L'appartement

This is an astonishing film: a romantic thriller with a convoluted but perfectly constructed and devastatingly symmetrical plot, brilliantly buttressed by the use of recurring visual motifs. Everything in it is beautifully filmed: the women, the apartments; but more amazing is the devastating juxtapositioning of images, almost every scene has echoes of another. This is a story told in light, in colour, in many almost-parallels. Every time I watch it, it fills me with delight.

The acting is great too. Romane Bohringer is stunning as a woman on the verge of a nervous breakdown: everything about her changes with her mood. Vincent Cassel plays a very different role to his part in La Haine; but no less excellently: shifty and sympathetic at the same time. And Monica Bellucci - ah!, Monica Bellucci, well, put simply, she plays (is?) the world's most perfect woman. There's one small scene about three quarters of the way through where she does nothing more than smile; yet in that instant, says more than hours of Hollywood junk.

One cannot do justice to this film without at least mentioning the superb, sequential climax: sad, shocking, ironic and subtle in turn. But if one moment captures the brilliance of this work, it's the scene at the start of this fabulous denouement, the prospect of which has been teasingly laid before us throughout the entire story. Yet when the moment comes, it is handled so delicately, so briefly, so deftly, that on reflection it makes you gasp. Only a director of staggering confidence would dare to underplay this vital point. But the confidence is justified. Cinema doesn't come much better than this.

A wonderful story about the consequences of obsessive love with the beautiful romantic back streets of Paris as its location. We're transported through time and see the plot develop from the perspectives of the three main characters as the mystery unwinds.

This is a fabulous film.

The plot is a good yarn, and is imaginatively told in a series of flashbacks and alternative points of view. What was deliberate, and what was coincidence? Who is in love with who?

You get the chance to put yourselves in the shoes of each of the characters in turn (sometimes literally), and this helps define each character to a satisfying depth.

With a bit of effort following the twists and turns, you can understand each of the characters; and key events in the film are reshot from the point of view of different people.

Take the opportunity if it comes again to your arthouse cinema; it looks good on the big screen.

More than keeping you guessing, the plot twists to such an extent that you just sit and watch what unfolds - I defy anyone to predict!

But more likely you will need more than one viewing - I saw this at the pictures on its original release three times, and it got better each time.

The acting was very good, with a standout performance by Romane Bohringer as Alice torn in three directions by the three other characters in the ensemble.

A classic. The second-best film of the 1990s.

I saw this movie in Korea back in 1999, and it lingered in my mind for a while after viewing. It was also my introduction to the hauntingly beautiful Monica Bellucci (HER face could launch a thousand ships).

The twists and turns and bizarre ending makes this a must see. I hope they release an uncut DVD version as I own the Korean release that had three minutes cut out.

Highly recommended and a film you can see more than once!

A very confusing film with nods to Hitchcock, some very good photography and little else. The plot involves the Hitchcock staples of obsession and paranoia but lacks the ultimate touch of the master - suspense. I was told that this film was a 'must see' and how great it was and how wonderful the structure was and how engaging it all was. Well, do not waste the time because this film is a pretentious, overlong piece of French 'style' - lots of visual cleverness and moody pouting (called great acting when it is in a French film) but little substance. At the end you could not care less what happens to these self-obsessed characters and I must have had a bad day because I could not follow a lot of this. The film uses a fragmented narrative by presenting the sequences in flashback and in no particular order. We are shown scenes several times and with new perspectives each time so we can try to make sense of the story, if one can call it that. I had to resort to looking at the characters' hair in order to figure out when things were happening. There was also a great deal of symbolism - red rose, white rose, red walls, white shirts, long hair, short hair, red shoes and on and on and on until I yelled enough! The symbols, of course, go nowhere and are presented in sledgehammer fashion so that we can marvel at how clever it all is even though it makes no sense. This is "Single White Female" meets French pretension made by a director who has studied too many Hitchcock films but failed the exam.