Bitter Moon

This film is utterly compelling - it will have you glued to the screen. It's about 2 hours and 15 minutes long, yet it never loses its grip. Although there are a few "funny" moments, you can never be sure whether they were intentional or not. The pacing is slow but wonderfully methodical. But what really makes this picture delightful is the level of the acting of the male stars. While the female leads are also wonderful, the cynical Coyote and, especially, the charmingly shy Grant (his performance here is underrated) provide two different ways for the viewer to enter the story and their interplay is offbeat and endlessly entertaining. This is methodical, first-rate filmmaking by Polanski.

Every man should watch this film, it is a Polanski masterpiece. The parts are wonderfully played and the script is menacingly accurate. Why it didn't get greater exposure at the time or since baffles me, particularly as two of the principle characters have since become "famous" , Hugh Grant and Kristan Scott Thomas.

Most men will empathise with the morality or lack of in this confused relationship between an older man obsessed with his sexual object in the form of the stunning French actress, and her adoration for him. The haunting reality is that for so many the lack of depth in a relationship is frightening once the sexual desire diminishes. An awesome film 10 out of 10.

The British Nigel (Hugh Grant) and his wife Fiona (Kristin Scott Thomas) are celebrating the seventh anniversary of their marriage in a cruise to Istanbul and Bombay. While in the trip, the American cripple and frustrated writer Oscar (Peter Coyote) gets close to Nigel, and invites him to listen to his unconventional love and hate story with his French wife Mimi (Emmanuelle Seigner). Oscar tells how he met Mimi in Paris and all their relationship, including details of their sexual life, along the past years. Meanwhile, Nigel feels a great attraction for the sexy and gorgeous Mimi, in a story with tragic consequences.

'Bitter Moon' has been released in Brazil on DVD this week, and yesterday I watched it for the fifth or sixth time, since it is one of my favorites movies ever. This story, about relationship, moral, hypocrisy, behavior, love and hate, fascinates me and shakes my emotions. I really believe that 'Bitter Moon', Peter Coyote and Emmanuelle Seigner have been not nominated to the Oscar because of the problems of Roman Polanski with the American Justice. Emmanuelle Seigner has her best role and performance in his career playing Mimi, an adorable French woman, very much in love with Oscar, who poisons and destroys her. Their love increases, reaches the top and crosses all the boundaries of a sexual relationship, including those 'accepted by a moralist and hypocrite society' (represented by Nigel), questioning how long a love can last, making Oscar bored of Mimi. The problem is that their relationship was supported by sex only, without friendship and respect, basic parameters for a long-term everyday life of a married couple. Hugh Grant is perfect in the role of a typical British man and symbol of a hypocrite society. And Kristin Scott Thomas has a minor, but very important part in the plot, playing a sexually repressed woman due to the behavior of her husband, who released the chains of her repression. The wonderful music of Vangelis and a soundtrack of nice songs, which includes a Brazilian pop song, conclude this masterpiece. My vote is ten.

Title (Brazil): 'Lua de Fel' ('Bitter Moon')

I found this film extremely well done for several reasons I will nominate.

It debates some moral issues, how far is it acceptable for a society still full of consevative people, such as the one performed by Hugh Grant, to acept a relationship such as that of the main characters? It is totally at the border of normality (meaning normality not necessarily what's good but what's common). The film also touches strongly the theme of hipocrisie (probably wrong spelled, this word.) once more in the character of Hugh Grant who, despite showing all the time disgut and repugnace for the story he is being told, is always secretly desiring and wanting something equivalent to happen to him (this hipocratic attitude may be the result of growing up in a world and a society where this kind of sexual liberties and practices are repressed and in here once more we are taken to atrong moral issues which take us to rethink the whole thing...).

Apart from this questions this film makes me also think about the relationships between men and women... Is there an everlasting love? or at least an everlasting relationship?... Suddendly I recalled Schopenhauer who claimed that no man could be happy with only one woman... maybe this film is showing that he was right... the pace of the relationship between Mimi and the writer was so high that they just emptied all there possibilities very soon, but if we put that at the scale of a normal marriage, aren't all the possibilities also tried at the end of 10 20 or 30 years? Can a marriage last happy for both till "death tears them apart" ?...

Besides this few topics of discussion (to which I could add some more if I just remembered them right now) I found this film very well directed with some beautiful scenes... also some strongs scenes that stay with us... Excelent performances for the three leading roles... Kristin Scott Thomas is also good in here but not so as in other films also because her somewhat small part in this one didn't allow her to show more than she did. This film proves once more Roman Polansky as one of the greatest directors of our times, since he shows he is totally in control of every detail of direction (I enjoyed the increase of the speed together with the increase of intensity of the relationship among the couple). Good dialogues but specially excelent speeches of the writer whenever he becomes the narrator which is often... Also an excelent note for the soundtrack by Vangelis and other well known songs which appear along. A must see.

Bitter Moon once again sees the master of the macabre, Roman Polanski, doing what he does best. With echoes of his earlier film 'Knife in the Water', Bitter Moon is a story of lust, revenge, betrayal, dependency and most of all; love, wrapped tightly around a coil of taboos and sexual perversions. While not as good as some of Polanski's other works, Bitter Moon still stands out as a highlight of his filmography and is certainly a lot better than many people have reputed it to be. The film follows two very different couples on a cruise ship; An English couple, Nigel and Fiona and an American cripple, Oscar, who is married to the French seductress Mimi. After meeting Mimi in the ship's bar, Nigel becomes entranced by her and later meets her husband and proceeds to learn his and wife's story...and it's not exactly pretty. With this movie, Polanski has obliterated the barriers of decency, and sometimes even makes you, the viewer, uncomfortable due to the goings on. And that's the mark of someone that knows how to handle his audience!

The acting in the movie really is first rate and there isn't a weak link there, especially not within the four leads. I'm no fan of Hugh Grant, in fact I hate the man, but he's exactly the right casting choice for this movie and it's almost a shame that he went on to make lots of rubbish movies after it. The two women, played by Kristin Scott Thomas and Emmanuelle Seigner are well done in terms of the characters and the acting, but it is Peter Coyote who steals the show as the abominable Oscar. His character in this film is the sort that actors can really get their teeth into, and Coyote bites down hard in this movie. Polanski's direction is excellent as usual and the gritty style mixed with the great director's edgy camera-work help to create a claustrophobic environment that allows Polanski to perfectly portray his characters' mindset. The themes on display are impressive, and in spite of the fact that it oversteps the mark on several occasions, Polanski's film always feels real and the lesson in the love that the film teaches is duly noted. Bitter Moon is a film that will get under your skin and stay there and not only that but there's enough happening to ensure that this is always a fun watch. Recommended viewing.