Mal de pierres

I watched this at home on DVD from my local library. My wife skipped, she doesn't enjoy reading subtitles. It is mostly in French and I watched it with English subtitles.

I got the movie mainly because it features Marion Cotillard. She is a lovely lady and one of the best actresses of the current generation.

Here she is Gabrielle, part of a farming family in France that includes her dad and mom, plus a younger sister. We see that she was difficult growing up, what some may call "mean." And also fixated on nudity and sex. Looking like she might never marry, her parents made a deal with one of the workers, a Mr. Rabascal, if he would marry her then they would help set him up with his own masonry business. He agrees, Gabrielle eventually goes along, but she tells him directly that she will never love him and they will not have husband-wife relations. In her magnanimity she tells him she doesn't mind if he goes into the city to hire a prostitute.

I will not say much more except to say it is mainly a character study of Gabrielle, how she deals with her difficult personality, in the end trying to achieve some happiness with her husband and son who has a gift for playing the piano.

Marion Cotillard is superb.

Another bright movie from Marillon Cotillard, the very talented French actress who shines in other ways in this limited, averagely deep production. Everything is on point in a simple, semi-impactful and mysterious way. The beginning was well developed alongside the middle, just the end and what precede it was a little average, hurting the production in a minimal to the sense way.

• Screenplay/storyline/plots: 7
• Production value/impact: 7
• Development: 7.5
• Realism: 7
• Entertainment: 7
• Acting: 8
• Filming/photography/cinematography: 8
• VFX: 8
• Music/score/sound: 7
• Depth: 7
• Logic: 6
• Flow: 7.5
• Drama/romance: 6.5
• Ending: 6.

Its hard to start where. I mean the movie is like an eternally flowing river. So you simply don't know where it started or ends. Just like Gabrielle's life, feelings, emotions, love....oh the list is long. Marion is fantastic! She is the live wire of the movie. She takes you wherever she wants to go, along with her journey. Her intensity, stature, fervor has always been her identity or trademark in any movie she acts in. Jose is equally good with his supposedly subdued character. But his silence, that mostly lives in, reflected through his razor sharp eyes hangs on your head like a dagger. I am not too sure of Lt. Andre's character. As to me, was the weakest cast in the movie. True, with his illness there was nothing much he could do in the role, but his imposed vampire like look didn't help much either, to build whatever left to be build.

Daniel Pemberton's Music was awesome and soothing. Use of violin in an alluring pitch in many intense scenes was spellbinding. Chris captures gorgeous landscapes and close-ups. Nicole has done a fantastic job bunching up all these talents together. Simply Fantastic! I will live a long time mesmerizing on this beautifully crafted movie. Excellent!

This movie deserves a generous 9/10!

I was waiting for this movie after I have watched "Youth" of Paolo Sorentino. The reason is quite simple from the first glance and extremely marvelous from my point of view. First time in my life, I am still with Youth, I realized what is the pure beauty of the nature….

Thus, what I found out that in the same location "Mal de pierres" was shout I was expecting to indulge once again into fascinating scenery of nature. And of course, I was expecting the other background - provided by the movie and the plot.

I would divide movie into three parts: part 1 - boring & typical, part 2 - natural eye opening and part 3: reasonable

The plot is exactly what is said about the movie on any poster: she does not love, he (looks like) loves, she is becoming crazy and mad in the naive searches of love from the book. And this is basically the first part of mine.

My second part starts with the trip to Schatzalp in Davos. At the end of the first part an idea stroke my mind - what if the movie is not about she and her sufferings of loving not the right people?.....My second part is the most beautiful - breathtaking views of Swiss Alps, love story of the main she male character - an affair with young lieutenant (by the way perfectly chosen youth + war - for sure must be inspired by Thomas Mann's "Der Zauberberg").

My third part - leaving Alps and coming back to humdrum reality and again waiting for a love. Same stupid, naive love from the novels… Beautifully playing actors, beautiful need and the search for the real love and even after realizing that this love can be nearby - may be not even love but "near & dear". Maybe we can call it to to grow up & become a woman ...finally.

But in my opinion, the main idea as well as the main character is not Gabriel. What if the key to decipher the movie lays in undistinguished Jose? Do you remember his sight at the beginning of the movie? I guess this is the sight of the man willing to die for his love…

In my opinion, the movie is about Jose and his love, about the man who sacrificed his life and was withstanding all the "whims" and finally received hope for love. I would call it "the silent fight" for the love.

Coming back to the movie, the film is nice and beautiful, but in some moments a bit boring and lacks some expression and deepness. But for sure, I personally received what I was expecting and definitely it is one of the best recent movies so far.

From an early age, "Gabrielle" (Marion Cotillard) has shown a bit of a rebellious spirit. As a girl, she was determined not to obey her parental wish to marry the local "Jose" (a subtly nuanced effort from Alex Brendemühl) - even though he was quite fond of her, and as a result she lived in the semi-seclusion that befitted an unwed girl in rural France. Her "break" comes in the unlikely form of some kidney stones that necessitates a trip to an Alpine hospital. It's here that she encounters the recovering "André" (Louis Garrel) who has just returned from French Indochina shell-shocked and badly wounded. There's a little of a Wildred Owen poem to this drama, I thought. It shows us the results of the horrors of war, the after effects and trauma, but there's also a degree of hope and optimism as their love story takes shape and maybe, just maybe, there's scope for contentment somewhere. Cotillard is on solid form as the rather self-obsessed and just a bit flaky "Gabrielle" and though Garrel doesn't have so much to do, he still comes across convincingly as a soldier conflicted by a reality and a dream - it's that conclusion that is quite a touching affair, and causes us to have a think about just who "Gabrielle" actually is. The film looks good and is well scored by Daniel Pemberton which all gives a certain lustre to Cotillard's portrayal of a woman I don't think I'd have liked very much.