Les amants

This is the story of Jeanne Tournier, a bored upper class woman who tries to escape her situation through romantic love. While it would be unfair to expect the depth of character development in this movie to match that in the similarly plotted novels "Madame Bovary" or "Lady Chatterley's Lover," this presentation seems particularly thin.

Some half century on this movie has lost some of its punch. Apparently it was considered to be sexually avant-garde at the time of its release, but it would probably get a PG-13 rating now.

There are things that make this worth seeing. As Jeanne Tournier, Jeanne Moreau does turn up the heat and her fans will want to see this. There is some nice black and white camera work. There are a lot of night scenes (filmed day for night, as Malle comments on the DVD extras) that are atmospheric and augment the intimate scenes.

While the erotic scenes might not jar, a shocking thing even for contemporary audiences is the fact that Jeanne would take off and leave her child behind. Also Jeanne engages in two adulterous affairs without remorse--that would have had 1950s audiences talking, and some contemporary audiences as well.

Thinking about the future of the renegade couple, I think it will not take Jeanne and her lover long to realize that she is taking her boredom with her.

In this, director Louis Malle's second film, which for awhile seems like it will be another high society soap opera, a seemingly arbitrary plot detour occurs that places the beautiful Jeanne Moreau in a situation all the less convenient and all the more frustrating because of how accustomed she has become to her privilege. Consequently, Moreau is less like a Sex and the City character and more of a realization that a social ladder does not leave problems below it. They follow you from decision to decision to decision. And the further up it she climbs, the less considerate her decisions seem to be of the world outside of herself.

As a 25-year-old French director at the dawn of the New Wave, he was not alone in satirizing and criticizing the bourgeoisie. Ironically, being younger than fellow Nouveau filmmakers Godard and Truffaut, as well as having been born into a wealthy industrialist family, had no hand in blinding him by way of his privileged ego. Watching this biting romantic drama about adultery and the reality and illusion of rediscovering love, I see that Malle understood the upper-class freedom of never having to worry about tomorrow, and not only does he characterize it with an almost humorously frustrating edge, he wisely satirizes love at first sight.

The movie was made in 1958, but Malle's style has yet to garner an expiration date. There are no outdated lap dissolves or screen wipes or quick fade-outs. The controversy at the time surrounding this film's alleged obscenity had a rebounding effect on the flimsy subjectivity of society's accusations. He was simply being honest, which he is in the aforementioned portrayals beyond the simple night of passionate love Moreau has with her lover. Instead of a coy imitation of a spectator blushing and looking away, as many other films did and still do when the camera moves to the window or the ceiling, Malle fixates on her ecstasy. Even now, rarely do we see a close shot of a woman's sexual pleasure.

A bit like Woody Allen would come to do in a few decades, Malle tends to saturate his soundtracks with a single composer. Here, it is Johannes Brahms, whose music is a brilliantly and acutely intuitive choice for the film since, much like the characters, he has a classical sense of form and order yet he's bold in his exploration of harmony and rhythm.

I know it's not fair to criticize a film because of its basic milieu. Jeanne Moreau is a rich woman who has probably married for money. Her husband is a clueless bore who runs a newspaper. They are extremely rich, with cooks and housemaids, and lots of time to get in trouble. He doesn't seem to have much affection for her (although she is a knockout) and encourages her to go to Paris and hang around with her equally useless friend. There she meets a polo player and he offers her some adventure, though when push comes to shove, he's not much different than her husband. The hard thing for me is that I couldn't care less what happens to her. She has pretty much all she wants and, I believe, a dolt of husband who must know she is having contact with men on the make. Things change when, after her car breaks down, a professor rescues her and then accompanies her back to her home. All participants in the drama are there: the husband, the polo player, and the vapid friend. Because this new guy is aggressive and not willing to cotton to her spoiled brat being, she finds him irresistible. LIke a dog on the prowl, he quickly seduces her and within one night, they are talking about running off together. Moreau is beautiful. That's about it. There is a very sexy scene for its time. The movie, for me, is utterly lacking in any semblance of real interaction. How can these people co-exist? Visually, it is quite well done and Louis Malle is a great director, but... For a moment, I hearkened back to the final scene in "The Graduate" as Katherine Ross and Dustin Hoffmann sit in the back of the bus, wondering what the future will bring.

Crazy about French movies ever since I started watching them. The black and white is more appropriate than colour for French film, very captivating and unreal.

What can you say about the French people? Desperados and aficionados of romance and love. Hopelessly romantics.

Simple story told like a poem regardless of any moral criticism, there is no such thing call moral or immoral in the realm of art. Art is a rival to morality, it allows all sorts of existences. In this movie, the sin is adultery but no one cares to condemn it, the pursuit of love takes it all. The love scene might be stunning to the audience in late 50s France, but definitely not today. Jeanne Moreau somehow took a bold step. Anyway, she is radiating gloriously in superb cinematography.

Jeanne Tournier married to a well-off provincial newspaper owner for eight years. She has a daughter, a polo-playing lover and a big bunch of acid-tongued snobbish Parisian friends. Nevertheless, she is bored about living in such a polite society. Finally when Bernard, a young student whom she has known just for a few hours, enters into her life, just after solely one night's time in her husband's villa with him, she decides to leave with him into the uncertain future the very next morning.

Several lyrical scenes impress me a great deal. Their nightly accidental encounter at the garden. Jeanne is illuminating the dimness, she looks like a mystic fairy seducing Bernard. Another one is the astonishing look of her friend when she sees them leaving together. The most memorable is the very last scene, they drive and drive into the unknown, unexplored.

The map shown at the beginning and the voice-over at the end may be something like a warning. However, when two lovers in love that they can sacrifice everything for the romance in such a desperate fashion, nothing is threatening. Feminists or women who are fighting for their freedom would be clapping their hands she's got guts.

You've got it all, excepting a sad marriage, hubby's not interested, in your wagon or carriage, so you spend the weeks in Paris, watching polo has its merits, but at the weekend you return, to the disparage. Circumstances mean acquaintances will visit, a bit closer than just friends is Raoul Flores, but a breakdown on the way, causes detour and delay, and an extra guest now joins the home foray.

Jeanne Moreau, one of the most eye-catching actors of her day plays Jeanne Tournier, a woman oozing dissatisfaction with her home life in rural Dijon, wants to be dazzled by the sights and sounds of Paris, but has her attentions distracted quite unexpectedly when she is forced to arrange a weekend soirée in the marital mansion.

Fanciful stuff, and a little bit daft.