Ni la mer ni le sable

Original title: Neither the Sea Nor the Sand

1972
R
1h 35m

IMDb RATING

YOUR RATING

Wife on Isle of Jersey, meets pilot, they become lovers. Flee to Scotland. While making love on beach, lighthouse keeper dies. Incident triggers further events.Wife on Isle of Jersey, meets pilot, they become lovers. Flee to Scotland. While making love on beach, lighthouse keeper dies. Incident triggers further events.Wife on Isle of Jersey, meets pilot, they become lovers. Flee to Scotland. While making love on beach, lighthouse keeper dies. Incident triggers further events.

See production info at IMDbPro

IMDb RATING

5.7/10

487

YOUR RATING

See production info at IMDbPro

Photos10

+ 5

User reviews18

5.7487

Featured reviews

6lost-in-limbo

Strangely fixating.

A married woman while on vacation falls passionately in love and begins an affair with a lighthouse keeper, only to be left heartbroken when he dies suddenly. However the very next day he turns up on her door-step, in a zombie-like state. Was it her grief that did that? Anyhow she's overly happy, hoping they can rekindle their love. But she soon realises that his body is beginning to decompose and that she must soon decide their fate. Picturesque, slightly disturbing and haunting British Gothic tale of love with a real sense of tragedy and despair. The grotesquely odd story is kind of ambiguous and scratchy in parts, relying on mood (more so then sense), convincing chemistry and a strongly affecting performance by Susan Hampshire. She really does carry it along quite nicely with a real mix of emotions. But the likes of Frank Finlay (especially in his zombie state) and Michael Petrovitch are not being overshadowed. The music was a bit a shamble. Sometimes fitting, other times awkward. The slow pacing is deliberate and some sequences do pack atmosphere (especially when Hampshire's character comes to the realisation they can't be together), but it feels somewhat lukewarm in Fred Burnley's directorial attempt of capturing some sort of brooding realism to this low-key build-up of macabre. It's nicely photographed with the bleak coastal locations adding to the perceptive nature of its story.

heedarmy

A bizarre oddity

This strange film is based on a book by a former British television newsreader and is a combination of love story and ghost story. The settings are striking and the music score effective but it's a slow affair and one is baffled as to what market the film-makers were aiming for.

EyeAskance

A creditable horroromance, despite sluggish pace.

A very idiosyncratic little movie, NEITHER THE SEAM NOR THE SAND is curiously comparative to a Harlequin Romance novel, but spiked with zombie-horror trappings. A young couple's passionate love story ends with the boy's tragic death...or does it? All is seemingly rectified when his reanimated body returns to the waiting arms of his grieving lover. She is initially overjoyed, though it latterly becomes clear that he's not quite himself anymore...plus, the decomposition of his body advances, making the couple's intimacy issues rather unappetizing .

Reaction to this film will be scattered, likely with a stronger appeal to patient solicitors of singular horror novelties than to rank-and-file fans of zombie cinema. It's a subdued and casually precipitated oddity with some beautiful scenic location filming.

5.5/10...not wholly praiseworthy, perhaps, but a surprisingly poignant and refreshing deviation from the "same-old same-old".

8claychilde

Not a zombie film

Zombie flick? Not on your life. Certainly not like the tedious maniacal, blood-thirsty zombies that Americans are so fond of. It's the understated presence of the 'living dead' (animated by the spirit of Hampshire's love) in the shape of Michael Petrovitch that makes the film unnerving.

"We're so happy" opening lasts for 35 minutes - too long, but once that's over the film becomes compelling.

Lovely theme spoilt by a lame piece of artless sixties pop (Land rover on beach scene), jarring to say the least.

dbdumonteil

Sous le Sable

If the director had not died in 1975,he could almost have thought of suing François Ozon whose "Sous Le Sable" ("Under the Sand")bears more than a distant resemblance to "Neither the Sea..."The 2000 work ,starring Charlotte Rampling and Bruno Cremer is certainly more satisfying ,but it owes a lot to the obscure (at least in France) screenwriters of this movie.

Direction is amateurish ,and it's really a pity because there were potentially great scenes ,particularly this one when Susan Hampshire keeps on repeating in the car "Talk to me!Don't look at me that way!"There's also a good use of E.Browning's poem ("I shall but love thee better after death").Puritanism shows in the first half:George's brother makes Anna realize she is not really the welcome in the house.The woman says that "they were punished because they lived a life of sin".

The main problem lies in the fact that the "living dead" should not have been "seen " by the others.François Ozon did not fall in the same trap.People who liked this movie should try and see his work too.

Trivia
Some sources credit Anthony Booth as playing Delamare, but it is an entirely different actor.

Goofs
Towards the end of the film, the flowers Collie carries frequently change from being in bloom to not being in bloom.

Quotes
George Dabernon: When does a man die? Who knows what happens in the moment of death? The soul doesn't die, simply leaves the body. But what if it didn't? If it went on living in a dead body? A prisoner, in a body decaying around it. Is it possible? What is possible?
Anna Robinson: Hugh was not dead.
George Dabernon: If it weren't for you, this would never have happened. He's possessed, isn't he? Possessed by you. You're a witch, trafficking with the Devil. You have conjured an evil spirit into his dead body.
Anna Robinson: My love for him has given him life.
George Dabernon: It's revolting. His flesh is cold. Dead. There is no pulse. No heartbeat. Hugh's body is rotting. It is disintegrating, hour by hour. And something must be done. Now!
Anna Robinson: Why don't you just go away, leave us alone?
George Dabernon: I'll prove it to you.
[he sets fire to Hugh's hand]
George Dabernon: He fears nothing. He feels nothing.
Anna Robinson: [On seeing Hugh's hand burning sensibly] Oh, God!
George Dabernon: [George extinguishes the flame] I tell you, he's dead.
George Dabernon: [Hugh approaches George] Anna!
Anna Robinson: Hugh! Sit down. Please. Just sit down.
George Dabernon: Unbelievable. Unbelievable. At the trumpet sound, the graves shall be opened, and the dead shall rise again. I know what we must do. We must take him to a priest.
Anna Robinson: A priest?
George Dabernon: Exorcism. Exorcism. This spirit must be exorcised.
Anna Robinson: And then?
George Dabernon: And then he can rest. He can be at peace.
Anna Robinson: He will die.
George Dabernon: Yes.
Anna Robinson: And then it will be over. Everything.
Hugh Dabernon: [overdub] It will be alright, Anna. Don't stop him.
[Hugh walks towards the door]
George Dabernon: You see? He wants it too. He wants to be free. We must go, Anna.
Anna Robinson: I can't go with you.
George Dabernon: Believe me, it's the best thing for all concerned. He died; up there on that beach in Scotland. He died.