César et Rosalie

This is a good drama romance. Anyone who loves 60s and 70s French cinema, will like this as well. It starts as a typical "love triangle" movie, and whereas it's not brilliant or revolutionary, it has a few tricks up its sleeve. After the first hour, things get exciting and there are some interesting turns. First hour was still good, not for a second it got boring, however during the second hour, movie got better and more unpredictable : I couldn't guess what's gonna happen in the next minutes.

For me, ending was great. Sure it was strange but that's why i appreciated it. Ending could have been a typical 70's ending, i love 70's cinema but many endings are identical and unimaginative, regarding drama/romance movies. Not the case here. Unfortunately, in the last 10 seconds, something illogical happened, something against the flow of this particular ending. But that's ok, i choose to pretend it never happened.

Romy Schneider is captivating, Sami Frey was good but anyone who has watched this movie, knows who stole the show.

Yves Montand is tremendous. Not only he's charismatic, but his character is real, mean, we all know guys like him. This character is a deeply flawed person, a person who other people should avoid because they are so self-centered that can't be trusted. Yet, he made this character as likeable as he could possibly be. And that's proof of his greatness.

Yet another object lesson in how to do relationships. Why is it the French find it so effortless to explore the Human Condition As Entertainment. Why is it they can deal so facilely with pain and heartbreak and still make us smile. Okay, it helps if you have a great leading man, a beautiful leading lady, plus a great writer and a great director but that's still not quite enough and what you really need is something in the water. Jean-Loup Dabadie is still under-appreciated as the multi-talent he is. He thinks nothing of adapting Foreign plays into French (Bill Gibson's 'Two For The See-Saw' became 'Deux pour la balancoir' at Dabadie's hand and was a great hit at the Theatre Montparnasse three or four seasons ago) turning out screenplays like this one and even writing lyrics (he wrote 'Valentin' for Montand's son and in so doing gave Montand a late hit). Here he contributes a virtually perfect screenplay on our old friend the Eternal Triangle theme. This film is so perfect that you get the feeling that on the first day of shooting the Good Fairy turned up on the set and waved her Magic wand blessing the entire project. Love, Desire, Pain, Laughter, if you don't get enough of those at home pull up a chair, slip in the DVD/video and sup your fill. You won't regret a moment of it.

"Cesar et Rosalie" is about a love triangle between Rosalie (Romy Schneider), Cesar (Yves Montand) and David (Sami Frey). Claude Sautet would revisit the theme of a love triangle in his later film "Un coeur en hiver" (1992). In this review I will compare these two films.

Lets start with a comparison of the two men. In "Un coeur en hiver" the difference was introvert versus extrovert. We see the same difference in "Cesare et Rosalie", Cesar being the extravert one and David the introvert. This distinction is in "Cesar et Rosalie" however of secondary importance. More important is that Cesar is the businessman and David is the creative artist. If the link between the two distinctions is logical is for everyone to decide. I would rather expect that the creative one would also be extravert and the other way round.

The role of the woman is very different between the two films. In "Un coeur en hiver" Camille (Emmanuelle Beart) has a clear preference for one of the men. In "Cesar et Rosalie" Rosalie cannot choose. She likes / loves both of them. Her perfect lover would be the combination of Cesar and David.

The most surprising element of the film is the effect the behaviour of the woman has on the realtionship between the men. In "Un coeur en hiver" the love triangle creates tension between the two friends. Also in "Cesar et Rosalie" the two men (and especially Cesar) see the other one initially as an opponent. When they realise that Rosalie is never gonna choose between them a friendship gradually emerses.

"Cesar et Rosalie" is extremely well acted, at least by Yves Montand and Romy Schneider. Sami Frey remains somewhat behind. His introverted character maybe difficult to play, but in some scenes David seemed a fassion doll to me.

In love Rosalie is a very independent woman. When it comes to housekeeping however we see how much the genderroles have changed since the 70's. When Cesar and his friends are having a poker evening Rosalie becomes the waitress and when David and his colleagues are working Rosalie becomes the coffee lady. In both instances without a sign of protest.

I was amazed from this film! Not only because I usually like Yves Montand and Romy Schneider, but because above all this is a film about human feelings and reactions.

Claude Sautet's works are not intellectual movies, but they have the quality of showing people in real life, with their strength and their weakness, we can find people who laugh and cry. They are films about life, there isn't necessarily an happy ending. (In Hollywood they're not able to talk to us about REAL persons.) Simple, isn't it? A director normally shows life, you may say. But in reality I don't think it's so easy. The risk is to talk about people with exaggerations and melodramatic elements. In movies like "César et Rosalie" we find common situations, people with whom we can identify and share feelings.

Here we have a woman who can't choose between two men... (Ingmar Bergman has another approach, in choosing psychological and darker aspects of people. It's another valid method.) I chose to comment this film because it's an example of intimate cinema, a way of telling stories which talk to hearts.

I first saw this movie in 1974 while in college and was struck with how human the characters were. Even at my age, I felt for Yves Montand and his passion for this woman that he knew was so different and so out of his reach and for Romy Schneider, torn between her need for the security and peace that the Montand character offered and the excitement and youth offered by Sami Frey.

I chanced to see it again twenty-five years later and found it still mesmerizing and enchanting. Funny, warm, endearing and well worth watching!