Rating: 
Summary: Brilliantly Sublime Character Study in Grief and Loss...
Review: The loss of a loved one can be overwhelming when grief sets in, but closure is brought to the mourner through customary funeral services. However, when someone loses a beloved and the body of the loved one is not recovered there will never be true closure, which will leave the bereaved in somber doubt. Thus, the perceptual concept, seeing is believing, is one of the fundamental keys to the story's melancholic atmosphere as the main character, Marie Drillon (Charlotte Rampling), drifts into a ghostlike world.
Under the Sand begins with Marie returning to south France with her husband Jean (Bruno Cremer) to their summer house where they spend every summer. It is a vacation that they both look forward to as they can get away from the hectic city life. The Drillon's keep a thoughtful silence between them as they go through the daily chores, which is only broken sporadically. Apparently both enjoy silent contemplation and solitude, yet they harbor each others company with warmth and nurturing love.
The loving relationship between Marie and Jean takes a sudden turn as Marie wakes up from an afternoon nap under the Mediterranean sun. Bewildered where her husband is she begins to search for him along the beach where he went swimming. Panic begins to crawl upon her as she fears the worst as the coast guard cannot recover him.
Months later Marie has returned to her daily routine in the city where she lives and works. Marie's friends attempt to find someone to woo her, but she continues as if Jean is still alive. Marie buys her missing husband ties, talks to him before she goes to bed, and hugs him good night. In essence, it seems like Marie uses an avoidance strategy to deal with the loss that drives her into a delusional state where she sees and believes that he is not gone.
Underneath the surface of what is depicted there are several issues that could have caused Marie to drift into a delusion due to why her husband disappeared. It could be the moments when Marie and Jean sat in silence and never expressed their possible true thoughts, it could be a secret that Jean had, and he could have been simply bored with her and left. However, she will never find out as he never left her a note or a message of what he did. Instead she is left in a cerebral no man's land where she question why, and if she had anything to do with his disappearance.
François Ozon's Under the Sand is an intelligent depiction of grief, loss, and the process of dealing with a lost one that never is recovered. Ozon based the film on an event that took place by the ocean during his childhood. In addition, Ozon researched grief and loss by interviewing psychologists and specialists in the field of grief and mourning, which is evident in the depth of the character's persona. The film simply relies on Charlotte Rampling's performance, which is brilliant as it becomes an intricate character study of a characters grief and loss.
Under the Sand offers a wonderful cinematic experience, which is enhanced by Rampling's marvelous performance. It is also Ozon's cinematic touch of minimalism that brings more to the screen than what is uttered. This forces the viewers to dwell on what is illustrated on the screen as the silence influences the power of the image. Ultimately, the film reinforces the notion that "seeing is believing" as the audience cannot see and does not know what to believe.
Rating:
Summary: great film that begs repeat viewing
Review: This is a terrific movie and seems to reward repeated viewing. On first viewing, the ambiguous ending may suggest one interpretation; on the second viewing something else. For me, a third viewing uncovered meaningful Hitchcock homages I hadn't noticed before. (Although this isn't a "suspense" film, I thought I heard more than a faint echo of _Vertigo_.)A word to the subtitle-phobic (I count my self among you): fear not. This film is neither talky nor plot-driven. It communicates visually and aurally (great use of music and incidental sound). Even if you only catch 50% of the dialog, you'll still get 90% of the movie. Besides, catching up with that other 10% later is half the fun.
Rating: 
Summary: Beautifully filmed, Interesting
Review: This is definitely a beautiful, well-filmed movie. The story stays a bit of a mystery throughout. Ms. Rampling is quite good. When I looked at her career and the movies in her filmography, I was surprised to see that such a fine actress really hasn't been in that many good movies. Not a young woman anymore, Ms Rampling is still very alluring. This film has a few erotic moments, but not to the degree that some reviewers are stating. If you like a thought-provoking type of character study and a beautiful loking film this could be a good one for you.
Rating:
Summary: Beautifully filmed, Interesting
Review: This is definitely a beautiful, well-filmed movie. The story stays a bit of a mystery throughout. Ms. Rampling is quite good. When I looked at her career and the movies in her filmography, I was surprised to see that such a fine actress really hasn't been in that many good movies. Not a young woman anymore, Ms Rampling is still very alluring. This film has a few erotic moments, but not to the degree that some reviewers are stating. If you like a thought-provoking type of character study and a beautiful loking film this could be a good one for you.
Rating:
Summary: Radical
Review: This summer Hollywood is obsessed with trying to create special effects that do reality one better, having sold its soul to the Pixar devil in the process. Ironic then that the most "radical" film you will see this year shocks by not upping the gross-out quotient, body count or stupidity factor, but by subverting most of underlying assumptions that have polluted American cinema for years. Shocking, then, that a film would insist that beauty has little to do with age or physical appearance, that an audience can be trusted to embrace ambiguity and make its own decisions (Spielberg are you listening? Of course not), and that profound grief can both entertain and offer deep emotional sustenance. I do want to offer a warning: critics, entertainment journalists, and, sadly, even the description on this page are hell-bent on making sure that audiences know all there is to know about a film and form an opinion before they even experience it (consensus at any cost!), so don't read anything about this film before you go see it. I am still seething that the reviews I read robbed me of the sharing the discovery process that is essential to this film. But by all means go see it.
Rating:
Summary: The Best Film of 2001
Review: Under the Sand may be the most astoundingly beautiful film all year, not to mention one of the most heartbreaking portraits of grief on the screen since The Sweet Hereafter. It's sober, solemn, and somehow liberating--I feel more human now that it's over, and seeing it has become a pleasurable thing to look back on. The film, about a woman in her fifties (Charlotte Rampling) whose husband disappears on the beach and is never seen again, is a fascinating examination of loss and a profoundly moving film about love. It is fiercely unsentimental, almost bitterly angry at times, in the way that we curse those we love who have left us without warning. The brilliant final shots, which do absolutely nothing to explain what really happened to the husband, or what will happen to the wife, make exactly the right ending. Rampling is the most perfect thing about the film--never before has her total prescence been so apparent on the screen, and the effect is astonishing. Time has only worked to ripen her unusual, angular radiance; she's luminous and sensual in every act we watch her perform. The film's images, each so clean and smooth, unable to contain their own natural brilliance, are sheer poetry: fingers, clutching sand; the way that light and water can distort the human figure; the buttering of a piece of toast; finally, the canvas of the human body and the beauty of its conjunction with another in an act of love. Under the Sand is a reminder of what love and loss really are--you can see them in nearly every shot of Charlotte Rampling's unforgettable, candid face.
Rating:
Summary: A Rampling classic
Review: Under The Sun is Ozon's most ambitious and sublime film to date. It manages to transcend its echoes of Bunuel, Antonioni, and Polanski due in large part to a mesmerizing performance by Charlotte Rampling. In films as varied as Night Porter, Stardust Memories and The Verdict, Rampling has brought an enigmatic brand of eroticism that lingers in the mind for ages. Sure, like her fans, Rampling is older and wiser, but she is still beautiful and in the right role, she never delivers a false note. In Ozon's film, she gets just the right balance of neurosis, dread, madness, and longing. This is one of the more convincing and truthful films about sex, death, and the daily ravages of time and memory in a very long time. The great European art film is not dead, just somewhat reduced in numbers, but I am happy to report Under The Sand is one of those films.
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