Rating: 
Summary: masterful storytelling
Review: A masterclass in telling the story in pictures....You hardly need the subtitles, so nuanced is Kurys direction.
There are some wonderful comic moments which I will not spoil by detailing them. As there are also some of fury and despair. Kurys has the rare talent of discovering emotion by using just the precise angle and detail of the actor's body so that it will echo in us. It is a story of Kurys own mother and her best friends' struggles to live in the sunlight of their friendship. There is not a badly made scene in the whole movie.
You will weep at the final comment (printed, not spoken) by the director about the absolute choice the two women had to make in the light of the morality of the time. I guarantee you will have to watch it again. I have to say that the transfer to DVD has left a few ragged edges around the vision and sound in some places. As a result the DVD can only have 4 1/2 stars.
Rating:
Summary: One of My Favorites - Definite Keeper
Review: I saw this film on the A & E network years ago and found it remarkable and unforgettable. The story revolves the friendship of two women. Both seem indifferent to their mates and more involved with each other. The subtext is incredible. The film is unsympathetic to men but I still enjoyed it when I watched it at the time. It stars Isabelle Huppert who is absolutely luminous and inscrutable. She reminded me a lot of Greta Garbo. Anyway the film is very French, meaning I don't understand the motivations of most of the characters. Anyway, its a very interesting film and I won't go in depth with the story. If your a lesbian, you'll love it. If your a straight male, you'll hate it I rank this movie a 4.5 stars
Rating:
Summary: One of My Favorites - Definite Keeper
Review: I saw this film on the A & E network years ago and found it remarkable and unforgettable. The story revolves the friendship of two women. Both seem indifferent to their mates and more involved with each other. The subtext is incredible. The film is unsympathetic to men but I still enjoyed it when I watched it at the time. It stars Isabelle Huppert who is absolutely luminous and inscrutable. She reminded me a lot of Greta Garbo. Anyway the film is very French, meaning I don't understand the motivations of most of the characters. Anyway, its a very interesting film and I won't go in depth with the story. If your a lesbian, you'll love it. If your a straight male, you'll hate it <grin> I rank this movie a 4.5 stars
Rating:
Summary: watch for the consequence
Review: I saw this movie based on the recommendation of my friend whose review has been posted for this movie. I was warned, however, to be prepared for what comes after my review or rating. Apparently if you like this movie you will get a bunch of recommendations and referrals to lesbian movies as my friend is now getting and becoming quite irritated with it. I can only smile because I guess, it is rather hard to escape the assumption based on this movie. I agree that this is a beautiful movie about friendship. It is difficult, however, for modern women to accept the fact that there are deep friendships bordering on physical tenderness and deep emotional bonds without having sexual relations and remain heterosexual, enjoy one's marriage or relation with the opposite sex. In some cultures, for example, it is not uncommon for girls and adult female friends to hold each other's hands or put one's arm around a friend's waist in public without being a lesbian. Such friendships are also marked by deep emotional bonds not only with each other but with the friend's family. Certainly such public display or type of relationship would be miscontrued as a lesbian act in the US. Over the fear, perhaps annoyance, of being innundated by lesbian movie recommendations from ..., I rate this movie with five stars. Isabelle Huppert is a magnificent actress. This is a beautiful story about the bond of friendship, albeit interpreted as a lesbian affair - thus degrading its true value. The great philosopher Aristotle described the three types of friendship - a friendhip out of need; a friendship out of mutual satisfaction and the highest level being that of a friendship out of virtue. This is a story of a friendship out of virtue!
Rating: 
Summary: Honest, sad, beautiful and very touching
Review: Michel (Guy Marchand) falls in love with Jewish refuge Lena (Isabelle Huppert) at first sight and offers marriage as a way she can avoid being sent to a German concentration camp. She accepts, and although she doesn't love him, they have two children and are still married when we pick up the action again in Lyons in 1952 when Lena is 29-years-old. There she meets the sophisticated and well-to-do artist Madeleine (Miou-Miou) who awakens her to the drabness of her existence as a housewife with a loutish husband who now runs a gas station. The attraction between Lena and Madeleine is very strong, and very threatening to the men, especially to Michel.Huppert's poignant and bittersweet portrayal reminds me of her delicate work in Madame Bovary (1991). There is the same listlessness expressed along with a vague desire for something better out of life, and the anticipation of the sadness that we know will come of such desire. Miou-Miou is sharp and cynical with perhaps a streak of the manic-depressive about her. The love they spontaneously feel for one another is real and beautiful and makes us want it to be fulfilled. But Lena holds herself back because of her family, and then it is the men and propriety that get in the way. Of course this is very French and Lena and Madeleine hold hands and comfort one another while telling each other their innermost secrets including the infidelities of their spouses, etc. (The men have no such communication.) Director Diane Kurys exercises more restraint in showing the physical nature of their mutual attraction than would be displayed today. Lena says to Madeleine at one point, "I want to kiss you," but we do not see them kissing. The most explicit scene sexually is the startling, but delicately expressed, meeting with the soldiers on the train where we discover the full extent of Lena's frustration. This is not quite a great movie. The pace is a little slow in spots and sometimes the focus is not as sharp as it could be. But it is an extraordinarily honest movie, and I'll take that over sharp technique any day. Huppert is not only at her best here, but her exquisite and subtle beauty is shown to great advantage. Miou-Miou is also very pretty of course--this is the first time I've seen her--so I would say her strength of character is perhaps her strongest suit. This is a human tragedy on a small, intimate scale, one that we can't help but feel could have been averted had those involved understood one another better, had they been a little wiser. We've all been there before and so we can share the sadness and the sense of loss.
Rating:
Summary: Mastery of all film crafts
Review: Prepare to be dazzled by this exquisite display of artistry. In every sense, this film is a masterpiece. Every scene is a portrait; a delightful balance of color and depth, framed with the precision of an artists eye. The rhythm of the script is hypnotic, measured, poetic, yet precise. The score is captivating, luring us into exact mood of each scene. Add a story of tragedy, triumph, love... It is a masterpeice; a feast for the senses! A standing ovation for all who were involved in this project! Bravo! PS! Where can I find this soundtrack?!?!
Rating:
Summary: A Beautiful Love Story
Review: The acting in this movie by all is first rate. It's a sensitive portrayal of the relationship between two couples and ultimately the two women. Don't let the subtitles turn you off. This is worth seeing.
Rating:
Summary: Sensitive portrayals
Review: The acting in this movie by all is first rate. It's a sensitive portrayal of the relationship between two couples and ultimately the two women. Don't let the subtitles turn you off. This is worth seeing.
Rating:
Summary: A Moving and Complex Tale of Emotion ...
Review: The beuty of the film lies in its subtle power to transmit the complexity of when family obligations come in the way of self-fullfilment. The film is based on the true story of the the film maker's mother and was a cathartic process for Kurys, who was very close to her father and mourned his seperation from her life. Kurys exhaults her mother's strength and independace in the face of 1950s tradition but does not entirely pardon her for splitting up the family. The narritive is also a feminist consciousness-raising exercise to the extent that it invites the spectator to share in the protagonists' growing awareness of their unsatisfactory lives as married women in the pre-feminist patriarchal world of the 1950s. And though Kurys maintains that her mother's relationship with her female remained platonic, the movie is full of shared looks and pauses that suggest a desire between the two women. the intensity of the their attraction (wether platonic or otherwise) is expressed through the small seemingly meaningless phrases that we utter when we are overrun with emotion. One may postulate that had the relationship between the two women evovled in a different time where the idea of a lesbian affair would not have been so 'unthinkable' their feelings could have bloosemed into a sexual affair.
Rating: 
Summary: Great characters, ok plot, BAD subtitles
Review: There is a problem with the subtitles - at least with the DVD version of this movie - which makes following the story very difficult. [I don't usually mind subtitles - in most subtitled movies, I've forgotten that I'm reading them and have no problem with them.) The subtitles appear on the screen only during the *exact* time the words are being spoken, and not a second longer. This means that it's very hard to read two-line subtitles, and often hard to even read multi-word single-line subtitles. I'm a quick reader, but there were dozens of times during this film where I'd be watching the characters and completely miss what the subtitle said. Or, I'd get frustrated and spend my time focused on the subtitles and miss the actions and expressions of the characters. Apart from the technical aspects, the plot and situations are right out of a "Lifetime Movie of the Week", but the characters are fascinating. I found myself thinking about the characters and their inter-relationships days after the movie ended.
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