Home :: DVD :: Art House & International  

Asian Cinema
British Cinema
European Cinema
General
Latin American Cinema
Sister My Sister

Sister My Sister

List Price: $24.98
Your Price: $22.48
Product Info Reviews

<< 1 2 3 4 >>

Rating: 3 stars
Summary: TANGY!
Review: I WAS PRETTY MUCH PLANNING TO FAST FORWARD THROUGH THIS MOVIE LOOKING FOR "GOOD" PARTS.BUT I ENDED UP WATCHING IT AT NORMAL SPEED BECAUSE ITS ALL GOOD PARTS.THE ACTING WAS SUPERB AND THE STORY UNFOLDS WITH A STRANGE RHYTHM.I'M AWARE THE STORY IS BASED ON TRUE EVENTS BUT I THOUGHT THE VIOLENT CLIMAX WAS JUST WRONG.DESPITE ALL THE LEAKY FAUCET TENSION BUILDING SCENES I FELT A HAPPY ENDING COMING ON.I WAS THINKING THE SISTERS WERE GONNA TELL THE OLD FRENCH BROAD TO TAKE THIS JOB AND SHOVE IT AND THEN MOVE TO CANADA OR SOMETHING.THEY DIDN'T.

Rating: 2 stars
Summary: disgusting and over the top
Review: If you are weak of stomach and religous stay away!!! Has to be a film that will gain a following in the years to come. I myself thought it was disgusting. I was left agape and shocked. The story follows two sisters who grow into an obession with eachother that leads to horrifying conclusions. This film tells the truth in what love between siblings should be put a stop to when it started. In what I cosider...I have no words. The ending which is shocking, but I must admit had to be left to show was a, well satisfactory climax. But still shocking. I would recommend it only to the strong of heart and shock. This film as I said will be a cult favorite.

Rating: 3 stars
Summary: Unbelievable
Review: If you didn't know this was based on a true story you would never believe it. Fine acting but the story line is difficult to deal with. A good study in psychology.

Rating: 3 stars
Summary: Unbelievable
Review: If you didn't know this was based on a true story you would never believe it. Fine acting but the story line is difficult to deal with. A good study in psychology.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: It's ok to love your sister, but not LOVE your sister!
Review: In a time frame where your status of birth is the life you are doomed to live. Two sisters who have only each other to depend on find themselves in a bond of work, lust, and maddness. I was moved by the slow breakdown of ones state mind with paranoia, envy, and desperation. Though slow at first the plot thickens with a blood gash, pierced flesh secne leaving them no choice but to act on raw sister instict. I believe the taboo of this tale is shocked by the reality of it's true time in history. Wicked and gentle!

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: ....absolutely stunning....
Review: Once, in a great while, a film is released that completely shakes your long held beliefs on morality, the politics of class and justice. This is just such a film. Centering on the relationship between two sisters employed as maids in the household of an upper class woman in provincial France, this film is absolutely stunning to behold. Julie Walters gives a fantastic performance as the arrogant and demanding employer who ruthlessly controls the hired help while simultaneously chipping away at her daughter's sense of self worth.

Jodhi May lends an air of youthful naivete to the film as Lea, the devoted younger sister who is the constant favorite of all who meet her. But what makes this film truly superb is Joely Richardson's portrayal of the confused and tortured older sister, Christine. Richardson is able to convey a wealth of emotion with nothing more then a solitary glance and the viewer is left feeling absolutely shattered as they see the gradual physical and psychological disintegration of Richardson's character.

It is no surprise that the film builds to an unbelievable climax of brutality and murder. Nancy Meckler's use of foreshadowing is skillfully done as she presents a situation that can only end in tragedy for all those involved. What may be the most shocking aspect of all, is that this film was inspired by actual events.

Rating: 2 stars
Summary: Remember, you're not buying this for the cover
Review: One of the great pleasures of the "art film" lies in the way they are able to present the most prurient aspects of human nature, whilst maintaining that air of "Emperor's new clothes" respectability. It's a great way to slow your car down to watch the aftermath of a traffic accident, comfortable in the knowledge that YOU are watching the blood pool on the ground for much higher reasons than the proles in the other lane; which brings me (kicking and screaming), to Sister My Sister.

Based loosely on the actual events of the Papin murder case, Sister My Sister plays out like a Merchant Ivory version of Heavenly Creatures, sans the innovative cinematics, and careful plot and character development. One very quickly gets the impression once the film begins, that the sensational aspects of the Papin case alone were considered to be enough to hold your interest; in my case at least, it wasn't.

As stated several times in other reviews, the performances of the two leads are indeed excellent, and a large part of what keeps you watching. Although the two young women look nothing alike, they somehow manage to convey a very convincing sibling bond, all-the-more praiseworthy in the context of this film, as they certainly got little help from the director, and none at all from the screenplay. Quite simply, the problem with Sister My Sister is plausibility. How can that be when it's based on a true story you ask? Easy. The film offers next-to-no backstory on the the two girls or, for that matter, the "repressed" Mother and daughter employers. All we are told, is that the mother of the maids favours the younger girl, and takes a great deal of their wages (a common custom of the era). We are never, for a moment shown or even pointed-to a sensible reason or motive for their impending madness, so that when it ultimately erupts at the end of the film, it comes off as a last-minute afterthought on the part of the script.

The sisters work for a fairly petty and picky aging widow who, at least on screen, is no more opressive or cruel than petty and picky people we have all probably worked-for at one time or another, leaving you with an ending that makes little-to-no sense whatsoever. The victims have done nothing remotely bad enough to rationally explain their brutal murder, leaving only complete madness on the part of the sisters as an explanation; yet unlike in the afore-mentioned Heavenly Creatures, there is practically no view of any descent into madness either. The sisters become suddenly insane in the last 10 minutes of the picture, making for a highly implausable and unsatisfying ending. It could be that a lot of exposition was edited-out for whatever reason, but what remains seems like 80 minutes of the girls somberly doing chores, having sex, and going for walks, occasionally punctuated by the matron complaining about their dressmaking skills, followed by 5 minutes of confrontation and murder that barely seem to belong in the rest of the film you just watched.

The "wink-wink" scenes are indeed strangly erotic, for the one or two of you who are interested, (ok, maybe more than one or two) but you can't help but think, while watching the 3rd or 4th heavy-breathing montage, that the interest of the filmaker was clearly more focused on this aspect than in actually watching these characters develop.

The mother and daughter are merely every matron stereotype you've ever seen, and exist for no other reason other than being the needed antagonists for our incestuous "heroes". By the standard, liberal, conventions of modern film, you are supposed to hate them. They are rich and upper-class and therefore ...er...bad. They sneer at the odd, silent, creepy, almost zombie-like maids who rarely leave their room, and we are supposed to think that's intolerant I suppose. No one I've ever known would let these two creepy, girls sleep under the same roof with them for all the tea in China, but well, that's Hollywood for you.

Sister My Sister is not good storytelling or a good character study, in fact, it barely seems to attempt either. It is a series of prosaic episodes, interspersed with hushed, gauzy love scenes. You never get to know or understand the people in the house, and considering the cameras basically never leave that house, I would certainly call that a failure, but then again, looking at the DVD cover, I doubt this review will stop you ;)

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: TRUE CRIME STORY-The High Crimes Of France's Papin Sisters
Review: Set in the 1930's, in the small town of Le Mans in France, two sisters, Christine, the eldest & Lea, the kyounger, are hired on as cook and chambermaid to an upper middle-class widow & her only daughter, Madame and Madamoiselle Lancelin. Based on France's true crime of the century, Julie Walters as the perfectionistic & haughty, Madame Lancelin & Joely Richardson as the eldest master manipulator sister, Christine Papin turn in EXCEPTIONAL performances & the rest of the cast is well above average in their undertakings also.

In February, 1933, the whole of France was horrified to learn of an unspeakably savage double murder that had taken
place in the town of Le Mans. Two respectable, middle-class women, mother and daughter, had been murdered by their
maids, two sisters who lived in the house. The maids had not simply killed the women, but had gouged their eyes out
with their fingers while they were alive and had then used a hammer and knife to reduce both women to a bloody pulp.
The full force of the attack was directed at the heads and the victims were left literally unrecognizable.

Adding the bizarre to the horrifying, the sisters made no attempt to escape (...) Interesting, no? This naturally added a dimension of scandal and titillation to the case. Were the maids having a sexual relationship? If so, it was both homosexual and incestuous. Overnight, the two sisters, aged 21 and 27, became France's most infamous couples who kill.

This film delves into all the speculation of the case but also has some unexplained parts about the sisters' youth & their obvious mistreatment & abuse.

There are quite a many double entendres & a look into both couples chiefly meaning the two sisters and the mother and daughter Lancelin relationships. Many similarities occur between Madame Lancelin & Christine as far as their perfectionistic attitudes & control issues. The Madamoiselle Lancelin & Lea Papin also have commonalities inasmuch they are both trapped, shy and easily influenced by the former...

Highly interesting & thought provoking movie. Especially since it REALLY HAPPENED!

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Taboo subject, wonderfully darkly comedic film
Review: Sister My Sister (Meckler) is a rather tawdry tale of French sister-maids who lived in Le Mans, working for a mother and her daughter in the early 1930s. The sisters were oddly attached to each other, spending every moment either working together, or other, questionable activities.

Already dramatized in Genet's The Maids (which was made into another film, Murderous Maids, the real-life Papin women present a psychological study of how close is too close in sibling adoration.

In Sister My Sister, Joely Richardson and Jodhi May pull off spot-on performances, staying true to the compulsive natures of the women, while the household of the Danzard's is presented as more of a macabre flashback to the emotional abuse suffered by the sisters at the hands of their mother.

This entire film is wonderfully dark in characters, satire, sets, lighting, and subject.

The mother and daughter are quirky, darkly homo-erotic, and without restraint as the sisters scurry about, repressed as hell.

There is double entendre to spare in this brilliant piece.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: A startling drama/tragedy that tells a tale to alarm you.
Review: Sister My Sister catapults a shocking true tale of sisterly love that goes too far. If you are into dramatic tragedies, like Heavenly Creatures, then Sister My Sister is another unique movie that you should watch.


<< 1 2 3 4 >>

© 2004, ReviewFocus or its affiliates