Customer Reviews

8 Women

5 star:		(39)
4 star:		(24)
3 star:		(6)
2 star:		(10)
1 star:		(14)

 

 

Go see this movie and don't wait until it is remade into a bad American version This is a delightful, go for broke, silly film, that allows its cast and the audience to have a great time at the movies. How often does French cinema treat its audience to a cast that includes some of France's most glamorous leading ladies (Deneuve, Huppert, Ardant, Beart)doing full on slapstick comedy and song? 8 women, trapped in a mansion during a snowstorm in the 1950's, find the master of the house dead. All 8 women are suspects, and are guilty of secrets, as well as digging up the dirt on one another, mud slinging, insult hurling and then singing their hearts out. One of the characters may be guilty of murder, and we learn that they all had motives....Production values are high and attention to detail in costumes and sets are noticeable with an effort to reproduce the images of Technicolor films of the 50's. Isabelle Huppert is a show stealer as the bitter spinster sister Augustine to Catherine Deneuve's Gaby. Director Francois Ozon inspires great performances and manages to pull off a pretty quirky idea. I loved this film but I suppose it is not for everyone. If you are up for a well made French comedy that is a little twisted with sharp witted writing, then sit back and enjoy this French bonbon. Don't worry about the subtitles. You will be laughing so hard you will forget you are reading them. Fun web site shows trailer and clips of songs and much more

What a surprise and delight it is to see a movie like "8 Femmes." Having seen this movie a bit ago in the theater here in Minneapolis, I have to say that I was thoroughly impressed with it. A fan of Francois Ozon, I was at first apprehensive about it, most likely due to the emotional scars I still have after seeing "Sitcom," but "8 Femmes," is not like that film at all, and is in fact, like no other movie Ozon has made so far. The shining light of the film lies in the performances of the actresses, which can only be described as a meeting of the who's who of French actresses. Deneuve, Huppert, Beart, Ledoyen, Sagnier, and the others really create a film that is not only fun, but keeps us entranced and motivated to finally see "whodunnit." This is certainly a great example of how a movie can be both entertaining and fun without a lot of action. The dialogue is witty and sharp, the sets and costumes a great throwback to the film noir mysteries of the 50's. The musical numbers only add to the fun. Albeit silly, they seem to fit in place and add a great deal more charm to the overall film.

It is a bit disappointing, though, to see that the US DVD release is not going to be getting the extravagent treatment that the DVD release in France got. I recently picked up the deluxe edition of the French release, which contains the movie, an extra disc packed completely full of special featurettes, cast interviews and more, a disc with a peformance of the play that the movie is based on, and the soundtrack on CD. Now, if only a release like that would come to the US....

This review refers to the widescreen DVD(Universal/Focus Features) edition of "8 Women"( "8 femmes" )......

I don't usually buy a DVD unless I have already seen the film and know that I will get my money's worth. But when I saw the cast of this one, it practically jumped into my cart all by itself. The cast includes some of the most wonderful international actresses around.From the legends to the young stars I figured I couldn't go wrong with these names... Catherine Deneuve, Isabelle Huppert, Emanuelle Beart, Fanny Ardent, Virginie Ledoyen, Danielle Darrieux,Ludivine Sagnier and Firmine Richard. I figured right.Insert tounge in cheek and get ready for 8 times the fun in this mystery/comedy.

When a wealthy family plans to spend Christmas together in their secluded home, the unexpected happens. Marcel, the only man among all the women, is found murdered in his own bed. The women who all immediatley begin to suspect each other are snowed in and have found the phone wires cut.The eight women, including Marcel's wife, daughters, mother in law, his sister,sister-in-law, the maid and the cook all have motives, they all have secrets, and they are all about half a bubble off the plumb. Whodunit? It's a geat treat finding out.

After my first view,I was orignally planning to go 4 stars on this film as my standard for mystery/comedy is "The Pink Panther", but this film was so highly entertaining and fun I know I will get years of enjoyment for myself and anyone else who views it.And as I write this I know I can't wait to watch it again. The actresses are brillant,work exceptionaly well together, and the story totaly engaging. Each actress even gets her own clever and fun musical numbers to perform as well. It was written and directed by Francois Ozon and adapted from the Play by Robert Thomas.

Now about the DVD...It is a great view in anamorphic widescreen(1.85:1), a clear picture and sounds great in 5.1 surround. I had a few technical problems with it though, it could be just my copy, but there were several times where it just paused itself. Sometimes it would just restart and sometimes it wouldn't. I found that by reloading it a couple of times, the glitches seemed to work themselves out, but it was annoying to have to do it in the first place. There are no special features other than a couple of theatrical trailers. The film will automatically come on in French with English subtitles, but also has subtitles in Spanish as well. Another reviewer mentioned that to play it only in French without the subtitles, just click on "8 femmes" instead of "8 Women", but I could not locate this option anywhere on my copy.

The actresses won 2 prestigious awards for their wonderful achievement as an ensemble. A Silver Berlin Bear from the Berlin Film Festival and Best Ensemble form the European Film Awards as well. Director Francois Ozon was also recognized with a Reader Jury of the "Berliner Morgenpost" at the Berlin Film Festival. It was also nominated for several other awards.

The film is very French! It is rated R for some adult thematic situations(lesbianism, adultry) but I found nothing offensive or graphic about it.

also available in a great francois ozon 2 pack with a fabulous thriller 8 Women / Swimming Pool ( François Ozon 2 pack)

Merci Beaucoup.....Laurie

Isabelle Huppert fans may also enjoy:Comedy of Innocence

"8 Femmes" is a deftly directed, vulnerable as a rose in a windstorm, touching as a sunrise, homage to women directed by Francois Ozon.
The film is populated with the who's-who of France's film world: Darrieux, Deneuve, Ardant, Beart, Huppert. As a contrast it would be as if Spielberg directed a film with: Roberts, Pfeiffer, Stone, Taylor, Sarandon. Thus, "8 Femmes" is eye-poppingly studded with Stars and therein lays a lot of its charm and success.
So what of the film itself? Well, it's an over-the-top who-done-it very much in the mold of George Cukor's "The Women." But whereas Cukor "opens-up" Claire Booth Luce's stage play to make it more like a film and not a filmed version of a play, Ozon does not.
In fact, Ozon closes "8F" with the entire cast standing in line and taking a bow as if it were a stage play; thereby reinforcing, rather than moving away from the artifice of a stage play.
At the films opening, Gaby (Deneuve) is confronted with the murder of her husband seemingly by one of the other 7 women ,as the house is snowbound: no one can come in or out. In reality this sounds an awful lot like an Agatha Christie Mystery like "10 Little Indians" rather than a Douglas Sirk melodrama like "Imitation of Life," which some have suggested. What strikes me as similar to a Sirk movie, is Ozon's attitude towards his women characters: their situations are absurd and silly but they themselves are not. And it is this humanist view of women that suffuses this film with Ozon's obvious love and admiration of women.
Much is revealed on a personal and social ,through dialogue circa 1950's France, level by all the characters which is the nature and style of a play: the characters say a lot but "do" little. And all manner of women from the maid through the maitresse of the house is equally represented...a 2002 ,not a 1950's take on things.
Francois Ozon's "8 Femmes" is a valentine of a movie dedicated to the various-ness, the ambiguity, the power of women. That it was made in France does not diminish its impact nor Universal appeal to everyone.

...but I don't know why. The color (color!!) and the sets and the style and the flow of the story, along with striking performances, all add up to something much more than the sum of the parts. I rationally analyze every film I come across--have had 4 hour conversations (lectures) on movies like Mulholland Dr--yet can't explain the hold this film has on me. I wonder if others who have seen it might feel the same way?

The DVD has no extras, which I was ok with because I was just happy to have it released in the US at all. The only reason the rating is not 5 stars is the unusually intrusive subtitles, which are placed too high in the frame and (strangely) cannot be turned off. They often obscure details one wants to see, like mouths in close-up shots. If this was a lesser film, if the visuals weren't so compelling and the acting performances so mesmerizing and fun, one wouldn't care so much about losing these details. Maybe if you haven't seen it in the theater, you won't be bothered by it as much.....

What a delight this movie is! Saw it last week on a whim at the local theater.

A spoof of the whodunit movie, "8 Women" features eight of France's greatest actresses all trapped together in a luxurious mansion, where even the corpse is locked away. Who has knocked off poor Marcel upstairs? Cherchez la femme! So along the way, all sorts of shocking confessions are made, but never any of murder, that is, until...!

A great treat is that the action is set in the 1950s, with glorious technicolor-type photography and fetching haute couture costumes for all concerned. When I was recommending this to my brother, all I seemed to keep repeating was, "What a beautiful woman Catherine Deneuve is!" I don't know how old she is now, I suppose in her 50s somewhere, but my golly, she's breath-taking still, especially as she's coiffed and wardrobed here.

And even if this great photography and costuming weren't enough, it's a musical! I was at first dumbfounded when the first number broke out, with Deneuve joining her two daughters in a wacky song and dance number. "What does this mean?", I asked my popcorn. Well, it's no "Sound of Music", but you get used to all the star turns, as every diva gets her number. There WAS one that I thought was genuinely good, the song the humiliated maid (you gotta see it to find out how that happened) sings, "So As Not To Be Alone", a lament about what people will do to avoid loneliness. I thought the poetry touching and apt for that one.

If you're game for absurdism in the guise of Lush Life 1950s movies, then "8 Women"'s got your number!

8 women (8 Femmes) is a difficult movie to describe because it is so full of contradictions: it is a drama that is frequently funny (sometimes even intentionally) involving a cast of eight eight supposedly heterosexual women-- half of whom are not--who burst into song at random moments in the film while trying to solve a murder mystery.

Attempting even one of these contradictions has derailed more than one film, but oddly, this actually works for 8 Women by making it both unpredictable and memorable. Its uniqueness, along with an interesting story and a well-known cast (in France), explains why this odd little film--which has just been released on DVD--has won so much critical acclaim.

In French with subtitles, the story is about an extended family stuck in a house together during a bad snowstorm trying to figure out who killed the male head of the household, Marcel (Dominique Lamure). Think Gosford Park meets Clue, with an all-female cast and corny song-and-dance routines.

The eight women referenced in the title include the victim's icy and bitter wife Gaby (played by Catherine Deneuve), and the victim's sexy estranged sister Pierrette (Fanny Ardent). Then there is Gaby's annoying spinster sister, Augustine (Isabelle Huppert), the victim's two teenage daughters Catherine (Ludivine Sagnier) and Suzon (Virginie Ledoyen), Gaby's mother (Danielle Darrieux), the matronly black housekeeper Chanel (Firmine Richard), and the beautiful young maid Louise (Emmanuelle Béart).

As always in murder mysteries, everyone's got a secret they don't want revealed, all of which spill out over the course of the movie as the women attempt to determine who killed Marcel. The undercurrents of tension rooted in class issues, homophobia, sexism, and just plain greed are unspoken drivers in many of the characters' interactions as they alternately insult, comfort, and seduce one another.

Some of the transitions from moments of tense drama to cheesy song-and-dance routines seem rather abrupt and even strange, but perhaps this assessment is more a reflection of the fact that this type of film doesn't fit easily into existing American film genres (since this kind of musical dramedy is not standard fare here anymore, outside of art house theaters). The use of subtitles on top of this unusual combination of slightly-offbeat drama, comedy, and folksy music only exacerbates a feeling of distance between the film and the viewer, especially in the beginning.

But once you get used the pacing and transitions, that distance fades away and the film becomes very enjoyable, even if it never quite loses its surreal feel.

Issues of sexuality, and sexual tension between the women, are always at or just below the surface of the film: whether it's Gaby's oldest sister complaining about being seen as a spinster, the older maid trying to hide her love for Pierrette, Gaby's oldest daughter dealing with the consequences of a college love affair gone awry, Pierrette flirting with Gaby, or Gaby accusing Louise, the young maid, of sleeping with her husband, 8 Women deals with more sex than your standard American teen comedy--and all without a single nude scene.

Although there are plenty of indirect references to lesbianism, it is addressed directly only twice in the film: first, when the relationship between Chanel and Pierrette is discovered and Gaby reacts with homophobic statements like "You need treatment" and the accusation "I let you raise my girls!" But Chanel defends herself, saying "I've done nothing wrong," and sings about how hard it is to be alone. Richard renders Chanel simultaneously tough and tender, motherly (to the girls) and sexual, in a way that keeps you from viewing her as just a housekeeper (although it is frustrating that the only black woman in the film is a maid).

The second time lesbianism is directly addressed is towards the end of the film, when Pierrette is trying to seduce Gaby and tells her "love between women is anything but shocking. It's a form of pleasure you should try, to cleanse you of men."

The fluidity with which the women's sexuality is portrayed in the film is unusual, as is the casual way it is integrated into the story. Although Chanel is a lesbian, the other three women are more accurately described as bisexual--although they are not labeled as such in the film. Perhaps the fact that filmmakers did not feel the need to "define" the characters' sexuality is a result of it being a French film, not an American one (since few countries are quite as preoccupied with labels as we are).

Besides Pierrette and Gaby, the young maid Louise is also not straight: although she was having an affair with Gaby's husband Marcel, she tells Gaby "I became your employee not out of need, or for [Marcel]...but for you, Madame" as she gazes boldly into her eyes. Beart plays Louise with a mix of pride and smoldering sexuality that makes her a complex and compelling character, when she could easily have been just another stereotypical maid-who-sleeps with-the-boss.

Those who have followed Catherine Deneuve's career since her sapphic turn in The Hunger will most likely be surprised to see her singing and dancing in 8 Women, since she usually plays very serious roles. Deneuve is excellent here as usual, however, transitioning back and forth between being a hard, bitter wife and mother to a woman fighting attraction to her sister-in-law Pierrette, whom she publicly scorns.

Pierrette is a free-spirited "exotic dancer" who easily attracts the attention of men and women--such as the housekeeper Chanel (Firmine Richard), who has confused her sexual relationship with Pierrette for love. Fanny Ardent is very convincing as Pierrette, and she makes Pierrette appealing by exuding a warmth and vitality that contrasts sharply with the more somber countenance of the other women.

Overall, 8 Women is a fun, memorable film with many layers that provides a campy but still realistic portrait of a group of women whose sexuality and ethics are not easily defined. So fascinating do these characters and their love/hate relationships with one another become that, by the end of the film, the odd little dances don't even seem that odd anymore.

Huit Femme is reminiscent of that 80s mystery: Clue. The house is isolated in a snowstorm as a wealthy industrialist is murdered over the Noel saison. Extended members of his family and two servants are the suspects. Every suspect is a woman. Hence the Huit Femme. This movie is packed with renowned French actresses (Catherine Deneuve, Isabelle Huppert, Fanny Ardant, Danielle Darrieux et Emmanuelle Beart). This is an all-star cast, and the actresses display performances befitting their high reputations. There are a number of comic scenes in this movie, like the mother-in-law (Danielle) being locked in a closet, and Augustine (Isabelle) spitting on her sister (Catherine), which helps make this movie enjoyable. But there are serious moments as well, as everyone's individual secret is revealed. This movie is a mixture of comedy, drama and mystery. But what makes this movie a gem are the individual singing performances of the huit femmes. This alone, makes the movie worth watching. If you've always longed to know what it would be like to hear Catherine sing, you can find out in this movie. There is even a kissing scene between Gaby (Catherine) and Pierette (Fanny), which alone, is worth the price of admission. It's not until the very end when we discover who the culprit really is. It's not who you would think. I've seen this movie countless times and I never cease to be entertained. In short, an all-star cast can only create a first-class movie. Merci beaucoup pour ce film. Vraiment superb.

I love Francois Ozon. His films are twisted, thought provoking and full of sometimes overt, sometimes covert (homo)sexual tension (see Swimming Pool or Criminal Lovers). So when I heard about 8 Women I thought Ozon would miss the mark with this one. Thankfully he didn't. Although this is by far the tamest of Ozon's films, his directorial skills and ability to tell a thoughtfully compelling story that is never uninteresting and keeps you on the edge of your seat is just as evident in this film as in his others. Ozon isn't a stranger to musical numbers in his films (remember the sexy dance number used as the theatrical trailer to Water Drops on Burning Rocks?) so I wasn't surprised at the first infectious pop musical number. When the second musical number made its appearance I was a bit surprised until I realized it was a vehicle for each character to reveal her personal pathos. I then looked forward to each new musical number that appeared. The plot is your typical Agatha Christie whodunit fare where everyone is lying to hide their secret, where no amount of backstabbing and name-calling is enough. What really makes this a great film is the attention to detail and the beautiful, beautiful women. The film has that gorgeous 50s Technicolor look, the costumes are impeccable 50s French couture and the women are so gorgeous you're hard pressed to pick which one is the most beautiful. This a film that is meant purely for entertainment and boy is it ever entertaining. How can you not like it?

I just received the DVD and It's awful. It doesn't contains any extras (I wouldn't count the theatrical trailer as one). But that I was expecting. What really makes this DVD awful is that it comes with the option of Spanish subtitles, but since the English subtitles can't be removed, using the Spanish subtitles means watching the film with 2 subtitles (I don't know who came out with that idea), which also means seeing letters over the actresses faces.
If I hadn't loved this film I would be returning this DVD.