Reviews (3)

Unforgivably inaccurate and insensitive portrayal...
This is a truly fictional account of the final days of Vincent van Gogh. Anyone who understands the life of this artist will be taken aback by this film's completely insensitive portrayal of Vincent's relationship with his brother. In one scene, Theo actually discount's Vincent's entire output, wishing he had painted more like the impressionists! This film would have you believe that despite a forbidden, sexual relationship with his physician's daughter (who is about half his age), Vincent is driven to commit suicide. First of all, there is no evidence that such a relationship ever occured. Further, the film offers no insite into the true character of the artist and the real reasons that he took his own life. I gave it one star because I can't go any lower... for an accurate account of this artist's life, see "Vincent & Theo" or "Lust for Life."

A distorted and pointless Van Gogh biography
This film--which could have been quite good because of its narrow focus on the last two months of Van Gogh's life--is, in the end, a disaster. The film is grossly inaccurate in its portrayals of Vincent, his brother Theo, Dr. Paul Gachet and Gachet's daughter, Marguerite. Director Maurice Pialat seems to have thrown virtually every known fact about Van Gogh out the window and has rewritten history according his own distorted (and actually extremely boring) vision.

A far better movie would be Robert Altman's "Vincent and Theo" starring Tim Roth. Pialat's film, unfortunately, is a mess.

As a lover of Van Gogh, I did not care for this movie.
Jacques Dutronc was great, it was the directing and the portrayal of Van Gogh that I thought was inaccurate. This movie is only based on the last 67 days of Van Gogh's life. Perhaps, I would have enjoyed it more if we could have watched how Van Gogh evolved. What was he like during the ten years before his death? I'd like to see a movie that can depict more of the essence of Van Gogh, and not only focus on "the worst days of his life". There is a huge misconception in the world, of who Van Gogh "is", and this movie only feeds it. Read "Dear Theo": Van Gogh's letters to his brother Theo. The book is far much better than this movie. At least, we can get the truth through Van Gogh's eyes, not Maurice Pialat's. ... Read more

Reviews (2)

teenage, love and sex
Maurice Pialat died a few weeks ago and he can't be compare to any of the other french directors, if you would like to compare him to someone it will be to john Cassavetes.
Maurice Pialat wanted to film life like it is, he didn't care of the technique and the actors in his films are better than they've never been. The story shows the reality of the violence of adolescence. It's a really moving movie, the kind of, you can't forget when you've seen it once. It's done with human feeling and human blood, if you're the kind of personn who love films to be lively, alive, and beautiful, don't miss this one. If you're afraid of emotions, love, no love... forget it.
Pialat is doing the part of the father in this film.

Strange and oddly nerving family relations
This film starring the marvelous Sandrine Bonnaire is extremely difficult to rate, namely because I neither liked or disliked it. I simply found it odd. The story centers around a young girl(Bonnaire) and her endless search for how to relate to people. She goes through a number of relationships with men/boys, and comes out no different, and then this story is complicated by her relationships with her father and brother who both flirt with her. the mother is in this familial mess as well, bursting into brief rages in which she beats her daughter, then her son, then kisses her son and falls on her bed trembling. One doesn't know how to approach this film, because it is just so strange-which in itself is a compliment, since many of the films that are around are simply banal. See this film if you are in the mood for a kind of study or glimpse into an unusual family, and confusing times for a female approaching adulthood. Another moment for you to better understand the oddness in this film is when Bonnaire wakes up in the morning and is completely naked. Her mother enters the room and looks at her daughter commenting how she should wear more as Bonnaire just stares at her. Another is when Bonnaire invites a female friend to rest with her in her bed, and the friend states that Bonnaires father is handsome, and when Bonnaires father enters the room is is obvious how titillated he is by seeing his daughter and another girl in the same bed. Quite repulsive this scene is! These scenes give you a little insight into this film to help you better understand if it is a film you would be interested in watching. It is not a film that you leave gleaming at how wonderful or frowning at how terrible it is- you just leave quietly thinking. ... Read more

Reviews (4)

Na ja
Nicht gerade umwerfend. Wie eine x-beliebige Krimiserie im Fernsehen. Kein Meisterwerk. Alle lügen und betrügen sich gegenseitig. Depardieu wie Sophie Marceau, die alle reinlegt. Sie sieht allerdings recht durchschnittlich aus, die Rolle hätte mit irgend einer x-beliebigen Frau aus der Nachbarschaft genau so besetzt werden können.
Mir gefiel die französische Umgebung in Paris und Marseille, aber die ständig schnell quasselnden Schauspieler habe ich schon in besseren Filmen gesehen. Ein mal sehen reicht. Es gibt aus Frankreich ganz tolle Kriminalfilme wie "Frantic" oder "Fahrstuhl zum Schaffott", aber dieser hat mich nicht sehr beeindruckt.

Typical French Cinema
It's nice to see Depardieu in this kind of role. He struggles between his police ethics and his passion for a drug dealer, played by Sophie Marceau, lovely as usual, but dangerous...? He combines several characters in one, making his personality in the movie very complex. He's obviously a great actor, and he proves it once again in this film. I was not familiar with Maurice Pialat's work, and was very nicely surprised. I liked this one very much. Worth a try if you like French Cinema.

Pialat - fantastique
A gritty contemp French drama like no other. Pialat truely brought the cop genre into the modern era, even before the *so called* impromptu realistic portrayal of cop drams such as NYPD blues and so forth. It was the first to use experimental hand held cameras and improv permances by Depadieu and among the excellent cast, a young Sophie Marceau. The tone and rhythm truely sets itself apart from other very high quality European Cinema of the period(mostly historical).

Typical French Cinema
I loved this movie! It is typical French Cinema. Tough (very tough) cop Depardieu slowly falls for lovely drug-dealer Sophie Marceau. Depardieu is a marvel to see, struggling between his work and his feelings for her. Sophie is an excellent cast, combining her "good girl" face with a not-so-good living... Director Maurice Pialat is excellent too. I was not familiar with his work, now I'm looking forward to seeing more of his movies. ... Read more

Reviews (5)

+1/2 ...outlining a rather sad but steamy affair
This 1980 French film is a fairly dreary, depressing, anti-romantic character study, featuring Isabelle Huppert as a restless young woman who ditches her boring, tempramental boyfriend for a wild, leather-clad bad boy (played by an incandescent, youthful Gerard Depardieu). The films inches forth through one mildly unsettling scenario to another; the cumulative effect of which is something close to spiritual nausea. It's supposed to be that way, though: this film is very much a precursor to the downcast realism of the 1990s "dogme" scene, skillfully made, but definitely a downer. However, Depardieu is particularly magnetic in this early role... worth it to see him in his prime!

LouLou
Just watched it. It is a good film; slow but accurate and interesting. Don't think you need to buy it but worth watching once.

Nelly
Director Maurice Pialat's film is more an exercise in star power than any presentation of narrative, with Isabelle Huppert leaving her husband Guy Marchand for the leather-clad ex-con ruffian Loulou played by Depardieu. Even though the tone takes its cue from the character of Loulou as a womanising drifter, the low key seemingly improvised rambling scenes are preferable to the gab-fests of Eric Rohmer, who is responsible for the negative connotations associated with French films by Americans. This film is actually mistitled since although it is Depardieu that is the catalyst for Huppert to change her life, the story is more hers than his. Or perhaps it is that the representation of her crumbling marriage that is more dramatically interesting than Depardieu's "loafing". If Loulou's character is sketched thinly that may to keep him as an enigma, the mysterious bad-boy that women always seem to prefer. At one point Huppert says of Depardieu, "I prefer a loafer who f**ks, to a rich guy who bugs me". And although we can see how limiting Depardieu's world is to Huppert, we also understand her attraction to him, highlighted by a silent image of the couple stumbling down a street in a drunken embrace. Pialat's best moments involve scenes of violence outbursts - a family get together soured by jealousy, the loud music of a disco drowning out shouting, and a brawl between Depardieu and Marchand in a courtyard with a following drink together as evidence of the French form of civilised behaviour. Huppert also has an early scene with Marchand where the camera follows his pursuit and humiliation of her, and here Huppert's anger invalidates the myth of her as a passive performer. The film also shows us footage of her laughing, which is unusual since her situations are usually so glum, and she is funny when she yells in shocked reaction to being hit, in the famous love scene where the bed collapses, and when she falls in the street by accident. Pialat also gives Marchand a laugh by having him resort to playing the saxophone in depression.

Worst French Film I've Ever Seen
This film almost turned me off French films for good. Fortunately, however, I have seen so many more French films that I adored, that I ultimately just tried to forget about this and move on. I found both of the characters detestable. They were played by Isabelle Huppert and Gérard Depardieu. I've liked Depardieu in many other film roles, especially early in his career, but I must admit that I generally do not like Huppert's acting. She has yet to play a character that I didn't find ultimately unworthy of spending 90-120 minutes to get to know in a film. In "Loulou," Huppert is married to someone else but is having an affair with the work phobic, loutish Depardieu. Some viewers found very good ...chemistry between these two actors. I found the two of them together a complete turnoff. Why did I see this film? It played all of the major film festivals and generally got excellent reviews. It beats me how that happened but there were indeed critics and viewers who liked, or even loved, this film. It happens.

Loulou
This movie goes back to the early Eighties and I still remember it, since I went to watch it three times within a few days. It was probably due to the scene where the bed crashes down. It is one of the films of the young Depardieu in couple with Isabelle Huppert and with an excellent Maurice Pialat directing it. In reality nothing really important happens, but the love scenes are nice. Depardieu plays a young guy who is rather happy without being fixed up in regular work and Isabelle Hupper leaves her husband to stay with him. She earns their living and also decides to abort, since Depardieu only wants to work after the birth of the child. This is also the sad fact about the movie that in reality does not have an end. There is also a nice scene with an open air dinner, much fun and lots to eat and to drink. ... Read more

Reviews (1)

A difficult but rewarding film.
This is certainly a difficult film, requiring both considerable concentration and familiarity with the less sunny, more tortured aspects of Catholic theology. The main character is a simple but saintly priest who is painfully aware of the sway that evil holds over the world and whose desire to liberate other souls from the clutches of the devil is so overwhelming that he is prepared to give his own soul in exchange. The paradox is that for this priest the devil is very real and tangible (he even dreams he encounters him in the form of a traveller while walking through the fields at night) while God seems disturbingly distant and inaccessible. His struggle against evil leads to constant self-torture, but is motivated by boundless pity for those whom the devil has cheated out of happiness and salvation. The dialogue is dense but can have an enormous impact. This is a very, very literary movie (which can put off quite a few viewers) based on a novel by the great French Catholic writer Georges Bernanos, which in turn was inspired by the real-life Jean M. Vianney, a parish priest in a tiny French rural village that is now revered as a saint. Not for everyone, but highly recommended for those interested in some of the most difficult issues raised by religion. ... Read more