Max mon amour

Interesting - an international co-production that results in a real creative fusion, not the usual mush. This movie pits deadpan surrealist aesthete Jean-Claude Carriere's script against tantrum-prone transgressor Oshima in the service of a narrative where Charlotte Rampling falls in love with a chimpanzee. In spite of the rampant in-your-face perversity, though, Carriere holds the balance of power - Oshima wouldn't have thrown in that climactic victory parade, and I doubt he could have pulled off such an informed spoof of the French bedroom comedy on his own. The bemused passivity of the husband can get a little cloying, but it's pretty remarkable how viscerally sensual the movie gets in the Rampling-chimp lovey sequences. And that goes double once you realize that it ain't no chimp - it's another Rick Baker masterpiece for ya, so that makes three auteurs.

MAX, MON AMOUR received a tepid reaction when it debuted in Cannes in 1986, a French- American co-production under the rein of the late Japanese provocateur Nagisa Ôshima (1932- 2013), which would become his penultimate feature film.

Since then, it has become a succès de scandale which is less being watched than hyped due to its subversive content, but in fact, most of the time, it suffices as a tongue-in-cheek comedy, a marital satire borne out of Jean-Claude Carrière's urtext, Peter Jones (Higgins) is a liberal-minded British diplomat working and living in Paris, one day, to his utter dismay, he finds out the paramour of his wife Margaret (Rampling), is a male chimpanzee named Max, beggar belief, the couple decides to try out a kind of ménage-à-trois by bringing Max into their official residence, where also lives their towhead school-age son Nelson (Hovik), and believe it or not, in the end of the story, their co-habitation actually works.

Cagey about the salacious details of the relationship between Margaret and her "supposed" primate lover, Ôshima sides with the husband's point-of-view to parse the couple's tug-of-war, firstly, Peter takes up the gauntlet to show his magnanimity by accepting the situation without letting it get under his skin, then, driven by curiosity and jealousy, his attitude towards Max seesaws between hostility and respectable concern, an experiment of corroborating the inter- species sexual act is a bust, whereas an episode of shotgun scare is just a cheeky practice of cheap tension.

It is an immoral cock-and-bull story, menace is palpable, but vice has never descended into the picture and what sagaciously affirming is the film's brazen stance on the dynamism between the couple, it is always Margaret who has the say-so in their states of affairs, however preposterous and quixotic, there is a deep respect unites them as an entity, Peter stoutly fights her corner in the face of extrinsic parties, whether it is a zoologist or a neuropsychologist, accordingly, she also quite frank about her feelings, even stays on friendly terms with Peter's secretary-cum-lover Camille (a gratingly loud Diana Quick).

It is a surprise that Ôshima chooses not to go out on a limb in salting the plot by bestowing Max with a feral complexion, alternatively played by real chimps and stunts in verisimilar costumes (solely by this reviewer's reckoning), Max is presented as a meek pet, not dangerous, sulky at most, albeit his human-like size, even becomes mawkishly lovelorn and loses his appetite when Margaret is absent. Granted, there is a touching and tender naiveness seething beneath its surrealistic premise, which also is not exactly congruent with Ôshima's make-up if one might venture to surmise.

Both Rampling and Higgins tackle the thorny subject with bravura, what percolates from their collective effort is a beguilingly unfeigned sophistication stemming from a bourgeois background, and Ôshima conspiratorially sends up their caprices with deadpan seriousness, not to mention a non sequitur triumph appended to the part where Max momentarily goes missing in the woods.

Ultimately, MAX, MON AMOUR doesn't come to provoke moralists, but offers a keyhole for the audience to observe a behavioral pattern says as much of living beings' universality as their idiosyncrasy, the point is made, but reverberations are somewhat deadened when Ôshima settles for a middle road between "funny and die" in his overall approach.

Seen with an audience in a theater, Max Mon Amour can be a surprising and satisfying parable. When a womanizing diplomat (Anthony Higgins) realizes that his wife (Charlotte Rampling) may be having an affair, he's shocked, then disgusted that this lover is in fact a full-grown chimpanzee. At first, it appears that Rampling may be using the simian to exact emotional revenge on his wife; then, it seems that a special kind of love might be in play - which inflames his jealousy to the point of violence.

Nagisa Oshima frames the film as an offbeat comedy, but it's hard to ignore ignore its themes, which include the blindness of love, questioning to what degree we're human or animal. To the very last scenes, it's difficult to predict that will happen to the chimp or the strange romance. It's presented almost entirely without music, and filmed in French and English - as if to say the language spoken here is beyond words, speaking the language of the heart.

Of particular note is the rendering of the chimp, which is presented so realistically that you almost believe it's real. Charlotte Rampling is enigmatic and sensual as Max's "lover."

Mainly, this film is about Charlotte Ramplings love for a monkey (a chimpanzee, to be precise), and how her family, especially her husband, deals with it. In fact, upon finding out about his wives affair, Anthony Higgins' character remains surprisingly calm; he even proposes to have the monkey live with them in their house. Maybe he wants to prevent Rampling from leaving him; or he does so since he has an affair himself; or it is his attempt to be "open minded" even in front of an utmost unusual matter. But problems soon up: Not only does the maid (young Victoria Abril!) respond negative to the new guest; the couples friends slowly find up about the hidden secret and try to "help" by drawing in psychologist, zoologists, and so forth. Then, suddenly, Max, the monkey is gone... Sounds weird? It is. All over the film, one is reminded of some of Luis Bunuels work. In one particular scene, Higgins – eager to find if Rampling and Max do indeed share sexual experiences – pays a prostitute to "visit" Max, about which she has no problems (other than Max!). One could read it as a commentary about, once again, the lifestyle of the Bourgeoisie and the boredom that drives them, but in fact all of the characters are likable and there's not hint of criticism on social inequalities. It's filmed in a "children film style" way, yet in its contents designed exclusively for adults. It makes for an enjoyable reception, but once you've seen it, it's not something you want to watch it all too soon, since "Max mon Amour" is basically attractive for the unpredictable unfolding of the story.

The premise of this film sounded just odd enough that I felt compelled to check it out at the MoMA showing last evening. I had to sit with it a day to determine exactly how I felt about it. It's definitely unusual. I found the beginning both interesting and funny, and I also enjoyed the open sequence and credits along with the score. However, the story progressed in such a way that it became clear, to me at least, that the story wasn't really developed beyond the surprise that Rampling's lover is a chimpanzee. The husbands initially accepts the situation but grows increasingly obsessed with what exactly his wife and chimp do when they're alone together, since she will not let him watch. He hires a prostitute to have sex with the monkey so he can see how it's done. There are other moments that are somewhat engaging, and the two lead performances are very good, but in the end, I found Max Mon Amour mostly unsatisfying and could have befitted from some prudent editing.