I have not
written a film review for some time. Being in Poland during summer holidays meant
that I have been here when movie premiers were stopped. This has now finished
and on Monday the new school year starts and new movies enter the cinemas. Since
my Polish stay is coming to an end I have the feeling similar to being in a
departure lounge. I need to pack my suitcases, do some final shopping, organise
and tidy up the apartment for the next few months and nothing more. There is
time to spend.
There were a
couple of new films on and I decided to see one of them. It was either The Double Lover or The Beguiled.
Both of them by famous directors Francois Ozon and Sofia Coppola. The Double
Lover was nominated for a Palme d’Or in Cannes this year and I have seen two
films by the director The Swimming Pool and Frantz. They were both a little ambiguous,
moody films so I thought that this may be more my cup of tea than The Beguiled as
I could guess some unsavory scenes in this film watching the trailer.
So, I went. I
expected a psychological thriller. The starting shot was rather shocking and I
will not go into details of it (too demure or prude for that), but aesthetics was
rather pleasing, so I accepted it even if I raised my eye brows in surprise.
The film intended to stir the audience and it did, but except for that did not
present much more, at least not to me. The sex scenes were back to back, and
this would not bother me if there was more of a point to it.
There are
elements of psychology as the heroine has some problems related to cannibal
twin syndrome blocking her emotional life. She goes to a psychiatrist and then promptly
seduces him and turns him (or he turns her) into a lover. And so, it goes. It
gets stranger and stranger and eventually the climax of the film indicates that
her blockage has been removed. Hmm…
The actress is
very beautiful and it has been a pleasure to watch her as one watches a flower,
able to see just the shape of it, but not much behind that. And there are a lot
of other flowers in the film, mainly orchids. I wonder what the film director
wanted to draw our attention to.
To me it was a
fluff which brought an unpleasant feeling of stomach queasiness. I would not recommend
the film, but I suspect that what I have written may entice some to see it
anyhow or maybe because of what I have written. Such is human nature.
I thought more about the film or maybe my subconscious 😕worked over the night giving me in the morning a new perspective to the film.
On reflection, the presented story is filmed cleverly, maybe even very cleverly.
Subconscious plays very important role in the film and it all makes perfect
sense when one thinks about it and synthesise the story a bit. It is actually all
very logical when one reflects on it and recalls the scenes. Some of the film
presents “real life”, some subconscious of the girl and some her sexual
fantasies. Very clever indeed. Yes,
there are many sex scenes, but the film is French, so what would you expect.
Apparently in France the classification of the film is for “Over 12 years old”.
Since I am not really a prude, my uneasy feeling in the stomach
must have come from this cake I had had before I saw the movie.
I guess that my comments made the film a “must see”
proposition. 😏
