The Bridge

Rating:
Summary: What, no violence?
Review: A typical triangle , only complicated by a 15 year old son,who is just old enough to be sufficiently involved in his own love life, to forgive his mother.Knowing Depardieus violence in other roles, I waited through the entire movie for the violence to erupt.But everybody is terribly civilized and I am impressed. A lot of deep feelings exposed without murder or fistfight , Incredibly wonderful....

Rating:
Summary: Bouquet: Once Again, Chanel Girl Reigns supreme
Review: As a Carole Bouquet fan-atic, this film was totally satisfying. I love her signature hair, her demure French gazes. While her acting doesn't seem to ever go beyond one octave, it doesn't matter: she looks like Hermes Faubourg perfume smells....

Le Pont is set in Normandy in the 60's. The drama plays out slowly and evenly, as a woman (Bouquet) allows herself to bring drama to her life. She visits the cinema regularly, sometimes seeing a film 2 or 3 times. She finally has a chance to leave her working class housewife lifestyle behind. Putting Bouquet in this role, I found it difficult to believe that a shiveringly beautiful woman such as Bouquet could ever lead a boring existence. After all, she is THE Chanel girl.

I loved her husband's reaction to her "choice". Despite his working class ways, he has the strength and love to let her go, to realize her dream. Isn't that what true love is? To enable and empower another human being, sometimes at great cost to oneself.

Listen for the noise Depardieu's car makes when he slams the door closed: it is Ka-lassic

Rating:
Summary: Bouquet: Once Again, Chanel Girl Reigns supreme
Review: As a Carole Bouquet fan-atic, this film was totally satisfying. I love her signature hair, her demure French gazes. While her acting doesn't seem to ever go beyond one octave, it doesn't matter: she looks like Hermes Faubourg perfume smells....

Le Pont is set in Normandy in the 60's. The drama plays out slowly and evenly, as a woman (Bouquet) allows herself to bring drama to her life. She visits the cinema regularly, sometimes seeing a film 2 or 3 times. She finally has a chance to leave her working class housewife lifestyle behind. Putting Bouquet in this role, I found it difficult to believe that a shiveringly beautiful woman such as Bouquet could ever lead a boring existence. After all, she is THE Chanel girl.

I loved her husband's reaction to her "choice". Despite his working class ways, he has the strength and love to let her go, to realize her dream. Isn't that what true love is? To enable and empower another human being, sometimes at great cost to oneself.

Listen for the noise Depardieu's car makes when he slams the door closed: it is Ka-lassic

Rating:
Summary: Bouquet is Absolutely Luminous!
Review: Much is said about the storyline, cinemaphotography, sets, score, costume design, not to mention the incredible performing trio (Bouquet, Depardieu and Berling). I shall only add that the movie is totally believable with the casting of Bouquet - how a man can fall head over heals in lust/infatuation with Bouquet at first sight...and how her husband can internalise all the hurt and anger by forgiving her outright. Carole Bouquet's definitely growing "older" gracefully, in fact, she is even more captivating and delicious than I can remember in her earlier film roles. This movie, along with "A Business Affair", showcase Bouquet's repertoire as a serious actress, not just any MTA (model-turned-actress) whose sole existence is too look beautiful, and hopefully help the box office.

Rating:
Summary: Bouquet and Depardieu are just amazing !
Review: This film marks -to my knowledge- Depardieu's first attempt as a director, and it is an obvious success both for the performance of actors and the sublety of the characters. To co-star in his movie, Depardieu chose Carole Bouquet,and it is perhaps because Bouquet is Depardieu's present wife that he is so successful in revealing a new aspect of her personality. Bouquet is best known in France for her past performances in Blier's Buffet Froid and Trop Belle Pour Toi, two movies in which she appeared as a beautiful, but extremely Cold and Solemn woman. On the contrary, in this movie we discover a much more light-hearted Bouquet, in fact so light-hearted that she does not seem to care about the consequences of her acts. Depardieu's performance is equally amazing : to think that this guy was a wonderful Epic Hero in Cyrano de Bergerac and that here he is equally convincing as a simple working man just tells you how BIG this actor is. As for the story I think that this film can be considered as a french ironic answer to the typically US Bridges of Madison County. Indeed in Bridges of Madison County Clint Eastwood, the travelling photographer, which primary goal is to photograph bridges, ends up seducing Meryl Streep, a housewife somewhat bored with her small-town lifestyle. Here Charles Berling is a "travelling" engineer which comes to this small town to build a bridge and seduces Carole Bouquet, a housewife equally bored with her life. But that's about all you can find in common between these films. While Streep's children discover their mother 's love affair only when she's dead, Bouquet's kid is aware of what's going on very early on, and this is just one of the reasons why the french film is much less melodramatic and much more realistic than the US one. Furthermore, while the Eastwood-Streep film was centered on the relationship between the two lovers, this one is centered on Depardieu/Bouquet, the husband & wife relationship, which allows for more complex and subtle dialogs. So if you like french movies and/or if you want to see what would have happenned between Eastwood and Streep in the real life, you should buy this movie.