Customer Reviews

Intimate Strangers [VHS]

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(10)
3 star:		(7)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Anna, (Sandrine Bonnaire), opens the wrong door and ends up in the office of tax attorney William Faber, (Fabrice Luchini), instead of next door for her first appointment with Dr. Monnier, a psychiatrist. Before the bemused Farber can straighten things out, Anna begins to unburden herself candidly, as if she's been on the couch for years. "I have an urgent problem," says she. Then, confessing that her marriage is on the rocks, her husband unemployed and impotent - he hasn't touched her in six months - she begins to cry. William is stunned, moved by her tears, but before he can respond she is out the door. Fast exit, no payment. Everyone knows that the fee is part of therapy.

Faber's life is bland. He lives in the flat where he was born, never having moved or really traveled. He inherited his father's business and many of the old clients. Used to an orderly existence, he lives alone and usually takes dinner by himself, with a glass of wine, while listening to music. Occasionally, through the window, he catches glimpses of couples, other lives. Jeanne, his last and perhaps only love, (Anne Brochet of the wonderful smile), left him for another man but they get together occasionally and maintain a close friendship. He is decidedly intrigued by Anna's visit but does not expect a repeat performance.

He is fascinated after visit number 2, when he finally manages to blurt out, "I'm not a doctor." Anna responds quickly, that she knows many therapists are not doctors and that's fine by her. Again, she leaves quickly. William is the one to visit Dr. Monnier, the shrink, (Michel Duchaussoy), who tells him that this situation is about his own problems and not Anna's. He also explains that accounting and psychiatry are not that different because, "they both decide what to hide and what to reveal."

As Anna and William's sessions continue and become more intimate and graphic, William is clearly aroused, almost titillated at times. He obviously begins to develop feelings for this confused, attractive woman, who says she wants nothing more than to regain her husband's affections. Yet, the two are deeply drawn to each other, their role playing is a way to form a bond without emotional risk. They are both odd, but sympathetic characters. William had dreams of adventure once, when younger, however he has become entrenched, staid, with middle age. A sensitive but repressed man, he has not lived life to the fullest. He is captivated by the graceful, unpredictable Anna. And she is intense, mysterious, vulnerable, and one gets a sense that no one has ever bothered to listen to her before. But can she be trusted?

Anna eventually learns Farber's true identity as a financial planner - just when he was making such progress as a therapist too. The plot takes a further twist when Marc, Anna's creepy husband, enters the picture which adds another touch of Hitchcock to the mix. The movie does succeed in becoming a low-keyed, but taut thriller. William's secretary, Madame Mulon, (Helene Surgere), adds a light touch as she tries to discover what on earth is going on behind the closed doors of her employer's office.

Patrice Leconte is an excellent director. He has a knack for developing characters, and here he has two superb actors to work with. The brooding musical score is atmospheric and serves to add tension. One of the film's major themes is expressed clearly by Dr. Monnier who says, "Listening is a lost art in our times: not even barbers, beauticians, or bartenders seem to have the knack or the patience anymore to attend to others in this way." I was deeply touched by "Intimate Strangers." It is an elusive piece, romantic, Freudian in a good sense, with a wonderful conclusion. Highly recommended!
JANA

`Attraction and avoidance' is a common enough theme in romantic movies. What's unique in Intimate Strangers is the setting and therefore the intricate dance that it creates.

Man and woman are brought face to face by a farcical error. On her first visit to her psychiatrist, Anna's distracted thoughts take her unwittingly to the office of a tax consultant. The general discrete atmosphere seems fitting enough, and she reveals to William, uncensored, the intimate details of her married life. Shy, hurt and lonely from his previous relationship-failure he is glad for the company of this beautiful and appealing woman. He plays along with her mistake long enough to evidence to us his interest and all-too-human need hovering behind his life of professional competency. This creates the basis for a relationship that will sustain its verbal tango long after we expect its consummation.

What is the fascination here? Well, if our hormones aren't pounding too loudly, we may have asked ourselves what indeed we are seeking in relationship besides the immediate gratifications of sex and romantic infatuation. How can there be enough distance in a relationship of attraction to leave room for a sustained dialogue of depth? (And if dialogue is all we're after, what is the place of attraction in all of this?)

How do men surrender their positions of authority (whether psychiatrist or tax advisor) to reveal themselves? What does it mean when a woman lies down for a man? Is she (whether in the role of lover or patient) passively receiving, or, is it really the way women give care, creating a comforting space for their rigid men to feel relaxed enough to unburden themselves? If she's - "asking for it" - is "it" actually intimacy - the intimacy that men can reveal only when they've been soothed from the fear of what lies behind their own mask. Distance and closeness. Past hurt and desire. These are the strands that are woven together intricately and caringly in this fine picture.

Beautifully written and directed, with a penchant for understated romance and emotion, Intimate Strangers is all about that indefinable line that exists between sexuality and intimacy - between the boundaries of confidence and the realms of secrecy. The movie begins with an atmosphere of dark claustrophobia as these two complex and multi-faceted characters begin to open up to each other, and in doing so, manage to explore new facets of their long dormant personalities.

A distraught-looking mystery woman (a luminous Sandrine Bonnaire), walks down a windswept Parisian street. On the verge of middle age and desperately frustrated, she's on her way to her first appointment with Dr. Monnier (Michel Duchaussoy), a psychotherapist. The building's concierge, who is distracted by her favorite daytime soap opera, waves her toward the elevator and tells her she'll find the good doctor on the fifth floor. However, mistaking him for the neighboring psychiatrist, she accidentally who wanders into the office/apartment of William (Fabrice Luchini), a reclusive and solitary tax lawyer.

Immediately assuming that he's Dr. Monnier, the woman - whom we soon learn is named Anna - wastes no time letting out her grief on the quiet, sad-eyed and fastidious man. Nervously chain-smoking, she pours out her heart to him, not letting him get a word in edgewise. She tells him she's been married four years, her husband is at present unemployed, and has recently become sexually uninterested in her. His immediate reaction is an intriguing mixture of modesty and embarrassment, and when she starts talking about her sex life, he looks oddly troubled. But as the details become more graphic, he becomes strangely titillated.

He keeps up the façade and allows her to make another appointment. Confused and fascinated he, in turn, seeks advice from Dr. Monnier on how to deal with her. The Doctor suggests that William try to come clean but he can't. He also discusses the situation with his ex-girlfriend, Jeanne (Anne Brochet), and when she learns of the strange, intimate encounter, she becomes almost jealous and resentful. Gradually William becomes more and more obsessed with Anna, and believing that his sympathetic ear is doing her some good, gradually begins to fall in love with her.

Intimate Strangers is a story of how two people can, against all odds, fall into a platonic, almost surreal intimacy. A case of accidental mistaken identity infuses these two with a new lease on life, and forces them to make life-altering decisions. As their bond begins to form, Anna and William become more relaxed and open in their lives, both inside and outside of the office. But director, Leconte cleverly teases the viewer: As she becomes more relaxed and beautiful, we become just as obsessed with Anna as William is; we also wonder whether she is truly being honest and what her true motivations may be.

Later, when Anna's husband arrives on the scene, the story begins to take lots of psychological twists and turns as William is forced to confront once and for all his own feelings for her and his feelings for Jeanne, whom he still has a soft spot for. With truly outstanding performances, and cinematography that is absolutely astonishing, Intimate Strangers is psychologically complex and offers, with a subtle and restrained moodiness, the obsessive and fixated interest that we all have in the dark side of human nature and character. Mike Leonard March 05.

Anna (Sandrine Bonnaire) enters an old office building, goes up to the sixth floor and rings the buzzer to be lead into the office of William (Fabrice Luchini), a Tax advisor. Anna talks pretty much non-stop about her marriage, her brutish husband, and her lack of sex life. Then stops, gets up and leaves: having embarrassed herself by her ramblings. There is a problem though: Anna thinks that William is her new therapist and William, seemingly so fascinated with Anna that he says nothing to the contrary even going so far as to schedule another appointment for the following week.
Director Patrice Leconte has plowed this territory before especially in his "Man on the Train" and the ruse succeeds for as long as it needs to as William comes clean to Anna early on in the film. Nonetheless, Anna continues to spill her guts to William and a sort of friendship develops between the two.
Most of "Intimate Strangers" takes place in William's stuffy conservative office and Anna is dressed in layers of dark colored heavy clothing. But as she blossoms from the benefits of her "analysis," her makeup, hair, clothing becomes lighter and more revealing: obvious but effective. William also changes and there is one odd though funny scene of him dancing solo a la Tom Cruise in "Risky Business" to Otis Redding's "Try a Little Tenderness" that has to be seen to be believed.
"Intimate Strangers" is a strange little movie that expects a lot from its viewers but just manages to stay on our good side by treating us like we have some intelligence and taste. Though it teeters on the edge of facetiousness, it doesn't ever make the leap over.

Anna's spilling her guts to a tax accountant, mistaking his office for that of a therapist down the hall, is rendered understandable when she explains that she gets lost easily, confuses right with left, etc. The accountant can't get a word in edgewise as this woman unloads intimate details of her relationship with her lover; his face undergoes a huge range of befuddled emotions, and suddenly, without him quite realizing how all this could be happening, he find himself confirming an appointment with her for the next week.
Until that day, the accountant's life had been pretty boring, and he expected nothing more. The volatility of Anna's presence, her interest in continuing to use him as a sounding board even after she discovers her mistake, and the attachment that develops between these two `strangers' is funny, touching, and revelatory.
Top-notch.

I had the absolute pleasure of attending a local French Film Festival and seeing "Confidences trop intimes" by Parisian filmmaker Patrice Leconte. I wasn't quite sure what to expect after reading the film's description and figured it would end up being a somewhat interesting short film.

I was pleasantly surprised to find myself eagerly awaiting each and every scene as though I was watching a suspense movie or a thriller! From the moment the mysterious and emotionally distraught Anna (played by the adorable Sandrine Bonnaire) walked into the quirky tax accountant's office thinking he was a psychologist (played by the amazing Fabrice Luchini), I was eagerly awaiting scene after scene.

One of the most beautiful things about this movie is that it is, in a very classic way, a love story! The unspoken tension builds between Anna and William (the tax accountant) as the film unfolds as Anna's counter transference of emotional burdens shifts to her "therapist." Deep character emotions unlock, personalities bloom and deep seeded character development is ever present throughout the film.

One of the most enjoyable aspects of this movie is the above-par acting! Fabrice Luchini has such a face that he seems to capture a thousand emotions simply by staring off into the camera with his bright blue eyes, and Ms. Bonnaire's performance is outstanding as well - her soft, gentle features captivates the audience at once entangling them in her character's life story.

Truly an excellent film well worth seeing for anyone with a heart, treat yourself to "Confidences trop intimes" today!

This is the most nuanced of Patrice Leconte's films that I have seen. Everything is carefully constructed at a measured pace with just enough revelation as we go along, but no more, so that we can follow the plot's development easily. The film is cut as close as a barber's shave and is as neat as a pin.

Anna (Sandrine Bonnaire), who is a bit of a tease, finds herself in what she thinks is a shrink's office. (There's a magazine on the desk whose title is partially obscured so that only the word "analyst" appears to her eyes, thereby confirming her expectations.) Behind the desk however is William Faber (Fabrice Luchini) who is a tax accountant and perhaps the last man in the building who could conceivable help Anna with her marital problem. He is after all something of recluse. He doesn't drive. He usually eats alone in his apartment, which apparently is the same place as his office, watching TV (in one scene it's Humphrey Bogart as Phillip Marlowe with French subtitles). He is only marginally experienced in the ways of human relationships and knows little about psychoanalysis. (The "analyst" magazine on his desk was on economic analysis.)

She flips a zippo cigarette lighter, lights a cigarette like someone new to smoking, and begins to tell a somewhat astonished Faber about the intimate details of her married life, mainly that her husband won't touch her anymore.

I previously saw Bonnaire in La Ceremonie (1995), directed by Claude Chabrol, in which she played a mean, hateful housemaid, and she was very good there. Here she is playful, almost childish at times, as she reveals her life to this stranger.

This is the first time I have seen Luchini who is very properly Parisian in his carefully knotted tie (worn even while preparing his solitary meal). His acting style is markedly laid back. He carries an almost continual look of surprise on his face--astonishment almost--with his eyes made big and round and his demeanor controlled and taciturn.

Because Anna is so direct and begins talking about herself almost immediately and because Faber is a most polite man who will not interrupt her, it is several minutes before he has the opportunity to advise her that she really wants the office down the hall where the psychoanalyst Dr. Monnier holds forth. By then he is intrigued with her and smitten, and is slow, very slow, to advise her of her error.

Also because Anna likes to talk about herself like a teenager and because William Faber is a practiced listener, there is a certain simpatico that automatically develops.

One can see where this is heading. She talks, he listens. She performs, so to speak; he appreciates. Faber is the kind of man, as his "ex" points out, who never makes the first move. This is good for Anna because it allows her to become comfortable with him before she has to respond.

The complications begin with the appearance of Anna's husband who first makes an unusual sexual demand of the very proper tax accountant, and then when that is refused, treats Faber to a most upsetting motel scene through a window across the way. Yes, it's a little contrived (as is the movie's premise). But I like the way Leconte didn't let us see the scene and only revealed later what Faber had seen.

Near the end of the film we see Faber for the first time sans necktie, which we can guess signals a change in the man. The film ends in a most artistic way with a shot from above as Anna lies stretched out on a classic analyst's couch in a cute frock with her ankles crossed and Faber... Well, we see the credits roll down the screen and we can imagine what will eventually happen.

My favorite Leconte film is Ridicule (1996). I also liked his La Fille sur la pont (1999). If you haven't seen his work you are in for a treat. He is witty in a sly way (especially here in Confidence trop intimes) and can be strikingly original. Like all good directors, he never loses track of the audience and the needs of the audience. His films are carefully cut so that we always know what is going on, but without any heavy-handedness.

See this for Patrice Leconte, one of France's most talented film makers.

This film has a premise that sounds like the beginning of a joke: a girl walks into a tax attorneys office thinking she has entered her psychoanalysts office. The problem is that the joke never really takes off, and it takes a long time to tell. As a result I found myself waiting in vain for something momentous to happen, or some momentous twist to occur, or something that resembles a punchline, but ultimately all of the mysterious Hitchcockian atmospherics (eerie mystery music, strangers appearing and disappearing, misunderstandings & miscommunications, lots of shots down hallways, odd characters with odd obsessions/compulsions)are for nought. That's not to say this film does not have some things going for it. For me the best character was the real psychoanalyst down the hall (the one the girl was trying to see when she entered the tax attorneys office) who advises the tax-attorney-pretend-psychoanalyst to give up on the idea of mastering situations. This is actually probably good advice and probably the kind of advice you would expect to get from a man who has long accepted the idea that psychoanalysts are just there to listen and that the psychoanalytic situation itself is therapeutic. But its also funny because the real psychonalyst is a jaded pro who's heard it all. His odd attempt at Freudian humor (part Freudian slip, part juvenalia) is the funniest bit in the film, and his lines about "payment being part of the therapy" and "female pleasure being frightening to men" are delivered with ice cold seriousness. Its obvious to this "real" psychoanalyst that the tax attorney has his own problems to work through and that he is growing to depend on his visitor-patient as much as she depends on him. If you're ok with just watching two people attempt to sort out their lives for 1 hr. and 44 min. then you may find this film interesting. If you're looking for something with more thrills then this will probably disappoint.

The tax attorney William (Fabrice Luchini) is, in moments anyway, vividly imagined by director Patrice Leconte and even though the interloper Anna (Sandrine Bonnaire) has an endless collection of now steamy, now tragic anecdotes to tell about herself its really not Anna that we are interested in but the effects Anna's tales have on William. Both William and Anna are in or have just been in unsatisfying relationships and both seem to feel empowered by the other to pursue something better. Anna is still young enough to make life changes and pursue a dream she has had since childhood; the question for William (who has never really left his childhood home nor his childhood) is whether he is capable of imagining a life outside of his tax office routines. Its ultimately a film that some may view as sad and others may view as touching and very human and maybe even sweet. For me the peripheral characters really provide a much needed break form William and Anna (Williams verbal jabs at his ex's new boyfriend are very funny-- rare bits of comic agression for William). Patrice Leconte seems to enjoy teasing viewers into believing that they are going to get a Hitchcockian mystery and then giving them something a little more substantial, if also a little less thrilling, than that.

This film has a few quirky moments that I really enjoyed and that made me think of my favorite Leconte films, Monsieur Hire & Hairdressers Husband. Unfortunatley the film has far too few of these and it moves much too lethargically to really elicit more than a moderate approval rating. Competent if not very inspired film making.

Patrice Leconte:

1989 Monsieur Hire *
1990 Hairdresser's Husband *
1996 Ridicule
1999 Girl on the Bridge
2000 Widow of Saint-Pierre *
2002 Man on a Train

*My favorites. Others are good too though. Intimate Stangers is probably my least favorite Leconte film but Leconte is a favorite director so I still found it worth my while.

INTIMATE STRANGERS is another triumph for Director Patrice Leconte whose dazzling output includes 'Monsieur Hire', 'The Widow of Saint-Pierre', 'The Man on the Train', 'Tango', 'Ridicule', and 'The Girl on the Bridge'. Taking a simple scheme for a story - a desperate woman rings the wrong doorbell for a psychologist's appointment and mistakenly opens her intimate life to a tax attorney - and weaves this quiet encounter into an exploration of relationships, alienation, intimacy, and existentialism.

Sandrine Bonnaire as Anna delivers on of the most complex characters created for the screen. An actress of great beauty and talent, Bonnaire makes the disturbed Anna an intense but flighty, fragile female who is struggling to keep her husband Marc (Gilbert Mekli) from leaving her despite Marc's seemingly wasted existence. Fabrice Luchini is William Faber, the sad-eyed boring tax lawyer to whom Anna 'assigns' the role of therapist. William is in the throes of a wasted affair with Jeanne (Anne Brochet) who has taken up with a weight lifter in an arrangement that is not altogether monogamous (she still drops in to see William for talk and off the cuff sex). William remains a loner.

William feels guilty about Anna's mistaking him for a therapist and almost immediately seeks advice from the intended therapist, Dr. Monnier (Michel Duchaussoy), who seems less concerned with William's situation than he is with charging for advice! As Anna discovers William's true identity and delays her visits for a while, she eventually returns to William's kind listening and begins to unravel a sick relationship with her husband Marc. Marc eventually visits William and ultimately plays out his neuroses of the marriage with Anna in plain view of William.

Anna eventually leaves Marc to follow her early dream of being involved with ballet ad almost simultaneously William makes changes in his life that lead to a surprise ending.

The acting is absolutely first rate - subtle, in-depth portrayals, with everyone involved (including Helene Surgere as William's warmly curious secretary) giving us characters about whom we care and with whom we become involved. Even the cinematography by Eduardo Serra is pitch perfect for creating the ambience for this claustrophobic series of encounters. This is a strange story but one filled with questions about how we relate to strangers, to lovers, to co-workers, to people at large. Leconte typically does not deliver pat answers to any of the questions he raises: he is more concerned that we are left to consider the consequences for our choices. A fine achievement, highly recommended. In French with English subtitles. Grady Harp, February 2005

Patrice Leconte is one of my favorite directors, but first time round I found Confidences Trop Intimes little more than a pleasant but disposable diversion despite the promise held by his reunion with his Monsieur Hire star Sandrine Bonnaire. Surprisingly, although slightly disappointing on a first viewing, I found it held up remarkably well on a second viewing.

In some ways a sly reversal of Last Tango, in which two characters meet to talk rather than to screw, the limitations I noticed first time round still hold true: it's more a conceit than a movie, a character piece that never goes anywhere much but holds the interest. Bonnaire, previously not a favorite actress of mine, is increasingly impressive in a superb performance that really does evolve throughout the course of the film, easily outclassing Fabrice Lucini. Always a rather one-note actor, Lucini is at his best here, but the fact that his character is incapable of growth - even the final move is more a change of surroundings than of character and can actually be viewed as a retrograde step - makes him more of a sounding board for Bonnaire than a real focus for the film. Coming across as a somber Eric Idle cross-pollinated with a hesitant Jean-Louis Trintignant, we know everything about him very early in the film, and he is never quite drawn out of his shell enough to ever become genuinely interesting in his own right.

Despite the claustrophobic settings, Leconte never fails to make the film cinematic, his mastery of the Scope frame making what could have just been a chamber piece into a surprisingly rich experience. In many ways he's like Sidney Lumet in his prime in his ability to find a way of making two characters sitting down and talking to each other more cinematic than most directors can make a street scene. Unfortunately, it doesn't amount to much by the time the end credits are rolling. A minor film from a major director, but it's best not to go in expecting too much.