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I taped this due to the recommend in the NYT television section and it was right. I kept getting apprehensive from the moment the backpacker turns up. The suspense of approaching terror reminded me of the growing sense of horror in Chabrol's Le Ceremonie.

Two quibbles: what mother would leave her baby in the bathtub for only a few seconds. And what mother would leave her baby alone on the beach? The mother obviously had a dark side to begin with; she was lonely (trying to reach her husband for several times without success) and was an easy prey to the backpacker. While the ending horrified me, it shouldn't have surprised me. What was great is the movie didn't drag on and was short.

Definitely worth watching and it left me shaken for a long time after-wards. Like Le Ceremonie, it will remain in my memory. Horror doesn't mean slash and gore.

It's not until a feature filmmaker reaches a certain status that their short films are released beyond the festival circuit. Now the short work of Francois Ozon is available on DVD after a short cinematic release.

Ozon offers impressive tapas here, with concise, impeccably structured short films. Plot twists are reminiscent of Roald Dahl, while the sensual undercurrents approach Anais Nin's erotica, without being nearly as explicit.

In Summer Dress (1996, 15 minutes), two gay teenagers are on holiday at French beach community Isle d'Yeu. While wasp-waisted Sebastian mimes to 'Bang! Bang!', by chanteuse Sheila, his lover Luc begs him to be more discreet. Until Luc dallies with the older, knowing Lucia at the local 'beat'. After Luc's forced to wear her dress home, he comes out of the closet.

The cinematography is flashback 1950s, with azure sea, bronzed boys in swimming trunks and rose-red lips. But this nostalgia avoids sentimentality, instead increasing the dreamlike quality of Luc's experience. And the interplay between the characters demonstrates an essential sexual fluidity present in all Ozon's films – although his characters may have definite sexual orientations, there's no guarantee they'll follow them. In addition, as gay auteur Ozon's focus of desire is men, it liberates his women from the 'male gaze' and allows them to be more interesting.

Sharing the same island setting as Summer Dress, the standout film of the collection is See the Sea (1997, 52 minutes).

Englishwoman Sasha (Sasha Hails) is holidaying alone with her baby daughter when ill-kempt backpacker Tatiana (Marina de Van) pitches her tent in the backyard. From the first, something is not quite right about Tatiana, but lonely Sasha wants someone to babysit. As the suspense develops, Tatiana becomes more repellent but also fascinating, an earthy id to Sasha's ego. At the same time, while Sasha may be clearly normal, she is also a careless mother. While, the relationship between the two is reminiscent of Ozon's Swimming Pool, the outcome is much darker. ****/***** stars.

See The Sea is one of those films that's truly horrifying. This is one

of the few movies that gave me a true scare, not a cheap one. A mother

and her child live in a cottage that's located by the sea. Her husband

is always on a lengthy business trip, leaving the two alone for long

periods of time. One day, a female drifter comes into their lives. This

is when the fun begins. Mere words cannot describe what happens next.

But the end results are down right scary. If you want a nice scare or

if you enjoy a real good thriller every now and then, this one might be

your cup of tea.

Highly recommended.

A-

The film is directed by the controversial François Ozon. See the Sea is also his first long feature, as that said; the film isn't very long, only 52 minutes.

See the sea is very short and very powerful, but it's also very minimal. Like, there are only three characters in the film, and only two of them can talk, and they barley do. And there is no music or sound effects, everything is quiet, and it's stylistic photographed. It kind reminds me of Roman Polanskis masterful film Knife in the Water.

See the sea is a good and very rarely film, but where the film totally failed is the "shocking end", because it isn't shocking, I saw the ending just after five minutes.. So the surprise effect is totally gone, and that ruin the film a lot. But still worth watching.

Francois Ozon has proven himself an unflinching observer of the human animal's dark side. Its amazing how Ozon can infuse a short film about a seaside vacation with this much oppressive atmosphere and fright. The two characters are very human thanks to Ozon showing the good and bad of all parties. A film this gritty should never be called gratuitous. Rather it puts a good person and an evil one in a fishbowl for us to observe and although neither is perfect you are left with no question as to which is which at the end of one hour. Without a doubt worth your time and possibly purchase if someone else can speak to the quality of the DVD's available out there.

This is flat out brilliant film-making - right up there with Hitchcock, Kurosawa, Ford, or anyone else you can name. It functions on multiple levels, the simplest of which is as a thriller which will keep you on edge for 52 minutes - and stays with you a long time after. It's done in a traditional French style - minimal dialogue, almost no music (1 pivotal scene), maximum use of visuals to tell story. The director doesn't need to tell the audience where to go emotionally with heavy handed music cues or dialogue - he knows exactly where he's taking us and lets the images speak for themselves. It's ironic that French films are sometimes thought of as pretentious, because this film is made so simply and fluidly. I heard it said that the best way to tell a story is to get out of its way and let it tell itself. I'd put this one in my top twenty of all time.

A woman living with her small child at a remote coastal location allows a vagabond woman to stay with her for a couple of days. This is a curiosity piece. While it is somewhat interesting, it is not clear why Ozon even bothered with this one. At 52 minutes, it is too long for a short film and too short for a feature film. Despite its short length, it drags a bit. It is basically a bizarre collection of scenes that don't add up to much of anything. There's no rhyme or reason to the things the women do except that both display odd behavior that is left unexplained. The only point of the whole exercise seems to be to justify the end, which is disturbing but not surprising.

I stumbled upon this great little movie somewhat randomly (though perhaps it was fate) while scanning the DVD section at my library for a different film that I wanted to watch. The title caught my eye enough to make me read the back of the box. I had heard of the director, Francois Ozon, but had never seen any of his films. Reading the description, this early film of his sounded kind of interesting, but wasn't exactly what I was looking for that day, and I continued to search for the film I had come for. I can't even remember what movie I'd been looking for, but they didn't have it and I'm glad they didn't, because if they had I may very well have never gotten to experience See the Sea.

One reviewer called the film "Profoundly Unsettling," words which are proudly and prominently displayed in bold red on the cover of the DVD, and one of the reasons why I decided to still check it out despite the lukewarm reviews I pulled up on my smartphone. And I'm very glad I did.

The story is relatively straightforward and focuses on a lonely housewife, Sasha, who is home alone with her infant daughter while her husband is away on business. Early in the film, Sasha allows a strange female drifter to pitch a tent in her yard. She tries to be friends with the drifter. From the very first moment they meet, we get the feeling that something very strange is going to happen.

Sasha doesn't know it, but we as the viewers are able to tell that only bad can come from this situation. We don't know exactly what will occur, but Ozon lets us know through his masterful use of images and sounds that only bad can come. This feeling leaves us on the edge of our seat, eagerly awaiting the payoff. It's pure suspense and it's a heck of a lot of fun.

In one memorable scene towards the beginning of the film, Sasha invites the drifter in for dinner. Sasha goes out of her way to be hospitable and kind, but the drifter responds with rudeness and apathy, showing no interest as her hostess tells her a story and then licking her plate clean in a disgusting manner that would be funny if it wasn't so strange.

From the very first frames of the film, even while all we see is white credits over black, everything about it is tonally perfect. First we hear the haunting music of a piano and then we see the tide coming in at a lonely, secluded beach. We see a mother awakened by her crying toddler. She fixes her a bottle. It feels like real life, but it's not.

Then, for the next fifty minutes, the images and the sounds and the story and the subtle nuances of the characters gradually build and crescendo into an awesome climax that will leave you smiling as the credits roll. On second thought, you may be left gasping instead of smiling, but you will almost certainly be thinking about this one for a long time after it's over.

The story moves quickly and slowly both at once and it flows perfectly. The structure is fairly unique, like a cross between a short film and a feature, and we don't get much backstory, but we get all we need. And with only a couple of lead characters it is easy to begin to care about them, despite their many flaws, even in the relatively short time we spend with them. It is easy to focus on the story and get lost in it to the point that you can forget you're watching a movie.

The acting and dialogue are unmatched and the performances are totally convincing and feel real. This is aided by the fact that the actors aren't well known and I've never seen them in anything else, so their characters are more believable. I wish more films would do precisely that: use good, unknown actors instead of focusing on big names that we've already seen playing essentially the same part a hundred times and gotten sick of.

The actress who plays the drifter is particularly perfect in her role. Based on what I've read, I believe that the role was written specifically for her, and she fleshes it out exquisitely on the screen. I don't think I have ever seen a more perfectly cast role. I enjoyed watching her so much that I almost want to say that the actress should appear in more films, but that would only take the magic out of the performance.

The film is indeed profoundly unsettling, just as it sets out to be, and it is an incredible experience. At fifty-two minutes, it is the perfect length for the story it tells. There's nothing added to pad out the running time. Yet it still feels like a full-length film, because the entire story is there. Toward the end of the film, the appearance of a single teardrop on a woman's face, despite being visible for only a few seconds, is able to tell us so much. And while it may raise a few questions as well, it still tells us everything we need to know.

I didn't know quite what to expect when I popped this one into the DVD player, but I ended up loving it from the very beginning and continued to love what I saw every step of the way. It just kept getting better and better right up until the credits rolled and left me sitting there, alone in my living room, knowing that I had just seen one of the best films ever made.

This is a good shocker, using something of a Wuthering Heights scenario in miniature. It would have made an excellent 30-35 minute short, but was unnecessarily extended for probably commercial reasons. If some scenes appear to add little to the story, try to think about the link between:

-What Tatiana says about the consequencies of women ripping during childbirth

-Tatiana's disturbed personality

-the toothbrush incident

-Tatiana's knowledge of the men in the forest, yet lack of interest in joining Sasha for oral sex there

-The closing scene

The director nicely sets up the atmosphere of foreboding, which after all, is what horror movies depend on. I though the rope on the victim was a clever and disturbing touch; it's something I've never seen before, although I admittedly haven't seen many horror flicks. While you can guess how it ends fairly early on, the twists and turns in getting there, and the denouement, are quite unexpected. Compared with Ozon's other shorts, this has some substance mixed in with his usual puerile, tedious obsession with the dark side of human sexuality.

I like films like this (e.g. 2001: A Space Odyssey)where you have to think afterwards about what you've seen, and maybe see it again, to make complete sense of it. Your mileage may vary.

I'm a big fan of horror movies, but it has been a long time since a horror movie actually horrified me.

I didn't know "See the Sea" (or "Regarde la mer") was a horror movie when I began watching it. I knew only that it was a perhaps mildly suspenseful, but probably boring fifty-two minute French film being shown on Cinemax. I didn't expect much.

I didn't even bother going on-line to look for reviews.

So, how was I to know I shouldn't have watched "See the Sea" very late at night? As I said, I was prepared to be bored, figuring if I were bored to the point of nodding off on the sofa, I could turn it off and toddle off to bed, no problem.

An hour later, having finished watching this amazing, subtle, disturbing film, I was wide awake and disquieted -- and another hour passed before I settled down enough to go to bed.

The film's horror is psychological. It's in the relationship between two very different women, and it builds to a stunning conclusion.

The last film that made me feel this creeped out was "Repulsion" in 1966, when I was a teenager. And that was a French film, too. Hmmm...

A scruffy girl backpacker Tatiana (Marina de Van) shows up at the beach house of a Parisian young mom, the English Sasha (Sasha Hails), who has a 10-month-old baby--and demands permission to pitch her tent in the back yard. The dad is working in Paris and only shows up at the end of the film's 52-minute running time. (De Van was to appear again in Ozon's Sit Com). The mom precedes to trust the obviously suspicious and ominously aggressive and affect-less outsider far too much--to the torment of nervous viewers. A rather minimalist horror flick, this shows Ozon's characteristic visual elegance and economy but leans dangerously far toward the more glib aspect of his rarely absent desire to shock. One of the hardest of his films to watch, but not one of the more convincing ones. Various elements strain credulity and others are not even really made clear. Roger Ebert wrote a very good (if typically over-kind) review.. This was Ozon's longest film so far. Though not well reviewed in this country his Criminal Lovers/Les amants criminels (1999), with the naturally combustible couple of Jeremie Renier and real-life girlfriend Natacha Regnier, was longer (96 min.) and a huge improvement.

The story begins with a crying baby and ends with a crying baby (but under very different circumstances) and in between we become involved in a intriguing and somewhat sinister drama about two very different women. The beauty of the beach location with its golden sand contrasts in an interesting way with the ugliness of the tragic events. Simmering not far below the surface is the sexual yearning of two women, each of them lonely in their own way.

Baby Chiffre is a great little actress - smiling, gurgling, crying and doing all the right things at the right time. The two women made a nice contrast in characters - Sasha Halls as the lonely elegant wife and Marina de Van as the intruding back-packer. The development of the plot as the cunning back-packer with her insensitive questioning manipulates the wife into accepting her presence inside her home is an exciting thought somewhat frightening aspect of the story.

There are a couple of details I would like to question: Firstly, would the obviously well-bred wife put the toilet roll at her feet on the bathroom floor? Secondly, whilst admitting she was very hungry, would the backpacker pick up her dinner plate and lick off the gravy with her big fat tongue? While the toothbrush scene might offend some people,I found it quite acceptable in the context of the desperate character.

Husband Paul appears late in the film as a businessman returning from Paris. The shocking scene which he discovers on arriving home stuns him into absolute silence, hand over mouth to stifle his cry. I think a cry of terror, panic, disbelief - call it what you will, would have added more dramatic impact.

Summing up: top quality film, interesting, exciting and disturbing. I am still trying to understand the significance of the title.

To paraphrase David Letterman on Madonna: I have a theory about Mr. Ozon - he wants to SHOCK us.

Ozon gives us a nice set-up - domesticated housewife meets her suddenly (re)emerged anarchist-vagabond shadow on a remote isle - and allows his own inner rampaging adolescent to trash the whole business.

Rather than simply follow out the ominous dance initiated between these two characters, Ozon decides to step in every few minutes and punch the viewer in the face: the plate-licking scene, the bit with the tooth-brush (I think its a measure of Ozon's juvenality just how quickly it winds up in our heroine's mouth), the sex scene in the conveniently located Forest of Men. No doubt this is to jar the viewer out of his/her "bourgeois complacency". However, I think the presence of this aggression more truthfully reflects Mr. Ozon's discomfort with his own un-exorcized spirit of domesticity. As with most pseudo-rebels (or posturing enfants-terribles) art becomes a game of projecting into others, and then attacking, what we can't tolerate in ourselves. Thus the inability of Mr. Ozon to let the story play itself out and the quite apparent intrusiveness of the scenes I mentioned. And if this lack of continuity (or eruption of absurdity) is to be justified as a play of surrealism - PLEEEASE! As every director from Clair to Bunuel to Lynch to the Coen bros. who has worked with this palatte has known, such a world must maintain its own inner consistency (whether this is done through lighting, gesture/stylized movement, dialog, what have you). Ozon does not even make such an attempt, therefore his "imaginative leaps" appear merely arbitrary GESTURES of artistic abandon rather than the real deal. Clearly Ozon has some growing up to do before he can sail with those who truly chart a course on unknown seas (rather than play pirate in their own bathtubs). 4 out of 10.

Saw this film on the Sundance Channel a couple times now. It's really not anything new, but it's still a haunting story of frustration, need, and (mis)trust. Sasha seems to be happy (and even says so) with her current settled life, yet there are displays of her boredom and frustration throughout the film (the baby keeps her occupied, yet at the same time it also won't let her sleep, read, etc.). She is also in need of some sex, as a couple scenes prove.

I suppose probably being as bored as she is more so than being polite, she befriends Tatiana after being wary of her at first. Strangely, she starts to place way to much trust in this person (leaving her to watch the baby, etc.), but that just shows Sasha is so pent up that she'll take any chance she gets to have some relief. As they get chummier, Tatiana starts to show to the audience signs of being a bit unstable (you got to see one such scene for yourself!), and later Sasha finds her weird notebook drawings but doesn't seem to think much of it (we all doodle, right?). Later when Sasha offers her most trusting friendliness, Tatiana finally does what she has to do, starting with a scene that at first looks more a return of friendship than what really happens. (Even though what finally happens is a bit predictable, it doesn't take away from its impact since such a thing is always disturbing and tragic.)

Overall, this was an enjoyable film, if you are into concise, well shot and acted drama with talented actresses. Also, for this particular film, it's length was just right, at just under an hour. A-

After quite a good setup of the sparse seaside landscape and the frustrated housewife with baby it degenerates into a "thriller" that delivers a few shocks (or more correctly disgusting moments) but no true surprises or twists.

The drifter is a stock character with no depth or distinguishing characteristics from other such characters (nor is any added by the actress in a flat performance) so ultimately there is no menace to sustain even a film this short. The housewife fares better, particularly in the first half, with a little more depth but even that is discarded for the "surprise" ending. And if you were surprised then you weren't paying attention (probably because you were nodding off).

The film is shot in a harsh, minimalist way that tends towards realism which intrigues during the initial setup but is betrayed by the often unrealistic (or at least they felt that way) goings on that are played straight with no stylistic touches whatsoever. And in such a short film several scenes really have no bearing on the plot and really add nothing to the characters. As such the film ultimately lacks depth and tension and ends up being just, well, dull.

If your idea of suspense is waiting for a sullen, unhinged character to finally snap, then I suppose this qualifies as supsenseful. But I found this film to be a pointless string of evocative imagery without much of a soul. I was waiting for something awful to happen, and after 50 minutes, something does. I walked away feeling deadened, and cheated. Or is that how I was SUPPOSED to feel? oooh.

An Englishwoman named Sasha is living alone in an idyllic French seaside location with her ten month old baby while her husband is away. A woman arrives named Tatiana, and asks if she can pitch her tent on Sasha's garden. She reluctantly agrees. The stranger is slightly scruffy and coarse. She doesn't say much but seems okay. Sasha must think this because she leaves her baby with her while she goes shopping. The film builds slowly to its shocking climax. Tatiana asks Sasha about her child birth and tells her she has had an abortion. There is also a scene in some woods frequented by gay men, where Sasha indulges herself. The film works because of the threat and menace that the viewer senses, almost knowing what will happen, but watching intensely all the same for its entire length of fifty-two minutes.