Lua de Fel

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.

This movie, despite what many reviewers seem to think, is about the differences between men and women with respect to sex and love. Whether it is with Oscar and Mimi's intense, wild, no holds barred relationship, or with boring, bland Nigel and Fiona.

Generally speaking, men can have sex with any amount of women, in any way or intensity. If she is up for it, chances are we will be too. Women on the other hand, require more of an emotional connection to the men they sleep with. The need to develop trust and comfort before completely letting go.

Oscar is the ultimate poon hound and became instantly infatuated with Mimi. They start with a normal passionate relationship, but ultimately, the excitement wears off. This happens in any and every relationship. They hike up the intensity by getting into bondage, S&M, etc. All the while, Oscar is all to aware, they are heading for the their peak and once it hits the top, it is only down hill from there.

The thing is, for the man in this case, it is only about the sexual passion. The woman is truly in love and the sex is the connection to her man. Even when the sexual excitement wears off, Mimi is still in love.

So, enter the conflict. Oscar is done, wants out. Mimi can't handle it and doesn't understand why he could possibly not love her the way she loves him. He tries to be compassionate and break up but she refuses to be let go, ultimate agreeing to be his slave just to stay near him.

This story is being told to a couple who have also been together for 7 years and are off to reignite their marriage. I believe that the same factors are in play with the stuffy British couple, Nigel and Fiona but only in a far more repressed manner. He's bored because he and his wife are doing the "normal" thing. No wild, kinky sex for them. But the emotion of love is there. If a couple is going to stay together forever, they simply have to get over the fact that physical passion is fleeting and if the bond of love is strong on both sides, they can make it work. Nigel isn't clear on this until the climactic ending.

This commentary isn't so much on the details of the plot, but what I believe the movie is trying to get across. Read the other posts for more details, but to understand what the movie is saying, understand that sex is sex for men and sex is love for women.

when i first saw this movie in 1992 i found it shocking by its erotic scenes and burn-out love story. i noticed it was a good movie, but that was the end of the story.

now i bought it in dvd and saw it for the 2nd time. it's a masterpiece.

everything blends perfectly in this film: 1990's paris, the colours of the film (etalonage), the excellent vangelis's music score, the evolution of a love story, the roles played by the 2 couples...

emmanuelle seigner is great playing the role of a nymph and a sorcerer, peter coyote is magnificent playing the part of a regular guy who gets insane, hugh grant becomes a perfect boring middle-class british bourgeois and kristin scott thomas her discreet wife looking for action.

one of the best amour-fou stories, along with louis malle's "damage". as rui wrote before, a must see.

Few critics took this film seriously when it was released, but it's now steadily beginning to garner attention. Today it ranks as one of Polanski's best.

"Bitter Moon" is a powerful film about love, and to view it as a sort of a soft-core titillation exercise by Polanski is to miss the point. The up-front sexuality of the film is there, not to merely provoke a cheap arousal from the viewer, but to point out how empty and hollow the couple's relationship really is. Most men will empathise with the morality (or lack of) in this confused relationship between an older man obsessed with his sexual object, 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.

9/10 - Filed with lush cinematography and romantic Parisian architecture, the film's only flaw is its Hugh Grant subplot. Everything else is electric, with a dark playfulness that only Polanski can deliver. Worth several viewings.

Note: Peter Coyote's room number, 5A, is the same as Tom Cruise's apartment from "Eyes Wide Shut". Both films have similar themes. When "Eyes Wide Shut" was released, Polanski made "The Ninth Gate", a film which features an "Eyes Wide Shut" styled ritual. Both films are similar in tone.

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')