Acque profonde

Somehow this film manages to be boring and disgusting at the same time. The music is particularly awful - faux baroque/jazz - and violin scratching that is supposed to be suspenseful but is just annoying. As is typical in French movies, it starts out well, with a very interesting premise, interesting characters, good dialogue...and then nothing happens. Well, to be fair, some things do happen, but there is never a sense of direction, of the story going somewhere, or of anything being resolved. I can't blame it all on the French though. It's based on a book by Patricia Highsmith and in her signature style glorifies immorality and sexual/psychological perversity. She also wrote "The Talented Mr. Ripley" and "Strangers on a Train." Hitchcock was a master filmmaker, and while he kept the evil and the pscyhopathy, he also had the skill to make "Strangers" into a film that is scary and suspenseful, yet with an ending that doesn't repel.

This is like watching a cat and mouse game that you couldn't care less about. I'm sorry I wasted an hour and a half on this terrible movie.

The American remake was released on screens a year ago. I did not get to watching it yet, and I'm not sure if I will soon. 'Eaux profondes', the 1981 adaptation of the novel 'Deep Water' (this is also the name of the film in its English distribution) by Patricia Highsmith is too good a film to risk changing my impression. The director is Michel Deville, the French director who left us a few weeks ago, and the lead roles are played by Jean-Louis Trintignant and Isabelle Huppert. 'Eaux profondes' is an excellent opportunity to see again Trintignant (who also disappeared last year) at the peak of his career, Huppert (who turned 70 a few days ago) while becoming a star and at her supreme physical beauty, and to appreciate Deville's professionalism and inventiveness in the decade in which he directed his best films.

The story in the American writer's novel is moved to the island of Jersey, a territory of the British crown located about 19 kilometers from the coast of France. The landscapes are, of course, spectacular, and the location is also a good opportunity for Michel Deville to shoot in British objective-realist style. Vic is a perfume maker, his wife Melanie is many years younger and the couple have a six-year-old daughter. Apparently they are a happy couple and a very liberal one in their behavior. Melanie openly flirts and dances at parties with the men she meets, under the indulgent gaze of Vic, who prefers to read, play chess with himself, and raise snails in his garage. When Melanie's adventures begin to materialize, Vic begins to react in an original way - he threatens his rivals with murdering them. From threat to deeds the road is not too long, and crime can be the best proof of love.

What we see on the screen is a real hell, if we judge the relations between the two spouses according to the accepted norms. Michel Deville films everything in an objective and detached style. The characters hide a lot of darkness and many details remain incompletely clarified. Why is Melanie acting this way? Boredom, Ana Karenina syndrome or the feeling that the relationship between the two has reached an impasse that cannot be overcome? How should we interpret the ending, which is changed from that in Patricia Highsmith's novel? The audience's feeling of discomfort is accentuated by the excellent soundtrack that combines dance music, aggressive jazz and Manuel de Falla's harpsichord concerto, but also by the presence of the little girl who witnesses many of the conflict scenes. Michel Deville has created a cool and unsettling film, one that viewers won't soon forget.

"Eaux Profondes" is based on a Patricia Highsmith novel, but to the book-illiterate it may look more like an unofficial remake of Claude Chabrol's "La Femme Infidele" (although the book came out in 1957 and Chabrol's film in 1969, making you rethink who influenced whom first). It is a calm, dispassionate story about infidelity, jealousy, and murder, with some interesting transitions by director Michel Deville and two excellent leads: Jean-Louis Trintignant (he's at his best when he puts on a wolfish smile) and a young, frequently nude Isabelle Huppert. But it is also repetitive, feeling longer than it is (93 minutes), without enough psychological depth. Also the music score sometimes gets too loud and annoying. ** out of 4.

Deville was the perfect director for such light gallantries such as "Benjamin"(1968).And what about Highsmith? Patricia Highsmith 's books are deceptive:it is hard to adapt them badly for the screen while being harder still to adapt them well.To my eyes ,one director has succeeded :Alfred Hitchcock ("Strangers on a train" ),three have partially succeeded (René Clément "Monsieur Ripley" (the talented M.Ripley) Anthony Minghella (its remake) and Wim Wenders 's "Der Amerikanische Freund " (Ripley's game) .Claude Chabrol was not so successful with "cry of the owl".Claude Miller butchered the brilliant "that sweet sickness" (="Dites lui que je l'aime") "Eaux profondes" is intense psychological drama.The story of a man who is jealous and kills all his wife's lovers.He warns them before .Trintignant,a good choice,tells them so: "I kill them" in a smooth voice .He treats his wife like a big doll,the scene is the bathroom is telling.

There was in Highsmith's book an atmosphere ,a terrible progression which led to madness:the film has a tendency to simplify too much and its main drawback is to be too short.

When she was interviewed when the movie was released,Highsmith told the journalists she had appreciated the movie.Make up your own mind about it.

EAUX PROFONDES, or Deep Water, is a French film based on a Patricia Highsmith novel. I haven't read that book but I've read some of her other novels and I can safely say that this film is the best version of a Patricia Highsmith novel ever. It perfectly captures her tone and style, unlike the recent crappy version of TALENTED MR RIPLEY. Highsmith herself said she loved this movie.

The story is about this "odd" couple. The wife, played by the beautiful Isabelle Hupert, attracts men and brings them to her house, even in front of her husband, played by the not so beautiful Jean-Louis Trintignant. Those men eventually end up dead.

What's going with those two? Is Huppert taunting Trintignant's psychotic character? Is Huppert bringing those men for her husband to have "fun" with? Is Huppert the real psycho in this couple, knowing her husband will kill her lovers and she recklessly brings the clueless men to her house? The two are playing a deadly game with each other and men end up dead. The whole thing is never clear and that's why this film is so cool. The aura of mystery is near perfect. Because there's an aura of mystery with these two, the film becomes a pretty sharp and brilliant statement on couples in general.

It's sorta like Paul Verhoeven's THE FOURTH MAN, made 3 years after this, but without the usual violence and crudeness fond in Verhoeven's films.

EAUX PROFONDES is unlike any film I've seen. It's moody and atmospheric. The music is brilliant (arranged by Charles Dutoit) and the cinematography is beautiful. There's not much more to say. The film is as simple, or not as simple, as it sounds but personally speaking, Huppert and Trintignant make an unforgettable couple. I haven't seen it in a while and I wish they'd release it on DVD.

For fans of dark, brooding, sexy films with a "twist" look no further than EAUX PROFONDES.