Product Details

• Actors: Charles Berling, Sophie Guillemin, Arielle Dombasle, Robert Kramer, Alice Grey
• Directors: Cédric Kahn
• Writers: Cédric Kahn, Alberto Moravia, Laurence Ferreira Barbosa
• Producers: Paulo Branco
• Format: Color, DVD, Subtitled, Widescreen, NTSC
• Language: French
• Subtitles: English
• Region: Region 1 (U.S. and Canada only. Read more about DVD formats.)
  
• Aspect Ratio: 1.85:1
• Number of discs: 1
• Rated: NR (Not Rated)
• Studio: Fox Lorber
• DVD Release Date: December 19, 2000
• Run Time: 122 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 3.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (23 customer reviews)
• ASIN: B0000507QH
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #129,398 in Movies & TV (See Top 100 in Movies & TV)
• For more information about "L' Ennui" visit the Internet Movie Database (IMDb)

Editorial Reviews

A middle aged philosophy teacher begins an affair with a young girl that drives him past the point of obsession when he realizes he cannot possess her. Dvd features not listed. Studio: Genius Products Inc Release Date: 03/22/2005 Starring: Charles Berling Run time: 120 minutes Rating: Nr

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

257 of 271 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Clever Idea, January 9, 2003

By 

"me-jane" (Sydney, Australia) - See all my reviews

This review is from: L' Ennui (DVD)

L'Ennui is driven by a very clever idea and a curious understanding of the perverse quirks of human nature (and male sexuality.) It's classic male fantasy turned nightmare: an older man falls for a younger girl who is beautiful, naive, sexually voracious, and utterly pliant. It's a pornographic dream that gradually becomes more and more hellish to the middle-aged protaganist, who is disillusioned with life (the French call it "ennui"), and groping for some kind of meaning. For, ironically, the utterly sexually available girl cannot be possessed; she is utterly opaque, and because he cannot inhabit her mind, cannot make her feel intensely for him, he becomes neurotically obsessed by her, which, of course, leads to all kinds of abjection and abasement for him. In this, the film explores the tension between the male dream of feminine passivity, and the male nightmare of feminine impassivity.
L'Ennui falters quite a lot; it's turgid, and probably forty minutes too long, hammering the point home long after the emotional terrain of the film has been traversed. Still, it's an intriguing film, often blackly funny, insightful, and, erotic in the way only French films dare to be, all jiggling flesh and too much reality for audiences reared on the smoothed over nothingness of Hollywood.

30 of 32 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars ABSOLUTE AWAKENING, June 7, 2004

By A Customer

This review is from: L' Ennui (DVD)

I think you miss the whole point of this movie if you are expecting a typical Hollywood "brainwashing" movie. This movie is French. The whole point of the movie is precisely that the woman is not slim and gorgeous like a model (as Hollywood would make you want to believe all woman should be to be desirable to men). The fact that she is chubby makes the point precisely. She is not beautiful in his eyes, she is plain and chubby but he is crazy about her, why? because he cannot posses her. (Apart from physical pleasure there is nothing he can give her to make her interested in him.) And the farther away she is emotionally the more he wants her, and the more obsessed he gets with her. It has nothing to do with the outer physical beauty --she has managed to possess him in every way, without the "beauty" attributes that Hollywood movies would want to instill in the audiences. Her character has weaknesses as to the emotional and that is what drives him crazy about her. This movie is a great awakening into the deeper psyche of men.

28 of 31 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars bizarre bizarre, December 3, 2001

By A Customer

This review is from: L' Ennui (DVD)

What a strange movie! Prix Delluc 1998, a perfectly honorable artsy French prize, but it certainly spares you no graphic sex scene, nor the buttocks of Charles Berling (a favorite actor of mine)nor the bosoms of coy Sophie Guillemin. Sometime, you think you hit upon some deeply philosophical statement, and in the next scene you are wondering if you are watching a parody of the genre. Hilarious dialogue at times (without meaning to be, I am sure..), and hilarious situations, though I am sure it is not the moviemaker's intention to create mirth. All in all, great photography, beautiful colors, realistic bits of Paris's life, and fabulous acting. But would I recommend it to a friend without a certain sense of humor? Well....