L'école de la chair

A superb study of a mature woman's knowledge of her inner self, and acting out on instinct, regardless of the consequences, THE SCHOOL OF FLESH is memorable. Isabelle Huppert, at home playing cold, calculated women, shines as the mature woman, supported by fine performances, notably by Vincent Lindon, in a highly atypical role, and professional direction by veteran Benoit Jacquot.

Isabelle Huppert is as beautiful as ever, but it is hard to see why her character does the things she does in this confused tale of cross-generational lovers. As a middle-aged businesswoman, Huppert takes a much younger bisexual bartender/hustler into her home, pays his debts, buys him clothes. He never seems to treat her well enough to justify her generosity, and he never seems interesting or lovable enough to justify her affection. It all comes unravelled eventually, after enough nude love scenes to keep most of the audience awake most of the time.

I went to this film based solely on the reputation of Isabelle Huppert. I had heard she was one of the greatest actresses in Europe.

Well I have to agree, she is fantastically attractive and talented, and you could watch her for hours, but unfortunately that's what this film seemed like. I don't often fall asleep in the movies but I almost did on this one...

I guess my main problem with the film was that there was never any motivation that I could see for why such an ostensibly attractive and successful woman would do some of the things she did: take in this raggamuffin with the dubious past, and then proceed to take all of his bad treatment, infidelity, and neglect, while feeding and clothing him and giving him a place to live. I guess we are to assume he was just that good in bed, but I think the film would have benefited from a little more "flesh"ing out of the reasons behind the actions. Some will probably say I missed the "nuances" but I just kept asking *why* is she doing this, from their first date when she hung around while he played video games, through to the end. To me it just perpetuated the myth that women are suckers for a pretty face.

But all that said, it was still a pleasure to watch Huppert and I will look for her in other films at my video store.

"Middle-aged divorcee picks up barman in gay bar" isn't a promising plot-line; the title's soft-porn suggestion is also off-putting. But in fact it's a delicate and attractive handling of what could have been sordid relationships. The key word, I suppose, is "tender"; we are frequently led to expect violence (the barman Quentin is a kick-boxer - we watch him attacking a punchbag during the title sequence) but are instead surprised by reasonableness and gentleness. The few nude scenes manage to be erotic without ever being vulgar. Relationships are weird, the film (and Mishima's novel) seems to say, but there can still be tenderness in life. Isabelle Huppert exudes French charm . . .

Isabelle Ann Huppert is a gorgeous, mature woman. She dominates this film, and even though a strong cast supports her, she still dominates. Her motive for sticking with this jerk remains cloudy, unless he is the world's greatest lover. I was mesmerised by Huppert, however, and I will look for more films with her in them, and there are quite a lot of them.