny.

The DVD: Possibly the worst transfer in my 1000+ DVD collection. Here are some general adjectives: dull, muted, washed out, grainy, pixellated (wish I'd been when I was watching it!), dark... and riddled with artifacts, flashes and even skips! No... not just DVD skips, of which there were plenty, but ACTUAL GAPS IN THE FILM! What kinda busted, to' up print did Fox Lorber use for this transfer? It looks worse than the VHS. I even have a suspicion that a VHS tape was the source, and an over-rented one at that. Oh... and let me hurl one last insult at this disgraceful, cocktail coaster of a DVD: When I said "dark" before, I meant that the night scenes were so black at times that my television threatened to collapse on itself and suck me through a black hole in to the land of bad cinema. But, no worries... I got there on foot by the end of the film!

My verdict: A must-not see. A waste of money. I'd be afraid to sell this kind of garbage on eBay and would pity the fool who'd buy it (as I foolishly did.) I'm tempted to write out the 101 best uses for this DVD, though I'd exceed Amazon's 1000 word limit. The bottom line is... If you like Claude Chabrol, see "Les Biches" or "Les Bonnes Femmes" or "Le Boucher"... or nearly any of his pre-1970 films. If you like Emmanuelle Beart, see "Manon des Souces" or "La Belle Noiseuse" (and by the way... If you want to see her in the nude, you're out of luck in "l'Enfer", you dirty rascal!) And if you like Francois Cluzet, I seriously question whether you recognize good acting, despite the fact that he's appeared in several solid films. [Question: Do you also think that Jean-Pierre Leaud was a fine performer after "The 400 Blows", when he "learned" to "act", simply because he starred in "Porcile" and "Last Tango in Paris"?]

I'm going to sprinkle myself with holy water after this abomination and turn in for the night. If you choose to buy this film, heedless of my words, you may want to invite your local exorcist over to watch it with you.

Can't decide one way or the other.
For the first half hour of L'Enfer, and with an urgent pace, Chabrol shows every reason and indication that Nelly is cheating on Paul. But after that, it becomes frusterating and hard to know for sure.

Ultimately, Paul was dillusional. But the first 30 minutes still makes me wonder. I guess it's up to you to decide how faithful Nelly is and what really happens at the end. ... Read more

Amazon.com

Marie Latour (Isabelle Huppert) wants to be a singer, but she is a woman struggling against poverty in war-torn France, with two children to feed and a husband away fighting. When a neighbor becomes pregnant, Marie performs an abortion and is rewarded for her services with a Victrola.It's a small step from the Victrola to an income, and Marie finds that she likes to live comfortably and feed her children well. Her husband Paul (Francois Cluzet) returns and attempts to coerce her into being the type of wife he imagines he wants, but Marie insists on running things her way, and her husband is relegated to the role he imagined for her. She finds contentment in her power (merely the power to be herself and pursue her desires), but things are terribly out of balance in the world she was born into and eventually revenge is exacted. Claude Chabrol (Madame Bovary) has created a remarkably complex and poignant film about a very complex subject: the true story of the last woman to be executed in France by guillotine. An important film to see. --James McGrath ... Read more

Reviews (5)

An incredible true story
This powerful Claude Chabrol film, "The Story of Women" stars the incredibly talented Isabelle Huppert as Frenchwoman, Marie Latour--the last woman in France to die on the Guillotine. The story takes place in German-occupied Paris in the 1940s. Latour, whose husband is away fighting in WWII, barely manages to feed herself and her two children. Living in a tiny apartment, eating nettle soup, Latour accidentally stumbles on a lucrative profession when she performs her first abortion on a neighbour. Soon, women are flocking to Latour for her illegal services, and she rakes the money in--oblivious of the risks she runs--for herself and for her customers.

When Latour's husband returns, he accepts the situation--although he is more than a little disgruntled at Marie's new independence; however, times are tough, and he doesn't complain about the financial benefits of Marie's new profession. The Latour family prospers as others struggle, and soon the Latours expand their business dealings into new avenues....

Huppert's acting is, as always, incomparable. As the intense, single-minded, hard, and yet oddly-childlike Latour, Huppert is both believable and sympathetic. If you are a fan of French film, then this film is an absolute MUST see. Chabrol is one of my favourite directors, and Huppert is my favourite actress--their talents combined create an unforgettable viewing experience.

Worth seeing once, but leaves a sour taste
Despite reviews to the commentary, this is not exactly a pro-choice movie (the director is too subtle for that). It is true that the men in the film (French or German) are boorishly ignorant about women's bodies, needs, and aspirations. But, as the director makes clear, the ladies are unreflective about abortion and its philosophical implications. The Huppert character is no heroine. She shamelessly favors her daughter over her son (who really needs his mother more). Huppert nags her shiftless husband to breaking point. And while all ordinary French citizens were locked in a struggle to survive during the Occupation -- confronted daily with sickening dilemmas -- the Huppert character in this film is to all intents and purposes a successful black-marketeer, who plays the system well. Rather too well; pride comes before a fall. Huppert's astringency suits the part, although Trintignant as her hooker pal is more sympathetic.

Abortion in Nazi-occupied France
Claude Charbrol's stark and unsentimental masterpiece about the last woman to be executed in France--she was guillotined for performing abortions in Nazi-occupied France during World War II--forces us to see a side of war not often depicted. What does a woman with two little children do when her country is occupied by the brute forces of the enemy? How is she to find enough to eat, to buy the increasingly scarce and costly necessities of life? How is she to find joy in life? Women often turn to prostitution during such times, but Maire Latout does not. Instead she aborts the foetuses of the prostitutes and of other women impregnated, often by the Nazis. In a sense this is her "resistence." However she prospers and takes up with a Nazi collaborator. In the process she reduces her husband to frustration and humiliation.

Isabelle Huppert as Marie Latout is mesmerizing in a role that allows her talent full latitude. She is clear-headed and sly as a business woman, warm and ordinary as a mother, cold and brutal as a wife, childish and careless as an adulteress, resourceful and fearless as an abortionist, and unrepentant as she awaits the executioner (foreshadowed, by the way, by her son, who wants to be an executioner when he grows up). Francois Cluzet plays her husband Paul, and he is also very good, especially at rousing our pity. Charbrol makes it clear that both Marie and Paul are victims, not only of war, but of their divergent natures. Paul wants the love of Marie, but she wants only a man that represents success and power, a man who is clean-shaven, not the menial worker that he is. Marie Trintignant is interesting and convincing as a prostitute who becomes Marie Latout's friend and business associate.

While abortion is indeed "Une affaire de femmes" this film is about much more than that. No doubt the title is there to emphasize Charbrol's point that men really do not (did not then, and do not now) really understand abortion and why it is sometimes a horrible and abject necessity. When Marie is taken to Paris for a show trial she exclaims to a woman in jail with her, referring to the court that will pass judgment on her, "It's all men...how could men understand?" We can see that men really can't, and that precisely is what this movie is all about: showing us just how horrible pregnancy can be under the circumstances of enemy occupation.

A secondary story here, not quite a subplot, is Paul's story. What does a man do when he and his children are dependent on a woman who doesn't love him, a woman who rejects him and even goes so far as to arrange for the cleaning woman to sleep with him? It is not only Marie who humiliates him, but it is the defeat of his country, the easy surrender to the Nazis that has so reduced him. This is made clear in a scene late in the film between two lawyers who voice their shame as Frenchmen in a time of defeat.

What Paul does is not pretty (and I won't reveal it here), but so great is the provocation that one understands his behavior and can forgive him.

Classic Chabrol/Huppert
Isabelle Huppert won the Best Actress award at the Venice Film Festival for her delicate performance as Marie LaTout, said to be based on the true story of Marie Louise Giraud, who was guillotined in occupied France as an abortionist and profiting from the earnings of prostitutes. Perhaps no other director presents Huppert as well as Claude Chabrol, which explains why he likes to cast her so often. He frames her sad beautiful face in closeup to remind us of Garbo, though Huppert lacks Garbo's exquisite physical and spiritual languor. Chabrol's spare treatment of the tale underlines the hypocrisy of the execution, rationalised under the name of "moral restoration of the State" when the French were actively collaborating with the German's persecution of the Jews. The narrative also has a strong feminist stance, since Marie is a passive innocent, who sees her actions as helping other women with unwanted pregnancies, and rents her home to a prostitute because she is a friend who represents a woman who was taken from Marie for being Jewish. In prison she points out men cannot understand what she has done, and all the jury are men. Marie's tragedy reminds me a little of Madame Bovary (a later effort by Chabrol and Huppert) since she has ambition yet is stifled by her marriage to a man she does not love. We forgive her infidelity since she is so loving to her two children, and because she even arranges another sexual partner for her husband. In response to the latter extraordinary offer, he expresses his gratitude by reporting her to the police. Chabrol gives us some clever forbodings - a goose beheaded at a fair, Marie's son wish to be an executioner, Marie being a singer, her husband's cutouts hobby. I also like the predominance of blue in the colour scheme to show the glumness of Vichy apartments and the Paris prison, the use of rain, and the restraint in the abortion sequences. And while Huppert's singing voice may not be great it is a delight to see how happy it makes her. Special mention is made of the music by Matthieu Chabrol, reminiscent of Faure.

A triumph for Chabrol and Huppert
Isabelle Huppert won the Best Actress award at the Venice Film Festival for her delicate performance as Marie LaTout, said to be based on the true story of Marie Louise Giraud, who was guillotined in occupied France as an abortionist and profiting from the earnings of prostitutes. Perhaps no other director presents Huppert as well as Claude Chabrol, which explains why he likes to cast her so often. He frames her sad beautiful face in closeup to remind us of Garbo, though Huppert lacks Garbo's exquisite physical and spiritual languor. Chabrol's spare treatment of the tale underlines the hypocrisy of the execution, rationalised under the name of "moral restoration of the State" when the French were actively collaborating with the German's persecution of the Jews. The narrative also has a strong feminist stance, since Marie is a passive innocent, who sees her actions as helping other women with unwanted pregnancies, and rents her home to a prostitute because she is a friend who represents a woman who was taken from Marie for being Jewish. In prison she points out men cannot understand what she has done, and all the jury are men. Marie's tragedy reminds me a little of Madame Bovary (a later effort by Chabrol and Huppert) since she has ambition yet is stifled by her marriage to a man she does not love. We forgive her infidelity since she is so loving to her two children, and because she even arranges another sexual partner for her husband. In response to the latter extraordinary offer, he expresses his gratitude by reporting her to the police. Chabrol gives us some clever forbodings - a goose beheaded at a fair, Marie's son's wish to be an executioner, Marie being a singer. I also like the predominance of blue in the colour scheme to show the glumness of Vichy apartments and the Paris prison, the use of rain, and the restraint in the abortion sequences. And while Huppert's singing voice may not be great it is a delight to see how happy it makes her. Special mention is made of the music by Matthieu Chabrol, reminiscent of Faure. ... Read more

Reviews (4)

Really great!
It's got all a girl needs! Beautiful character design (especially on Zell-sama! He's so pretty!), a hot plot, snazzy outfits, love, odd dreams and fantasies, and a few 80's flashbacks! Shoujo fans, stop here! The sad thing is the few seconds of screen time given to big robots and machinery. The robot's presence is the sole reason I didn't give this five stars. I just detest robots. The cover of the sub is simply fantastic! In case you want to search for and Japanese-ish stuff regarding the movie, it's original Japnese title is "Genmu Senki Leda".

A Strange Adventure into Early Shoujo Anime
This is a pretty fantastic video. A schoolgirl loves a boy at her school, and composes a beautiful piano peice to express her love for him. Before she can play it for him though, she is sucked into a strange planet in another dimension, and gets caught up into a strugle to take over the Earth. This might seem like sci-fi, but it's almost pure fantasy. It has everything a girl needs: Beautiful male villains, love, music, adventure... It has good (if odd) music, decent animation, and a great storyline. You should probably go for the Japanese dialogue/English subtitled edition though (they're both the exact same price, and how many times does that happen?). The English dubbing features odd accents, and the typical crazy voices that most anime got in the 1980's (sometimes it gets so bad that you'll be laughing). A little warning though, sometimes Right Stuf (the publisher) runs off flawed VHS tapes. They have a comment card inside each box. If you have a problem, go to their website and they'll exchange it for free. I really recommend this tape highly to any girl out there who has liked Shoujo Kakumei Utena, Rayearth, CardCaptor Sakura, Sailor Moon, or any of the other various shoujo anime out there. This title gets overlooked a lot. But don't think that just because it isn't famous it isn't good. Unlike most of Right Stuf's unknown titles, this is a really great video.

Cool, but very very strange.
Picture if you will the following; a teenage girl listening to her own, self-composed song as her school crush walks by. Now picture a dazzeling display of light, then imagine the teen in a lush forest area. Her name is Yohko. Yohko suddenly finds herself on the back of an enourmous tirtle creature with moss on its back. Yohko losses grip of her tapeplayer, along with her sacred song, which is a love song that bassicily confesses Yohkos love to her crush. She is befriended by a flying dog that can talk english. Then Yohko and her new found friend get chased by a group of carrot monsters. But Yohko falls into a giant flower and transforms into a warrior with magical powers. She defeats the evil carrot monsters and then proceeds to chase after the carrot-riders on a speeder-thing. Soon, they reach a strange ruins, and a huge mech that looks like a cross between Carrot Top and the Tin Man from the Wizard of Oz; the Mech is controled by a somewhat kawaii girl. Sound a little weird? It should. But there's more. The Enemy is a raging transvestite (well, I'm not sure what he/she is, but "transvestite" is a pretty close label).It acually trys to comes on to Yohko! But the weird thing for me is that this anime is meant to be serious. Despite the witty plot summary on the back of the box, the anime never once tries to crack a joke. It's strange, but I was really entertained by this title. The plot is fairly coherent, but again, its very strange. Surreal is a good word to describe this title. The final verdict is...well...it mostly depends on your taste. Maybe it's Yohko's song, maybe its its character, its fantasy concepts, but this anime is quite enjoyable. All I can say is see it for yourself and decide.

a cute anime
IT WAS A FAD FOR FANTASY ANIMES TO HAVE YOUNG CHARRECTERS TO BE TRANSPORTED TO ANOTHER DIMENSION, AND MAY BE THE ONLY FORCE TO SAVE IT. Leda,Fantastic Adventures Of Yohko IS ONE OF THOSE ANIMES.IT'S SOTRY BEGINS WHEN A YOUNG GIRL NAMED YOHKO WANTS TO EXPRESS HER LOVE TO A POPULAR GUY IN SCHOOL.BUT IS ALITTLE SHY TO SAY IT.SO SHE WRITES A SONG TO GIVE HER THE COURAGE TO EXPRESS THAT LOVE.AS SHE WALKS TOWARDS HIM,SHE'S SUCKED INTO ANOTHER WORLD CALLED ASHANTI.THE WORLD WE KNOW OF IS CALLED "NOAH."ASHANTI WAS ONCE GOVERNED BY A GODDESS NAMED LEDA.BUT SOME FORCES THREATENED THE PEACE SO SHE SEALED NOAH AND ASHANTI.YOHKO DISCOVERS HER MUSIC IS PART OF LEDA'S POWER,AND A POWERFUL MILLITARISTIC FORCE WANTS TO LEAVE ASHANTIC IN RUINS AND CONQUER NOAH,BY USING YOHKO'S MUSIC.NOW FINDING OUT SHE'S THE WARRIOR SERVANT OF LEDA'S POWER,YOHKO MUST FIGHT HER WAY TO RETRIEVE HER MUSIC,AND SAVE HER WORLD. A CUTE ANIME,NICE MUSIC,AND FUILD AND BEAUTIFUL CHARRECTER DESIGHNS BY MUTSUMI INOMATA.THE DESIGHNS AND SETTINGS THEM SELVES ARE PRETTY ORIGANAL.IF YOU LIKED EL HAZARD,ARUA BATTLER DUBINE,GRAZEY'S WING,MAGIC KNIGHT RAYEARTH,AND CORRECTER YUI....Leda:Fantastic Adventures Of Yohko is a sweet treat. ... Read more

Reviews (3)

Chabrol's sexiest film
Opening scene: Romy Schneider is sunbathing outdoors on the lush green lawn of her San Tropez estate, nude. A mans kite slowly comes to rest on Romy's back. The man approaches and asks if he can retrieve his kite. Romy rolls over exposing herself and asks, "is there anything else you want?". So begins Claude Chabrols 1975 Innocents With Dirty Hands.

Chabrol has made lots of movies and this in my estimation is his sexiest. Usually in his late sixties and early seventies pictures Stephane Audran is Chabrol's star and she is beautiful but also icy cold. Audran seems encased in her beauty and expresses very little in the way of emotion. It is nice to see an actress in a Chabrol film who express as much emotion and sensuality as Romy Schneider and there are lots of different kinds of emotions and sensuality to be expressed in Innocents. As to be expected in a Chabrol film the plot involves infidelity and murder but unlike many of Chabrols other treatments of his pet themes this film has some real heat. Chabrol loves to film the decadence of the rich as they enjoy their leisures and pleasures and San Tropez provides the perfect setting for this story of the idle rich playing dangerous games. Hitchcock is always mentioned in the same breath as Chabrol but Chabrol subverts Hitchcock as much as he borrows from him. In Hitchcock no matter how complicated things got there was always a comfortable resolution. In Chabrol complications do not work themselves out so neatly. Things get tangled and they remain tangled. In Chabrol's world everyone is a fallen creature, each character just realizes it in a different way and at a different time. Romy Schneider appears in one striking outfit after another, including one scene in a very cool caftan, another in black silk with cascades of diamonds. Her sensuality seems luxurious and this is a woman who basks in the glow of her luxury. Two men want her bad enough to kill, her husband played by Rod Steiger and the kite flying writer who lives next door. One plot gives way to another as each character tries to gain the upper hand. I've seen maybe 20 Chabrol fims and this one I would place very near the top of the list. The acting is tremendous by the main three characters and by the minor characters as well, ie the police detectives(great duo of detectives) and lawyer(great actor, Jean Rochefort). The ending as always with Chabrol is unexpected. A very sexy and very satisfying film which will please the most discerning filmgoer and delight anyone who already considers themselves a Chabrol fan. Also recommeded by Chabrol: La Ceremonie, Wedding in Blood, Le Boucher, The Unfaithful Woman(Le Femme Infidele), Cry of the Owl & This Man Must Die.

psychological thriller
i remember this movie from when I was a young girl growing up in Europe, but haven't seen it in years. Romy Schneider was a great actress and that alone makes it worth seeing. It impressed me so much at the time, I'll give it four stars...also recommended: Chabrol's "The Butcher" (Le Boucher).

Maintains a heart-stopping pace all the way through.
This loosely adapted biography of prima ballerina Jodi Lee Pavlova involves her affair with Rudolph Nureyev and the hundreds of impossible-to-detect ways she made her permanent mark on the ballet world. It was she who defined the now classic character of the little matchstick girl in the well known ballet "Ou Est La Bibliotheque, Bebe?" by appearing onstage under harsh lighting with a lit cigarette in her mouth, curses on her ruby lips, and a bad attitude that won hearts all over the world. But the scene she is most famous for is the 1977 Covent Garden Christmas Eve production of the Nutcracker. For it was there that she and Nureyev cemented their permanent love-hate, sex-surfing-disco-and-death manifesto by actually slugging it out in the lobby during intermission. Along the way to becoming a legend in her own time, she is widely credited with introducing the elegant, aloof, Nureyev to bowling and putt-putt golf, sex in glass elevators at high noon, crank phone calls in the middle of the night, insomniac pirouettes on balcony railings on weekday evenings, and obscure Chinese wines every weekend (who in the ballet world can forget the sight of Nureyev onstage as Prince Floramund with the "head shivers"). In return, Nureyev became her often petulant, blatantly misogynistic, constantly carping, somewhat embittered, often disoriented,love slave. And oh my! Can anyone ever forget her cat claws bared, fur flying, spitting and howling, tutu-ripping backstage brawl with Gelsey Kirkland after Kirkland called Nureyev "a lunatic?" Cinematographer Boogie Scheinfranken has created a timeless work of stunning visual beauty as seen through a prism of stage lighting and lots of glittering green eyeshadow (Nureyev's). A Must See! ... Read more

Reviews (4)

Didn't do much for me...
A disappointing snoozer of a French art film, one of Claude Chabrol's later efforts... Isabelle Huppert stars as a con lady with an older accomplice, in what is (I assume) intended as a deconstruction of your typical caper flick, with the scams going awry and the plot details involving the ironic inclusion of modern European culture... But there's little momentum in the script and direction, or spark between any of the actors. This film just kind of sits there and does very little to surprise or amuse. Next!

You'll smile throughout
This is a wonderful movie about larcenous hearts. It's light, breezy tone will remind you of To Catch a Thief and other fun Hitchcock flicks. One of the other people that reviewed this makes one major mistake in his review - this is definitely not a father, daughter team. A lot of the fun is derived from the jealousy that is sparked when Isabella Hupert's character pays more attention to another man. Fantastic, fun crime story. Ocean's 11 wishes it was this funny.

AKA Rien ne va plus
This rather low key Claude Chabrol thriller which he wrote and directed, and which was the inspiration for the John Flynn 1983 Scam, is more a chuckler than a spine tingler. Isabelle Huppert and Michel Serrault have great chemistry as a father and daughter team of con artists who choose their victims from hotel conventions. The film begins with Huppert seducing a lawnmower salesman and Serrault observing, so that at first we think he is spying on Huppert because he is a hotel detective and on to her. Huppert doesn't even try to hide her duplicity by wearing a terrible and obvious black wig. Serrault is established as the mastermind of their operation, but Huppert upstages him at their next venue, a dentist's convention in St Moritz, when she appears with Francois Cluzet who has a suitcase of stolen money. Chabrol then toys with us with the allegiances of the three, and it's never clear who is trying to con who, until we reach the West Indies and things turn deadly serious. Chabrol underlines the menace of the climactic confrontation by having Tosca playing as Huppert discovers a dead body, and gives the floor of a gangster's house a checkerboard pattern. Hupperts second change of hairstyle may be inexplicable but it is definitely disappointing considering how beautiful she looks with long strawberry blonde hair and wearing dark glasses a la Barbara Stanwyck in Double Indemnity. Chabrol also uses a white colour scheme, from Serrault's hair to the snow in St Moritz, the voluminous dress a dancer wears, and the colour of the family van, and the song Changez Tout at the end became quite popular.

Deft Chabrol thriller
"The Swindle" marks another superlative effort from Claude Chabrol. A tense taut tale of a small heist gone awfully wrong, this is a thriller which will be appreciated by European film noir fans who do not mind the leisurely pacing and elliptical polt unfolding. Isabebelle Huppert is superb as usual as a small time crook,and Michel Serrault is dazzling as a cleverly disguised old timer. If you loved "La Ceremonie", this one is definitely one to see. ... Read more

Amazon.com

It's a mixed blessing, but Claude Chabrol's 1991 adaptation of Madame Bovary can at least claim a proper French pedigree in its fidelity to Flaubert's literary classic. It's certainly more faithful than Madame herself, played here with icy determination by Isabelle Huppert. Frustrated, repressed, and desperate for any opportunity to break free of her numbing marital bondage, the wife of Dr. Bovary finds her chance in the affections of Rodolphe Boulanger (Christophe Malavoy), but she is too shallow and too selfish to sense his lack of commitment. And as Flaubert's tale unfolds (along with Chabrol's dryly accurate interpretation), Emma Bovary finds herself caught in a snare of her own design. This tragedy of self-absorption--a universal study of indulgence, ignominy, and fatal discontent--should prove potent for anyone who feels the oppression of an unhappy marriage, but it's also a compelling study of boredom as an internal phenomenon. Huppert conveys exasperation, passion, and self-destruction in equal measure, yet she barely alters her passive, blank expression; her performance is too cold to ignite the resonant themes of Flaubert's novel. All in all, one wonders if Chabrol--seemingly uneasy with costume drama--is being too respectful of Flaubert at the cost of his own directorial mastery. This is a prestigious and worthwhile adaptation, but like one of Dr. Bovary's patients, it's been bled to the point of paleness and fainting. The result is a literate film that's "good for you," even though it may not be entirely good. --Jeff Shannon ... Read more

Reviews (9)

flatter than the DVD
Anyone who claims to have liked this movie can only have said so after
having read the book. Without the book as background there is no point of watching this movie. It was loyally re-enacted but skipped through