Customer Reviews

Andrzej Zulawski's L'Amour Braque (Limpet Love, 1985) UNCUT Special Edition [Digipak] by MONDO VISION

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Few directors if any have the audacity or imagination to make such cinema. It takes a true visionary to craft a film of this caliber, the one that defies all norms and standards accepted by the general mainstream. L'Amour Braque was written by a legendary French poet/songwriter Etienne Roda-Gil who also wrote the libretto for an opera about the French revolution, Ça Ira (`There is Hope'), for which Roger Waters of Pink Floyd wrote the music. That combined with Zulawski's fluid style of filmmaking where camera is always floating in the air makes L'Amour Braque pure "Poetry In Motion", this is not your typical lovey dovey artsy-fartsy French cinema, if anything Zulawski's films are always opposite of that. This film brings out the beauty in French language and how poetic it could be. The actors in Zulawski films never ACT FRENCH, something that Zulawski and Sophie Marceau both address in the interviews and the commentary. L'Amour Braque is what made Sophie Marceau the star that she is today even though the truly deserved credit has never been given to Zulawski, thankfully she is humble enough to admit that herself. L'Amour Braque is arguably Zulawski's most extreme film probably 1 notch above "Possession" and equal to that of "Szamanka". The opening scene of the film alone is worth the price of the DVD; it is arguably the greatest monologue in the history of cinema.

The observation by Etienne Roda-Gil pretty much sums up this film and what Zulawski's cinema is all about "Zulawski's films don't talk about love. They make love."

Just a few years back I never dreamed that any label would do justice to any Zulawski films, the only legitimate release was the now OOP DVD of POSSESSION from 2000, after that all we got was crappy bootlegs of his Polish Films by Polart and that unofficial release of "My Nights Are Beautiful Than Your Days" that has been in print forever. Then comes Mondo Vision who have gone all the way with their 3 releases so far and they have outdone themselves time after time. This is probably the most beautiful DVD package any film has ever received and one that truly deserves the tag "Limited Edition". Where companies like Anchorbay ruined the whole idea of Limited Edition by making tens of thousands of copies of their so called LEs, Mondo have been consistent so far and each of their Premium Editions is limited only to 2000 numbered copies, something extremely valuable to any collector especially for such "Cult" titles. If Criterion's OOP "Salo" DVD was selling for $900+, this one will be worth ten times that when it's Sold Out!

Mondo's 3 releases so far have been exemplary in every area including A/V presentation and L'Amour Braque is no exception. Watching this on a Sony BD Player connected to a Pioneer Plasma brings out some Amazing details and moments of film like greatness. On some close-ups you may even think you are watching a BD, can't imagine how Mondo's BDs will look like if they go that route someday. The image and the subtitles are approved by Zulawski. As far as the extras, don't miss out on Zulawski's commentary and Sophie Marceau and Archival Footage Interviews. Some may not know this but L'Amour Braque was the film where Zulawski and Sophie Marceau met, they were married for 17 years, have 1 son named Vincent, and made 4 films together.

Fans of other greats like Fellini, Lynch, Bunuel, Kubrick and Welles are all in for a treat...

It is undeniably one of the most thoughtful, passionate, relevant and seductive films to lure us into the tragically human Real, without pedantics but with masterful pedagogy... cinema poetry, and easily one of the most significant moments in 20th century art (in any medium) depicting the lucid hyper-giddyness of what's left of our humanity as it accepts the arc of its intergenerational inheritence, ie seeking eros/thanatos at all costs, and therefore masters the reins of a world it subconsciously but intentionally drives into complete collapse.

Perfectly executed, passionately felt... as always with this director, a wonder of holistic rebellion, the bleak explosive pseudo-power of the individual, a consequence of the redefinition of 'signifiers' under the cosmological constant of love, a temporary beauty of permanent horror, giving way to the humanistic recalculation of Truth, which leaves everything dead.

Strangely does justice to Dostoevsky on the deepest level.

A VERY GOOD DVD.
The box is beautiful and smart...
It's a great pleasur to have this item. A vrey good work.
Well done.

I don't consider myself a big movie critic. I don't necessarily favor a specific genre over others. I am a psychologist and complexity of characters, imagination, emotional conflicts, and archetypal energies are what captures my attention in movies. If a movie could reflect these complex psychological elements, it is considered highly artistic. L'Amour Braque does that. This is an emotionally intense movie but the intensity is what keeps the audience engaged. Without having a powerful imagination, this movie may not make much sense to the viewer. The beauty of this picture is that it leaves the interpretation of the plot open to the audience. Everybody is different and therefore, everybody may relate differently to different characters or different emotions. It also measures and challenges one's tolerance for darkness, betrayal, passion, obsession, while capturing innocence, beauty, purity, love, and naïveté at the same time. The brilliance of Zulawski is his ability to capture this paradox by reflecting on both the persona and the shadow that are two sides of the same coin. He is not afraid to get to the shadow material which is a place where most of us, including many directors can not begin to touch or do not have the vision to do so. One night after watching L'Amour Braque, I saw a movie by Ingmar Bergman, called scenes from a marriage. I was excited by the title, and what I'd heard of the director. I was expecting psychologically multi-layered story that reflected human emotions. I was shocked. The movie had no music, was absolutely flat, and was incredibly disappointing. Now, I understand Bergman has his fans and they will come up with many different ways to justify this three hour long disaster of a movie, but again, looking from a psychological stand point, this movie was terrible. The reason I brought it up in this review was because I saw it one night after I saw L'Amour Braque and I couldn't help but to reflect on the difference. Besides the movie itself, the packaging is just absolutely priceless. The quality of the DVD, the red velvet cover, the booklet with all the pictures just reflects the talent and the level of professionalism of Mondo Vision, a rather small company.

It's a shame that this film could have been like a live-action cartoon combination of Moulin Rouge and Clockwork Orange, only that this film sucks. Poetic? Strange? Misunderstood? Genius? No, this film is just bad. L'Amour Braque is certainly theatrical, but it's just an amateurishly bad film. The only good thing about watching this DVD is that the DVD commentary is excellent. It's highly entertaining listening to Andrzej Zulawski speak in double-talk to the interviewer. I don't think Zulawski clearly answered one of the interviewer's questions.

I can't believe anyone would compare Zulawski to the great Alejandro Jodorowsky or David Lynch. Those directors are masters, Zulawski is not.