Customer Reviews

La Chamade (Heartbeat)

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Catherine Deneuve is one of film's all time great beauties who has also become a very fine actress. At this point in her career, she was still blank but beautiful. Her Director put this to good use, casting her as a woman who is pampered, spoiled, a woman for whom life has given her so much she is completely lost and has no idea what she really wants, but drifts from vague whim to whim.
Of course, she is such a beauty that she is perfect casting for this kind of woman who has men falling over themselves just to light her cigarette, and the kind of jealousy and possessive controlling impulses beauty brings out in men.
Lightly handled, this film is a visual discussion of the true nature of love, and the tradeoffs we make in finding the right relationship. Money and stability, passion and poverty are contrasted, with some surprising revelations about what makes a love meaningful and lasting. Yves St. Laurent supplies the really amazing wardrobe for the sequences of wealth ( I counted at least 5 really flawlessly coutured coats), which seems at first to make this film very glossy and superficial and "what will she wear next" - but this supplies our framework of seeing how unimportant these things are to her, and also builds a great contrast for the sections of everyday financial struggles.
This film is greater than the sum of it's parts. Great costumes, some postcard style cinematography, and a fine performance by Roger Van Hool as the obsessed Antoine, and an exceptional, nuanced performance by Michel Piccoli as Charles. (He and Deneuve had made several films together by this point, which augments the familiar feeling between them.)
Because DeNeuve is still young here, and the essential capricious coldness of her character, this film does not supply as much emotional connection or depth as it could. We have only Piccoli as a window for that, so this film becomes a man's view of the beautiful woman they adore, and a fine representation of their incomprehension of women. Historically, falling in step with "free love" and early feminism, it is a great representation of that special time when men really could not figure out what women wanted... because women were still trying to figure it out themselves.

Remember those illustrated novellas that our mothers used to enjoy reading.You had the spoiled girl who had an affair with an older man.Usually,she meets a younger man who is less fortunate.The woman to make ends meet gets a job in a library,but it doesn't take long for her to be bored and she returns to the older man who brings her security.This is basically the story of LA CHAMADE.CATHERINE DENEUVE was 25 at the time and she was indeed gorgeous,but that is not enough to save a film that is so predictable.My favorite scene is the one at the airport when LUCILLE is waiting for CHARLES and gets annoyed by another man.She says to him :fichez-moi la paix!If you buy this for the bonus features,don't bother,they did not include a photo gallery of DENEUVE.

Yet another of Francois Sagan's chic, sleek, and shallow sudsers. Sagan has always examined the sins, immoralities, and weaknesses of privalged parisians, and 'La Chamade' is no exception. Basically, it's style striving for substance. Does it acheive it? No. Is that okay? Yes. 'La Chamade' is an agreeable distraction as it features a Love vs. Money storyline played out against swinging 60's Paris (with a side trip to the Mediteranian!). Catherine Deneuve looks stunning (as always) in a series of late 60s haute couture, the characters thrash about in gorgeous settings, and drive great cars. It's everything one would have watched 'Dynasty' for, however, as the film is in french the subtitles allow you to feel slightly superior and not so guilty for enjoying it!

Catherine Deneuve is one of the world's most beautiful, elegant women and a talented actress. In this movie, she is the mistress of a wealthy man and has been devoted to him for years. She meets a handsome struggling young publisher and leaves her wealthy protector for him. The movie then tracks what happens to her and whether she has now found true happiness.

It is a light story and probbly would not be worth watching without Catherine's presence. She dazzles on the screen and this was made at the height of her career. If you are a fan of the sixties, you will enjoy the magnificent clothes and hairstyles of the era.

Back in the day when Versailles was at the center of the universe, when Louis XIV ruled as the Caesars had but in surroundings the Romans could not even have imagined, no one would have thought for a moment that a goddess needed a job. Her raison d'etre was simply to look beautiful, have a good time, party until the small hours, make the royal court the place to be, cause duels to be fought, and inspire poets to a thousand sonnets. Except for the last two items, that's pretty much how we see a modern-day goddess, Catherine Deneuve, as the movie starts. Okay, the house of her wealthy lover isn't Versailles (impossible), his friends are not dukes or counts, and her closet holds only 50 dresses, but still, the parties are swanky and the fellow worships the very ground she walks on -- as well he should because make no mistake about it, it is easy to imagine Deneuve holding court at Versailles.

But get a job is what the goddess must do when she falls in love with a poor commoner. The job she gets is, are you ready for this, as a file clerk! No need to guess how that works out. To make it abundantly clear what impact this 9-5 business has on her self-esteem, and her toes, there is a scene in which she soaks her tired feet after a long day of running around schlepping files from one place to another -- this is 1969, so the digital age is still some 20 years off. So, how does it go with the working stiff boyfriend? That's predictable too, well, the ending is. I would not have guessed she would allow herself to get pregnant by this dude, nor that there would be a scene in which he smacks her around, though I suppose these are reminders of her fall from grace. She does eventually tell the bozo to take a hike but the movie ends on an ambiguous note: the goddess is seen walking alone, the future looking uncertain -- back to the life of leisure where she belongs, I hope.

Acting-wise, Deneuve isn't called upon to do anything terribly difficult in this movie and her co-star Piccoli is adequate as a stand-in for a royal court denizen; in quite a few scenes he seems so glad to be in her presence that he forgets to act. I don't blame him one bit.