Un été à Saint-Tropez

There is no more beautiful sight on God's green earth, than a nubile young female and I make no excuses for enjoying looking at them. David Hamilton has had a terrific life photographing girls. I have seen his other work and a lot of it is to be admired, this film though, isn't very good.(At least my copy of the DVD.)It is dated 1984 but appears to be shot in the seventies, grainy and faded with bad sound. Bright sunlight is difficult to 'shoot' in but half the time I found it hard to see anything clearly. (Bilitis is also shot in sunlight yet is fine, all is sharp.)So be warned, if you wish to spend sixty minutes hoping to see sharp clear images of young girls disporting themselves on beaches, this film isn't it!

So here's the fourth movie photographer-turned-filmmaker David Hamilton made. He was famous for taking photos of nude girls in late adolescence, with that "soft focus" style that made people think he smeared vaseline on the lens.

Regrettably, he carried that over into his filmmaking.

Anyway, Hamilton-the-director's first two movies, "Bilitis" and "Laura", were both very similar tales of young girls in a halcyon bygone era that possibly never existed, frolicking nude with other girls on the beach, bathing nude with other girls, sleeping, again most probably nude, again with other girls.

Then the plots kicked in, and the movie mostly left nudity behind, which was the only reason anyone would have ever watched these movies in the first place.

Hamilton seems to have never gotten much renown as a filmmaker. He's always known as a pervy photographer. Maybe that's because his movies mostly just feel like he took a movie camera to one of his photo shoots. The girls in his movies are all doing the kind of things you'd see in a photography book. In some shots, such as one in "Summer in Saint Tropez", they're filmed in obvious photographic poses, arrayed nude around a fruitbowl. The only reason why anybody would ever arrange themselves nude around a fruitbowl with a bunch of other nude girls is, frankly, so a photograph could be taken of them. Did Hamilton forget he was holding a movie camera, and not one that takes still shots?

The movie Hamilton made before this one, "Tender Cousins", actually showed promise. It seemed the photographer was coming into his own as a filmmaker. It was no masterpiece, but it had a believable sense of time and place, and a plot that didn't get in the way. Perhaps if he'd continued in this vein, he might have made a name for himself in the moving picture business.

I'm surprised I've been able to write so much in this review already. It is mostly because I haven't yet said anything much about the movie I'm actually supposed to be reviewing, "A Summer in Saint Tropez". You see, with this one it seems Hamilton just went back to square one. Remember I said that in his first couple of movies, plot got in the way of the nudity? Not so here, because there is no plot. Nor is there any characters. Or dialogue. It's like Hamilton just decided to bung out all that filmmaker stuff and just brought a movie camera to one of his photo shoots.

There being so little to talk about, all I can really say about the movie is to ask a question: How can something with such copious female nudity also be so boring? If you never thought looking at nude models could get old, you should watch this.

This is straight up one of David Hamilton's famous photobooks but shot as a movie. There is no story. And we don't ever get to see Saint Tropez. Pretty and slim girls frolick around in various combinations and situations, and it's sexy and esthetic. If I remember correctly, we get to see nipples, and that's it. And it's over all too soon in under one hour.

One think that always strikes me about David Hamilton is that I guess this is the way a girl or young woman would like to be presented in an erotic manner. Sexy but tastefully.

David Hamilton's earlier movies used to tell a story. I don't know why he gave it up. In 1983 he made two movies with financial backing from Germany, Un été à Saint Tropez and Premiers désirs, and both don't offer much in the way of a storyline.

David Hamilton got it right in his last film (so far) when he omitted the plot and dialogue and focused on what he does better than anyone else - photography of scantily clad late teenage girls on the brink of womanhood. "Not a girl, not yet a woman" embodied in this film.

Although the theme carries the film, the apparently detached scenes have a fitting conclusion in the end.

The film is clearly a photographer's work. Whether we are treated with a picture of fields in early morning mist, a girl washing her hair or just her sleeping, these are professionally set-up compositions to look like a photograph. Hamilton uses soft focus everywhere, (the film is not meant to be an example of high definition cinema at all, although I'm sure the film print I saw was much better than the previous reviewer's experience) creating a hazy, dreamy look on everything and the color contrasts between the more or less tanned girls, their clothes and surroundings accentuate the sensuality of the girls and the situations between them. Many times the camera and subjects are still for long periods of time or the camera pans slowly through the scene, reminding me in some weird way of some of the works of Andrei Tarkovsky..! Hamilton even uses still photos a couple of times for no reason at all, being somewhat of a letdown for me.

The sound quality was fine and the simple piano/synth music was MOST of the time unobtrusive and supported the action on screen.

The subject is not only a male fantasy, but also a very innocent look into a girls' fantasy world as well: a worry-free perpetual Indian summer filled with sunny days and gentle breezes, flower garlands, auburn sunsets, skinny dipping without a hint of self-consciousness, ballet training and horseback riding, a touch of clumsy boys and playful sensuality (not sexuality!) amongst the girls - all done in a very tasteful manner and utmost respect at the subjects without exploiting them.

Hamilton has done a fine job directing the girls to behave in their natural feminine way without much pretense. The girls are highly photogenic when they appear to gaze into nothingness, apparently deep in their thoughts.

I cannot imagine anyone doing films like these anymore.

I'm not going to bother with introducing David Hamilton and explaining the controversial nature of his work, if you don't know about him a wikipedia search should . I do think some of his photography is rather good, and artful enough that it doesn't feel sleazy at all, and remember enjoying both "Tendres cousines" (which has found its way into modern pop culture due to being referenced several times by "Arrested Development") and "Premiers désirs" (starring a young Emmanuelle Beart), although I haven't seen either film in a while and don't remember them, except for the former being somewhat alarmingly close to justifying the accusations against Hamilton for being a 'child pornographer'. "Un été à Saint-Tropez" is inconceivably awful and laughable as a film, however. I'd rather sit through the somewhat lame yuk-yuk lines in "Tendres cousines" than this thing ever again. Awful use of slow-motion, including one five-minute long pillow-fight scene, no dialogue, no plot, this one truly does expose Hamilton as someone who gets off on seeing nude teenage girls and doesn't particularly care about anything else. Still, it's not all that creepy, as most of these girls appear to be between 16-18, maybe a little older even, and a couple of them really are gorgeous. As soft porn the movie will probably work for desperate ephebophiles, but it's too lunk-headed and awfully-made to work as a film, and Hamilton's soft-focus photography is occasionally nice to look at, but wasted on a pointless piece of crap.