Un été à Saint-Tropez

I'm not going to bother with introducing David Hamilton and explaining the controversial nature of his work, if you don't know about him a wikipedia search should . I do think some of his photography is rather good, and artful enough that it doesn't feel sleazy at all, and remember enjoying both "Tendres cousines" (which has found its way into modern pop culture due to being referenced several times by "Arrested Development") and "Premiers désirs" (starring a young Emmanuelle Beart), although I haven't seen either film in a while and don't remember them, except for the former being somewhat alarmingly close to justifying the accusations against Hamilton for being a 'child pornographer'. "Un été à Saint-Tropez" is inconceivably awful and laughable as a film, however. I'd rather sit through the somewhat lame yuk-yuk lines in "Tendres cousines" than this thing ever again. Awful use of slow-motion, including one five-minute long pillow-fight scene, no dialogue, no plot, this one truly does expose Hamilton as someone who gets off on seeing nude teenage girls and doesn't particularly care about anything else. Still, it's not all that creepy, as most of these girls appear to be between 16-18, maybe a little older even, and a couple of them really are gorgeous. As soft porn the movie will probably work for desperate ephebophiles, but it's too lunk-headed and awfully-made to work as a film, and Hamilton's soft-focus photography is occasionally nice to look at, but wasted on a pointless piece of crap.

...for three reasons. One is that the girls involved seem a year or so older than usual, with the result that their bodies are more curved, and the film seems less like "child porn". Second, he uses the south of France for good advantage in this one.

Finally, and most importantly, this is a dialog-less, almost plotless film. So one can gaze at the young, sun-lit European bodies without ever once being subjected to the howlingly awful lines that afflicted "Tendres Cousins" and "Bilitis" from opening titles to final credits.

Still photographer and occasional film director David Hamilton ventures into the homevideo realm with a Japanese-French production "A Summer in St. Tropez", a dreamy, impressionistic film of young girls' daily life at the famed resort. Sans narration and with minimal dialog or action, pic is an okay mood piece for fanciers of Hamilton's soft-focus photography. Aside from home tv use, it could play theatrically as a short subject if trimmed by about half.

Using back-lighting and diffused light photography (pic is visually reminiscent of Hamilton's "Bilitis" feature right down to the casting of numerous svelte young femmes), "St. Tropez" features surprisingly little nudity in its languorous visuals of young women at play. Episodic treatment is ultimately a bore as we observe the girls at mealtime, swimming at sunset, out picnicking and dancing, winding up with an authentic-looking wedding processional.

Absence of dialog is a plus, alleviating the need to dub or subtitle, but there's little to rivet one's attention. Hamilton's most stylish segment, a still photo-montage suddenly cutting to live action as the lead actress wakes up everyone in the "dorm" was done better originally by Chris Marker in his classic sci-fi short "La Jetee". Film is aided in sustaining its mood by Benoit Widemann's dreamy keyboard and strings musical score.

My review was written in September 1983 after watching the film on a Thorn-EMI videocassette.

So here's the fourth movie photographer-turned-filmmaker David Hamilton made. He was famous for taking photos of nude girls in late adolescence, with that "soft focus" style that made people think he smeared vaseline on the lens.

Regrettably, he carried that over into his filmmaking.

Anyway, Hamilton-the-director's first two movies, "Bilitis" and "Laura", were both very similar tales of young girls in a halcyon bygone era that possibly never existed, frolicking nude with other girls on the beach, bathing nude with other girls, sleeping, again most probably nude, again with other girls.

Then the plots kicked in, and the movie mostly left nudity behind, which was the only reason anyone would have ever watched these movies in the first place.

Hamilton seems to have never gotten much renown as a filmmaker. He's always known as a pervy photographer. Maybe that's because his movies mostly just feel like he took a movie camera to one of his photo shoots. The girls in his movies are all doing the kind of things you'd see in a photography book. In some shots, such as one in "Summer in Saint Tropez", they're filmed in obvious photographic poses, arrayed nude around a fruitbowl. The only reason why anybody would ever arrange themselves nude around a fruitbowl with a bunch of other nude girls is, frankly, so a photograph could be taken of them. Did Hamilton forget he was holding a movie camera, and not one that takes still shots?

The movie Hamilton made before this one, "Tender Cousins", actually showed promise. It seemed the photographer was coming into his own as a filmmaker. It was no masterpiece, but it had a believable sense of time and place, and a plot that didn't get in the way. Perhaps if he'd continued in this vein, he might have made a name for himself in the moving picture business.

I'm surprised I've been able to write so much in this review already. It is mostly because I haven't yet said anything much about the movie I'm actually supposed to be reviewing, "A Summer in Saint Tropez". You see, with this one it seems Hamilton just went back to square one. Remember I said that in his first couple of movies, plot got in the way of the nudity? Not so here, because there is no plot. Nor is there any characters. Or dialogue. It's like Hamilton just decided to bung out all that filmmaker stuff and just brought a movie camera to one of his photo shoots.

There being so little to talk about, all I can really say about the movie is to ask a question: How can something with such copious female nudity also be so boring? If you never thought looking at nude models could get old, you should watch this.

This film shows that, even with the best of backdrops, the most romantic scenery and the most beautiful girls, it is perfectly possible to make an extremely boring film. I like pretty girls as much as anybody, but this film has turned me completely off girls. In fact, I think I might try that gay thing now. For several hours after watching this absolute dog of a movie, I went limp! It just was that bad. I really imagine that even for pedophiles this is a torture to watch.

I thought this guy was supposed to be a photographer? DOESN'T HE KNOW HOW TO DEAL WITH LIGHT? In the first part of the film, (which is supposed to introduce the characters) all the shots of the girls faces are in the dark or half shade. Now, I get what he was trying to do here, harsh direct light is not as beautiful as mysterious shade. BUT YOU HAVE TO GET IT RIGHT! This was technically speaking, the worst film I've seen in a long time. Even Youtube video is better than this. There are no close ups, and the half wide shots we get of the girls' faces are all in the dark or in the shade. You never get to see the girls. In fact, the FIRST close up we get that is sharp and well-lit, is of the GUY? What is THAT?! Is Hamilton actually gay? Or what? Was he on drugs when he made this?

It is simply awful! Couldn't he have at least read ONE book about film making? A leaflet? For sure, you should have some sort of introduction of the characters, this is most effectively done with a wide-shot, half-wide shot, close-up sequence. In this way some sort of identification is possible. Here, not so much. Especially with girls that look so much a like, it's important to establish who is who and who did what, and with whom. This is completely ignored in this film.

Another commenter said that this is his best film, because of the awful dialog in Bilitis and Tendre Cousins. This is a backhanded compliment if I ever saw one. The solution to bad dialog is not NO dialog, but better dialog. Get a writer?

Okay, so films don't always need dialog, there are some very good dialog-less films made. Yet, 60 minutes completely without plot? Combined with this supermarket-music for airports? I watched this film in the morning, sitting on a straight backed hard chair in a cold apartment, drinking coffee. Yet I fell asleep 3 or 4 times, it was just that boring a movie.

And yes, yes, there are plot-less films, which are quite good. And there are bad plot-less films. And there are plot-less films, which are really BAD. And then ... there is "Un été à Saint-Tropez".

To paraphrase ol' Winston Churchill: Never has so LITTLE been accomplished with so MANY: so MANY devastatingly beautiful actresses and so MUCH breath-taking scenery. If only we had been able to see these actresses' faces properly! A body is not that interesting, the lack of face-time in this dog is what eventually seals it's fate.

And while I don't know his money situation at the time, I really do think he should have been able to afford a good light crew. And who did he think he was fooling with that fake soundtrack?

still rated five for casting.