Retratos da Vida

I am a professional musician. This film, in VHS, was presented to me by friends after my comments on the music I listened to on a cassette tape. I do not know how they did it as we were living in Southern Mexico at the time. I thank them profusely. All the music and, that dance at the end, is just simply outstanding. I do not know how any music lover could ever lessen a 10+ rating. I hope to find it on DVD someday. My two VHS tapes are good but what a blast it would be on DVD. The cast includes some great actors who seem to actually perform their musical parts. I get emotional with the story line, particularly the return of James Cahn to his Sarah. I recommend this to all.

First thing to bear in mind is that like Hossein's "les Miserables" or Enrico's "Au Nom de Tous les Miens",the movie which was theatrically released is a digest of a miniseries ,the running time of which exceeded six hours.In three hours,there are too many characters ,and Lelouch uses the same thespians to portray the parents and the children (Chaplin,Caan,Bouix...)which sometimes is a mess.But it's Hossein who gets the biscuit:even "made look younger" ,he was 54 at the time and it's impossible to believe he is a soldier coming back from the Algeria war.

It can be looked upon as a musical ,but the only musical sequence which is really awesome is Ravel's bolero where the four (French,Russian,German and American) families prove us (as if we did not understand) that it's better making music than making war.Thank you and God bless you all.

That said ,there's that optimistic bourgeois side in Lelouch's movies;it's so glaring here that it becomes sometimes unbearable.With a few exceptions (Garcia's husband,the girl who used to play around with the Germans,victims of war),it's a success story.We deal with educated brilliant people whose career will take them to megastardom after the war.There's a French film made up of sketches called "Retour à la vie" which depicted the fates of four men and a woman after WW2.Their future was not so bright: the concentration camps ,it's not a thing you forget overnight.You are going to say,Nicole Garcia ends up in an insane asylum.Probably but long after the war.In "Retour à la vie" Aunt Anna was so weak and so traumatized she could not utter one word.

The cast is admittedly impressive.But if the leads were not played by celebrities such as James Caan,Geraldine Chaplin or Fanny Ardant,we would be lost in a terrible mess.Ansd sometimes I must confess I do not know if it's the father (mother) or the son (daughter).And Lelouch spared us the third generation (they are still brats).To think that the last part of "Toute une Vie" (1974) another extravaganza which spanned a century,the last part was pure sci-fi and took us down to the future world! Les uns will like.Les autres won't.

Wow. I had seen a pared-down version of this amazing film when it was called BOLERO a decade or two back. Now that I have seen the uncut film, I'm in awe. As I grow older I seem to appreciate Claude Lelouch more and more. This one may be his masterpiece. Weaving together three generations and four families (German, French, American and Russian), the writer/director manages to run the gamut from wildly romantic to elegantly subdued (note the distanced reconciliation scene between mother and son late in the film) offering up whatever is called for at a given moment. Music is paramount to this movie--it is ever-present and holds the diverse threads together. The cast is amazing, too. What a coup. This is the kind of film I'll recommend to everyone, and now that it is out on DVD, movie lovers are all the luckier for it.

I may not remember everything, but this film has been on my mind since I saw it 23 years ago. I was in high school in a small town in Iowa. One of our band directors had a large collection of film on tape and laser disc. He would have movie parties for kids he taught. I showed an interest in film and he would screen some films I would have otherwise never have seen. I remember watching Bolero. (I do not think I knew it was known by any other name) I was in absolute awe of this film. The music, the story, the pacing - everything you couldn't get from popular American films.

I have avoided seeing it again in the intervening time because I did not want my more grown up sensibilities to have a different opinion of the film. After reading some of the comments here I can feel safe to view it again.

I happened to be in Paris when this film was released. I was able to see it three times in 2 weeks at a theater who did English Subtitles. What an incredible movie. Unfortunately, it was released within months of Blake Edwards "10" which also used "Bolero" as it's main theme and that movie went over big time in the US, so distributors had a problem getting this film out. I wish they would re-release it. The thing I enjoy the most about it is the director's multiple uses of the actors. Many play their characters children and grandchildren. It is also an incredible look at a time when the world was trying to blow each other up and it shows that people everywhere just want the same things. A brilliant film.