Les amants

This is the story of Jeanne Tournier, a bored upper class woman who tries to escape her situation through romantic love. While it would be unfair to expect the depth of character development in this movie to match that in the similarly plotted novels "Madame Bovary" or "Lady Chatterley's Lover," this presentation seems particularly thin.

Some half century on this movie has lost some of its punch. Apparently it was considered to be sexually avant-garde at the time of its release, but it would probably get a PG-13 rating now.

There are things that make this worth seeing. As Jeanne Tournier, Jeanne Moreau does turn up the heat and her fans will want to see this. There is some nice black and white camera work. There are a lot of night scenes (filmed day for night, as Malle comments on the DVD extras) that are atmospheric and augment the intimate scenes.

While the erotic scenes might not jar, a shocking thing even for contemporary audiences is the fact that Jeanne would take off and leave her child behind. Also Jeanne engages in two adulterous affairs without remorse--that would have had 1950s audiences talking, and some contemporary audiences as well.

Thinking about the future of the renegade couple, I think it will not take Jeanne and her lover long to realize that she is taking her boredom with her.

In this, director Louis Malle's second film, which for awhile seems like it will be another high society soap opera, a seemingly arbitrary plot detour occurs that places the beautiful Jeanne Moreau in a situation all the less convenient and all the more frustrating because of how accustomed she has become to her privilege. Consequently, Moreau is less like a Sex and the City character and more of a realization that a social ladder does not leave problems below it. They follow you from decision to decision to decision. And the further up it she climbs, the less considerate her decisions seem to be of the world outside of herself.

As a 25-year-old French director at the dawn of the New Wave, he was not alone in satirizing and criticizing the bourgeoisie. Ironically, being younger than fellow Nouveau filmmakers Godard and Truffaut, as well as having been born into a wealthy industrialist family, had no hand in blinding him by way of his privileged ego. Watching this biting romantic drama about adultery and the reality and illusion of rediscovering love, I see that Malle understood the upper-class freedom of never having to worry about tomorrow, and not only does he characterize it with an almost humorously frustrating edge, he wisely satirizes love at first sight.

The movie was made in 1958, but Malle's style has yet to garner an expiration date. There are no outdated lap dissolves or screen wipes or quick fade-outs. The controversy at the time surrounding this film's alleged obscenity had a rebounding effect on the flimsy subjectivity of society's accusations. He was simply being honest, which he is in the aforementioned portrayals beyond the simple night of passionate love Moreau has with her lover. Instead of a coy imitation of a spectator blushing and looking away, as many other films did and still do when the camera moves to the window or the ceiling, Malle fixates on her ecstasy. Even now, rarely do we see a close shot of a woman's sexual pleasure.

A bit like Woody Allen would come to do in a few decades, Malle tends to saturate his soundtracks with a single composer. Here, it is Johannes Brahms, whose music is a brilliantly and acutely intuitive choice for the film since, much like the characters, he has a classical sense of form and order yet he's bold in his exploration of harmony and rhythm.

You've got it all, excepting a sad marriage, hubby's not interested, in your wagon or carriage, so you spend the weeks in Paris, watching polo has its merits, but at the weekend you return, to the disparage. Circumstances mean acquaintances will visit, a bit closer than just friends is Raoul Flores, but a breakdown on the way, causes detour and delay, and an extra guest now joins the home foray.

Jeanne Moreau, one of the most eye-catching actors of her day plays Jeanne Tournier, a woman oozing dissatisfaction with her home life in rural Dijon, wants to be dazzled by the sights and sounds of Paris, but has her attentions distracted quite unexpectedly when she is forced to arrange a weekend soirée in the marital mansion.

Fanciful stuff, and a little bit daft.

Crazy about French movies ever since I started watching them. The black and white is more appropriate than colour for French film, very captivating and unreal.

What can you say about the French people? Desperados and aficionados of romance and love. Hopelessly romantics.

Simple story told like a poem regardless of any moral criticism, there is no such thing call moral or immoral in the realm of art. Art is a rival to morality, it allows all sorts of existences. In this movie, the sin is adultery but no one cares to condemn it, the pursuit of love takes it all. The love scene might be stunning to the audience in late 50s France, but definitely not today. Jeanne Moreau somehow took a bold step. Anyway, she is radiating gloriously in superb cinematography.

Jeanne Tournier married to a well-off provincial newspaper owner for eight years. She has a daughter, a polo-playing lover and a big bunch of acid-tongued snobbish Parisian friends. Nevertheless, she is bored about living in such a polite society. Finally when Bernard, a young student whom she has known just for a few hours, enters into her life, just after solely one night's time in her husband's villa with him, she decides to leave with him into the uncertain future the very next morning.

Several lyrical scenes impress me a great deal. Their nightly accidental encounter at the garden. Jeanne is illuminating the dimness, she looks like a mystic fairy seducing Bernard. Another one is the astonishing look of her friend when she sees them leaving together. The most memorable is the very last scene, they drive and drive into the unknown, unexplored.

The map shown at the beginning and the voice-over at the end may be something like a warning. However, when two lovers in love that they can sacrifice everything for the romance in such a desperate fashion, nothing is threatening. Feminists or women who are fighting for their freedom would be clapping their hands she's got guts.

This is my first Louis Malle film and I found myself really quite disappointed. One of the other posters says that the theme is about freedom and uncertainty. I would agree with this, but to be blunt a better way to learn about the subject would be to listen to the Brahms' String Sextets without the film.

Jeanne Moreau has been described in this movie as inscrutable, I'd agree with that, in this film we find out absolutely nothing of interest about her character, and I'm left perplexed as to the attraction Bernard had for her (purely libidinous?). The morality of the film is very confusing, certainly we can applaud Jeanne's existential urge to escape from her stifling fling, her marriage, and her Parisienne lifestyle, but the fact that she leaves her daughter behind is execrable. The woodland scenes are intriguing but a bit too contrived. If you want to see films about relationships I would suggest most of the oeuvre of Ingmar Bergman, which is far superior.

All in all a rather insipid, though beautiful, mess. Deserves 7 out of 10 because it is provocative and like all good art, subversive.