Rendez-vous

Rendez-vous is a beautiful, sexy, art-film. It won several prestigious international awards and is critically acclaimed. Juliette Binoche is completely uninhibited and gives a brave, fearless performance where she bares herself completely...both emotionally and physically.

Thus, this film is not intended for the immature. Those with childish minds who cannot handle looking at a beautiful woman's body (such as feminists or other philistines) are advised too avoid this. Another reviewer called it "pointless drivel" and complained about the "gratuitous nudity". If seeing a woman's vagina is too much for the immature mind of that viewer to handle, him and his kind should avoid high-art cinema such as this. His kind would be better served watching gay-porn garbage, loosely disguised as a "comedy", such as "Bruno". That type of film is more suited for those misandric simpletons who prefer looking at male genitalia. Those who appreciate complex, beautiful art and appreciate the female form will enjoy this.

Nina (Juliette Binoche) moves to Paris and she becomes the love interest of three very different men and has tumultuous concurrent relationships with each. Multiple plot and character lines develop from this. This movie will challenge you and you'll find yourself pondering some of the scenes days later. Highly recommended.

André Téchiné made this 1985 film RENDEZ-VOUS before his promising career was established, giving us such fine films as My Favorite Season, The Innocents, The Wild Reeds, Beach Café, Alice and Martin, etc. The sensitivity to character development is tightly wound in this work but some of the finesse that followed his later works is missing. In the end we are left wondering a bit about what happened to almost everyone.

Nina (Juliette Binoche in her first film role) has traveled to Paris from her small home in Toulouse to try her hand at acting and to live the wild life that has been unavailable to her in Toulouse. She beds nearly every man she encounters and acts bit parts in small theaters, barely eking out an existence. Tired of one night stands and sharing quarters with others, she sets out to find her own apartment, stopping in to a realtors office where she encounters Paulot (Wadeck Stanczak) who is immediately smitten with her sensual good looks and manner. Having no place to stay Nina agrees to spend a few days with Paulot in a flat shared with the hauntingly strange Quentin (Lambert Wilson). Nina is oddly attracted to Quentin and is somewhat put off by the fact that Quentin is an actor in a sex theater. We discover Quentin narrowly escaped death some time back when the actress playing Juliet to his Romeo was killed. Nina has an approach/avoidance conflict with Quentin, all the while fending off offers by the pathetic Paulot to care for her. Quentin is killed in a car accident, Nina meets the elderly director Scrutzler (Jean-Louis Trintignant in a splendid cameo role) who promises her the role of Juliet in his casting of the Shakespeare drama, and her career as an actress seems to be launched. Full of self doubt and fear stimulated by the ghost-like appearances of the dead Quentin, Nina prepares for the role, copes with Paulot's advances, shares a flat with him, and is finally left in the stage wings with her focus on becoming an actress challenged with her needs for physical and stable love. And we are left there.

Juliette Binoche is very fine in this her 'maiden voyage' and it is a happy finding that she is far more beautiful (as well as a far better actress) in her current more mature state. Lambert Wilson gives a fine performance, finding the line between lurid sexuality and lonely afterlife ghost a position he easily treads. The film definitely has moments but it is only a hint (and a strong one) of just what to expect form the gifted André Téchiné. Not bad for a twenty year old film! Grady Harp

Notice how the jackets of just about every video, especially the French ones, SHOUT how SEXY the movie is. In Krzysztof Kieslowski's "Blue," par example, Juliette Binoche and the film are touted as being so, so sexy. But it wasn't, and neither was she. However in "Rendez- Vous" you will see a Juliette Binoche with enough sexual power to awaken a dead man-not to say that this movie is as good as Kieslowski's "Blue." It isn't, but it's not bad.

Binoche is full of energy as a provincial French girl with a flair for the stage new to the lights of gay Paree. She plays fast and loose (and natural) with the men she meets, and dodges some serious trouble before working it out with the man she really wants. Characteristically, Director André Téchiné leads us close to the dark side of sex without really offending our sensibilities.

Jean-Louis Trintignant appears in a small role that anticipates his triumphant creation as the admiring older man in Kieslowski's "Trois Couleurs: Rouge" nine years later.

(Note: Over 500 of my movie reviews are now available in my book "Cut to the Chaise Lounge or I Can't Believe I Swallowed the Remote!" Get it at Amazon!)

Lousy, stereotypical and misogynistic, but, hey, if you ever wanted a glimpse of Binoche's binush, this is the film for you! Binoche plays a slutty, fairly talentless actress who meets up with Wadeck Stanczak and invites him to her play, even though she's sleeping and living with one of the ushers. His presence breaks up that convenient relationship and she accompanies Stanczak home. He assumes he's getting laid, but he's too goody-goody for her. Instead, she ends up falling for his complete bastard of a roommate, played by Lambert Wilson. The guy, after seeing her once, attempts to rape her and threatens to kill her. On their next meeting, he threatens to slit his throat in front of her (with the razor he brought with him). This is known in France to be normal behavior, as we all know from their movies. Of course, she'd fall for him, leaving poor sap Stanczak with a rosy palm. The film is unbelievably insulting towards women. Fortunately, Binoche is such a fantastic actress that she almost makes the film worth watching. The character is stereotypical in a lot of ways, but she gives it her all. This was basically her first starring role in what would be (and continues to be) one of the best acting careers in the movies.

RENDEZ-VOUS comes from Téchinés 'romantic' period of the 70s and early 80s, comprising of BAROCCO, LES SOEURS BRONTE and HOTEL DES AMERIQUES. Of these four films RENDEZ-VOUS is without doubt the most worthwhile and successful.

In her first leading role Juliette Binoche is a revelation as Nina a provincial girl who has moved to Paris in order to pursue an acting career. She becomes involved with two vastly different men the gentle Paulo (Wadeck Stanckzac) and the dangerous and intense Quentin (Lambert Wilson).

Unpredictable and provocative this girl bounces between both men. However her whole world falls apart when one of them commits suicide. Cast in a production of Romeo and Juliet by the compelling Scrutzler (Jean Louis Trintignant) this young girl begins to confront her own behaviour and psychology.

Téchiné's brief film is full of themes about female artistic urgency.

Is there anything this girl will do in life that she will not do on stage.

Should there be? What is the dynamic that drives such an ambitious yet lost girl. the film deals superbly with all these ideas without ever resorting to simplae answers. Aided by Binoche's fearless performance the film is incredibly emotional and romantic, helped in no small part by a stunning Phillippe Sarde score.

RENDEZ-VOUS is an intense and at time difficult film, but it is worth every effort to begin to explore this girls psychological motivations.