La truite

The review on IMDb by David Melville sums up very well some of the problems with this film. So much of the plot just doesn't make sense nor does the casting of Isabelle Huppert in such a demanding role. Melville was right--a vixen like Bardot in her prime could have made it work but Huppert was not up to it. She wasn't believable as a woman this alluring and selfish. But there is so much more wrong with this movie Melville didn't get to--poorly written and often grossly under-developed characters--and in the process wasting talent like Jeanne Moreau, Alexis Smith and her husband Craig Stevens. On top of all that, the story was unappealing, disjoint and almost impossible to follow at times--partly because of the odd way the film bounces around from the present to the past and partly because the film is so dull it's hard to keep up with it.

Despite me hating the film, I have enjoyed some of Isabelle Huppert's movies and French movies are my favorite international films. It's just with so many wonderful French films, I don't advise you to waste your time on this one--it's so much easier to find a film worthy of your time.

It is surprising that the swansongs or the penultimate works of eminent directors, often their favorites, are dismissed by many critics. Examples: Zinnemann's "Five Days, One Summer," Lean's "Ryan's Daughter." One can add Losey's "The Trout" to that list. All of Losey's works looked at social and economic disparities--"The Trout" underscores that. Audiences who rave about the Korean film "Parasites" might not notice the similarities in this French work because the messages are subtler. Additionally it is a women's film made by a male, where all the male characters are found wanting except for an elderly Japanese man. It is also a fascinating study of a woman's love for her husband who is gay.

The last conversation in the film: Q to Frederique (Ms Huppert): It is better than in France?

Frederique: It is the same. But Galuchat (Frederique's husband) is in charge.

Those closing lines are spoken with the liquor-addicted Galuchat walking alone with a glass of alcohol outside the restaurant, while his wife has transformed from a village girl of limited means into an incredibly successful international trout farmer. The "trout eggs" have hatched! A small detail that might escape many--towards the end as rich trout farmers from around the world, including Frederique, arrive at the Japanese hotel in a long convoy of limousines, the only sound one hears are the closing of the limousine doors (recalling the final scene of Losey's "Accident" when you don't see the accident but hear it on the soundtrack!)

In LA TRUITE Isabelle Huppert plays a cold-blooded trout of a woman, Frédérique, supported by Jeanne Moreau as a wife whose husband, Rambert (Jean-Pierre Cassel), throws himself (repeatedly) at Frédérique. Frédérique, who is married to a gay husband (Jacques Spiesser) agrees to accompany Saint-Genis (Daniel Olbrychski) to Tokyo, as much to annoy Rambert as to torment Saint-Genis.

The movie has many luscious sequences in Tokyo and France, and Huppert acts most of the other protagonists off the screen in a difficult role. There are flashbacks of her learning how her father and his friends used women, which increases her resolve not to be abused in similar fashion. She comes across as outwardly unsympathetic, but we understand her motives in a world where rich people treat those around them with the same lack of concern as they do their possessions. Rambert is even less sympathetic and less capable of love than Frédérique.

In this slow-moving narrative style definitely assumes more significance than content, but the film does have a particularly satisfactory ending.

I am obligated to practice French as part of language acquisition. (So I had a reason to watch this film). I feel it was a really good and interesting film. It is a story that is different than what we would see in the United States. It is very French.

It was interesting to observe the main character's life on a trout farm. For fun, the family goes out bowling with other another family. They also go to many early 80s French and Japanese discotheques. It was really interesting.

I think I need to watch the film again because there were certain sequences that were hard for me to follow. The ending was really good, I thought. I also felt the performances by Jeanne Moreau and Jean-Pierre Cassel, could have been Oscar-nominated.

In conclusion, with French films, they cast actors who Act the roles really well, even if they have smaller shoulders or no butt. Whereas American films cast gorgeous people, who may not be as advanced as actors. I feel this film is worth watching, and different from American films.

This is the Cinderella story updated to include a dysfunctional Prince Charming who is unable to satisfy his Cinderella so she has to get her jollies by seducing and outsmarting a pair of evil princes (whom she meets bowling...a wonderful surreal touch that is so improbable it actually is quite amusing...think Big Lebowski here)...the only actor out of place is Jeanne Moreau who is simply wasted in a secondary role. I will admit that I am a rabid Huppert fan and would watch her in anything...there is simply no one else like her around and she rescues this film from complete inanity by the sheer weirdness of her beautiful being.