Ein kriminelles Paar

When I was a child ,"Hansel und Gretel" used to scare me to death.Even if they finally succeed at escaping from the clutches of the witch,some fears never fade away.The fear of the unknown forest where any person can be an enemy.The fear of unknown people you meet in the dark corners of the streets .The fear of being kidnapped and taken away far from your family.

When I saw "les amants criminels " for the first time ,I had the same sensation as when I read the fairytale ;rarely,I felt so ill-at-ease ,in need of fresh air :Ozon's sinister tale stirred my emotions ,my subconscious,some of my childhood fears that never went away.There are a lot of hints at childhood here:outside the Grimm tale,the heroine's name is Alice (on the other side of the mirror),and the scene near the cascade ,in its quietness, where the two lovers are surrounded by animals ,recalls some Disney movie.

And mainly ,mainly ,Ozon ,among only a few contemporary directors, has completely understood Hitchcock's great lesson:expect the unexpected .After their crime,the two lovers start out ,as Janet Leigh did in 1960,and I dare you to guess what will happen then!

Ozon is the most gifted contemporary French director.

Francois Ozon has made a name for himself in modern foreign cinema for being more daring and more inventive than most directors would dare to be, and Criminal Lovers is a film that belongs towards the top of his already impressive list of director's credits. Criminal Lovers is a modernisation of the classic Hansel and Gretal tale, which is fused with the 'criminals on the run' theme of which such earlier films such as Badlands and Natural Born Killers utilised so well. Typically for Ozon, there is more to the film than just what it's plot presents and with this common theme the modern day genius has put together a multi-layered work of art, that will be seen differently by whoever sees it. On one hand, it's an exciting crime thriller, but on the other hand it's a tale of redemption, forgiveness and/or retribution. The way that you take the movie will definitely depend on your views on the movie's themes, such as the central one that depicts murder. The film is almost too skillful for it's own good, as it masks it's underlying themes behind it's visage of a shock movie; but if you're smart, they're more than evident.

The man who dared to insert a musical number into a Rainer Werner Fassbinder screenplay hasn't exactly been reserved with the shocks in this movie, and the easily offended should still make sure that they steer clear of it. The film has homosexual undertones galore and the way that the murder happens, along with the amount of sex in the movie, isn't exactly restrained either. The acting is largely good, with the two leads, Natacha Régnier and Jérémie Renier, standing out the most. They both bring exactly the right mood to their characters, which are fascinating specimens in themselves. The way that Ozon has handled the screenplay is superb, as the dialogue is believable and so are all of the character's motivations. Making your audience believe you is one of the hardest things to achieve when penning a screenplay, and Ozon has proved time and time again that he is capable of doing just that. The idea of updating the classic children's story of Hansel and Gretal is definitely a good one, and this film draws much of it's appeal from that central backbone. All in all; kudos, Ozon!

What's going on? How does this film only have an average of 6.3? The pacing is excellent, each nuance and revelation is revealed subtly, but it doesn't let up with it's consistent harshness.

I love these movies that demonstrate human characteristics through a harsh exaggerated situation.

The rather graphic sex scene at the end, juxtaposed with the swat team was great, as was the very last shot of the boy.

Go Ozon!

Story of love and death, with some American thriller sparkles and the flavor of Ozon, "Amants criminels" is trip in a dark universe, with strange cages and shadows of fears.

In same aspects, it is a new adaptation of "Dangerous Liaisons". Also, it is a adaptations of brothers Grimm tales. But important are not the images, rabbits or forest man , the murder or the rats. It is only a room of Francois Ozon universe and relevant is the desire of director to discover the limits of a situation. Not the ways but the purpose.

The evil girl for the other is basic object, the homoerotic scenes, the strange land, the race different, the games and the end, the cries and forms of affection are pieces of an interesting puzzle in which the purpose may be the catharsis.

A cruel beautiful film. Cold, aggressive, nostalgic, sad and strange. A film about the ways of escape. And about their fragile substance.

In 1999, two very different horror films were unleashed onto audiences. Both were postmodern takes on contemporary folklore. Both involved young people getting lost in the woods. Both drew heavily from folktales by the Brothers Grimm. Both were products of their time and thus reflect their respective society's anxieties. Both have notoriously bleak endings. Both were far cries from what the multiplexes were offering. Both were influential in spawning two new modes of storytelling. Yet The Blair Witch Project was heavily marketed as a horror film and remains a landmark in the found footage genre while Criminal Lovers stayed mostly in arthouse theaters due to its frank sexuality as well as its refusal to stay within genre conventions. As a result, Criminal Lovers never got proper attention that it deserves in forming French New Extermity's roots.

Honestly, the film feels what would happen if you spliced in The Texas Chainsaw Massacre halfway through Badlands. This isn't the only cinematic influence that Criminal Lovers borrows from to tell its certified messed-up tale of doomed lovers running from the law. Echoes of The Night Of The Hunter and Salo are present in the film as the couple go down a river in a boat before being captured by a sadistic man in the woods. Every torturous taboo imaginable is broken to the point that you realize that Hansel and Gretel got off easy compared to what Alice and Luc suffer through.

That's where the film's strengths lie in its willingness to play with genre conventions and to break the boundaries of good taste. One minute, it's a high school melodrama with murder thrown in for good measure; the next minute, it's a subliminal torture porn that would make Eli Roth run away in complete terror. I won't spoil the horrors but they gave this hardened viewer pause in disbelief.

This gives Criminal Lovers a much more transgressive artistry than Blair Witch Project ever could- it's a fractured fairy tale as envisioned by a hellish-but-dreamlike collaboration between the Marquis De Sade and Jean-Luc Godard. Even better, you get two fantastic performances from both Natacha Regnier and Jeremie Renier that supply the film with a desperate rawness that's only matched by the young people suffering in Larry Clark's films.