Marius et Jeannette

The love between Marius and Jeannette is sweet. Perhaps a film that would relate more with viewers 40+, this film still has some connection with most of the other age groups. I had to study this in school and it's funny how it relates to such issues as: • Belonging versus alienation • Coping with change • Tolerance of difference This film really works on two levels: entertainment and education. The story initially focuses on Jeannette and her family, but soon everyone in her neighbourhood gets involved in the storyline. Each character experiences love, pain, acceptance and changes. This film predominantly relies on its actors. All the actors really get into their roles, and it does show that they are having plenty of fun. Simply put, this film is simple and lovely.

It is a real achievement when you don't hate a film after studying it for your HSC. You watch it numerous times over and over without a break, and of course evermore it will remind you of the hellish end to high school. however Marius et Jeannette is a truly fabulous film and i have yet to find anyone who does not like it. the setting is so completely different to the north shore of Sydney, it ads an enchanting aspect to the film which is a real fairy tale for adults. any fan of french cinema (and just great movies in general) is sure to love this film, destined to become a classic. the small community of l'estaque and the even closer community of Jeannette and her neighbours is a perfect setting for a sweet love story.

This movie is for those who want to believe that life can be pleasant even if one is a broke divorced unemployed mother of two without prospects as long as one believes. In this case the requisite belief is not in god or in life everlasting but in love & some communitarian evolution of romanticized communism. Our once deserted and once widowed unemployed heroine finds love amongst the deconstructing ruins of a cement factory with its emotionally and "physically" crippled security guard. The film is not unrelieved tendentious reality though the only action is a rather bloody bar room brawl from which the protagonists escape drunk but without injury. The one great myth that deserves debunking is that a dozen people in a third of a dozen seperate households can live cheek by jowl in a fading tenement, sharing all intimacies and still like each other. I was somewhat mean in giving it a 6 but it sure isn't worth the 8.7 average rating that prompted me to see it. The French must have different eyes.

Maybe, the simplicity is the main virtue of this film mixing nostalgia, slices of ordinary lives, fair humor, serious problems, motherhood, romance, loneliness, addictions and honest perspectives about neighbors, their common existence, religion, sexual life, boyfriends and dreams of children, God and lies.

Short, a film for love it.

For acting, dialogues, atmosphere, narrator voice and something profound moving, escaping by definitions.

This film is how life should be portrayed. Those raised on a diet of Hollywood love stories where everyone has a new car, large house and unfeasibly white teeth will find this slice of Gallic realism a bit overpowering. Those of us who prefer our cinema with a bit of bite can appreciate the predicament the two leading characters are in and we can rally for them. A honest heartwarming film that moves at a slow pace (but then who meets a girl, falls in love, befriends her children and lives happily ever after in 97 minutes. I was lucky enough to buy this as a withdrawn VHS from my local library and I prize it as one of the 'top drawer' films in my film collection.