El hombre de su vida

I keep forgetting name of this movie and I describe it as the French movie with the two guys talking all night and the sheer drapes flowing in the wind. I found it to be one of the best gay movies ever. It's honest and deeper than most. It's also very French. Which is fine by me. But it won't be for everyone. A couple of years after watching it I choose it again thinking it was something I hadn't seen. A few minutes in I realized I had and watched it all over again.

This film is about a married man developing romantic feelings with a charming gay neighbour.

The plot is simple but special. It is striking that the plot blurs the distinction between homosexuality and heterosexuality. The main character, Frédéric, is heterosexual but develops feelings for a man. Hugo, on the other hand, is homosexual but is revealed to have a child. It's a good way to say that love has no boundaries.

The way Frédéric develops feelings for Hugo is beautiful. The gradual disintegration of Frédéric's marriage is portrayed well, and Frédérique's desperation in the end of the film is palpable. This film is beautiful and engaging. It deserves to be viewed by more people.

Filmmakers invest a great deal of creativity and inspiration into their work, so I hesitate to write a negative review, but I'm compelled to make an exception here.

What a pretentious, self-indulgent waste of time. It steadily succumbs to self-conscious artiness, drunk on its own sense of contrived poetry.

It's sumptuously filmed, but ultimately shallow, empty, and a little boring. There's a good story waiting to be told that gets lost in useless side plots, languorous panoramas, and tedious conversations.

There's a germ of a very good idea in the screenplay, but I just don't feel that the writers fully grasped what they were undertaking.

Don't waste your time.

Summer somewhere in France. A couple and their young son invite family and friends to enjoy a warm rural holiday at their old but comfortable summer house. A neighbor, a middle-aged single man, is invited to join the first night's outdoor party. It is quickly revealed that the man is gay. He and the husband start a tentative friendship. How far will it go?

Beyond the apparently simple plot line, what struck me about this film were the visual aspects. A playful camera delights us with unconventional angles, framing, superpositions and transitions. Combining beautiful cinematography and great editing, the end result is a superb film. The tango music is icing on the cake.

This was just so bad. It should be shown in film course as an example of what not to do. Watching it reminded me of a line from the 1932 movie "Grand Hotel," where Greta Garbo says " People come, people go; nothing ever happens." Ostensibly about the evolving relationship between gay Hugo and straight Frederick, the movie is littered with numerous characters and plot threads that do nothing but confuse. While beautiful to look at, the cinematographer is as confusing as whatever passes for a plot. Repetition does nothing to give meaning to shot after shot. A sad waste of the efforts of a decent cast trying to give meaning to utter BS.