Treibsand

I had the opportunity to watch three movies in this theme line. "Lulu Femme Nue" reminds me of "Shirley Valentine", a lovely British production, as well as "Bread and Tulips", the delicious Italian version. A middle aged woman, married with children, whose monotonous life is suddenly interrupted and she starts wondering and questioning, tired of her routine. It's time for a break! Then, she gets away from home and wanders around, meets people, who change her life and vice- versa. More importantly, she meets herself and finds out she's alive. Like the other films, Lulu is a feel good movie, refreshing like swimming naked in the chilly sea at the French coast. The three movies make me think that the human nature has no boundaries, specially women. We have the same questions, the same dreams and fears, no matter the nationality.

One user wrote it was a feel good movie :I do not agree !it would be demeaning the director !

Lulu is par excellence the anti-character of this kind of movie :she is not brilliant ,she is no go-getter ;in the scene of the job interview with the director of human resources ,we feel how bashful,clumsy she is ;she says she has plenty of motivation ,but her look, her behavior give her away ;the last sentence of the head is revealing.

We do not know why Lucie (Lulu) almost resembles an old maid ;after all she's got a family and her failure cannot explain why she takes some days away from her family (it will be explained,in remarkably succint style, at the end of the movie).

The characters she will meet as she is drifting are not those you would meet in a feel good movie ; an ex-convict ,who spent two years in jail , an old lady and a young waitress bullied by her employer.

The ex-prisoner "who has not made love for two years" does something to restore Lulu's self-confidence ,-she swims in the nude-but,in spite of his two "gardian angels" who drive her sister away ,this part of the movie is somewhat conventional ;all that happens between Charles and Lucie is exactly what the viewer expects and it is a bit derivative ; this male character has experimented awful solitude though.

Claude Gensac! Do you remember when she was Louis De Funès's wife(1968) in the Gendarme series ?Actually their collaboration had begun well before,and in a masterpiece at that : Guitry's "La Vie d'Un Honnête Homme"(1952).

As she died some years ago ,and as "Lulu " is her last important role ,she ended her career on a high note just like she began it. She's extraordinary as a cousin of Sylvie 's "La Vieille Dame Indigne ";She's a shameless old lady who in the past slept with her best friend 's hubby and has never forgiven herself for this betrayal :how lonely she must be to have waited so long for a friend to help her reconcile with her once good friend ; these scenes between a bewildered Lulu and an old lonely spinster climax the movie: although her new friend lies to her ,Marthe, after a fit of anger, comprehends that Lucie represents the last link between her and humanity .

Fear of loneliness,of death ,of people whose "only fun they get is putting people down" (the cafe owner) ,of being a misfit , of seeing life passing one by ...

The rapport Karine Viard ,one of the best contemporary French actresses ,and her director ,Solveig Anspach (who sadly passed away some years ago) have ,is outstanding.

Feeling great after watching this beautiful movie....humans are the best creatures when they can live with love and freedom...