Customer Reviews

L' Ennui [VHS]

5 star:		(7)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(5)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

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.

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.

The plotine is basically about a philosophy professor,an unsympathethic womaniser who has the desire to do something with his life. He meets a young woman, who was a model for a painter, who died while they were having sex, he doesn't get along well with her yet he has this physical connection to her. His obsession with her and her inability to respond to him make him resort to violence, he wants to break up with her and yet he cannot. Can a person love and despise another at the same time? This film explores that premise and utilises a lot of gratuitous sex and nudity ... Overall, it was a thought provoking film and I would only recommend it to any fan of French Cinema.

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....

I become irritated part way through this film. It's like you are forced to watch Berling's character become increasingly obsessed with Guillemin's, to the point where we are not only disturbed, but also completely perturbed by his inability to let go of Cecilia, who seems so wonderfully and completely uninterested and distant. I admit that while I watched the movie, I had to turn it off part way through; I, myself, became so anxious by and annoyed with Martin's obsessive ness. At first, I thought it was because the movie was totally unappealing, even unwatchable. However, once I watched the rest of the film I understood why. Let me explain why.

Berling's growing sexual obsession with Sophie Guilleman is believable because in real life I would imagine that more men, middle aged or otherwise, develop obsessions with ordinary girls/women than with the Pamela Anderson/Jordan in-your-face sex objects. This is not to say that Guilleman is chopped liver but she is an Average girl; average looks, average figure, average sexuality and again it is, I suspect, much easier to develop a sexual obsession about a girl who is much more likely to be available to the Average man, which is what Berling is both on and off screen. The idea of a young girl believed to have killed a man three times her age via sex clearly invests her with a certain cachet not least in the eyes of a philosophy teacher drifting aimlessly yet inexorably towards mid-life crisis and not even searching for a paddle. The concept of a young girl who actually enjoys sex for its own sake and is unwilling and/or incapable of adding love to the mix, a creature in effect prepared and eager to experience sexual fulfillment as often and with as many different partners as possible and remain loyal to none is not exactly new and each time this story is told the only possible interest lies in the man who is unable to share her and how long it takes to reach its inevitable tragic conclusion.

I realized that Kahn probably had every attention of making his subject so intense, so masochistic, and so repetitively annoying in his obsession, the utter irritation and anxiety that the movie provoked in me suggested that not only is the filmmaker very successful in representing pathological behavior, but also in implicating his audience in that representation.

I watched this movie having seen a trailer on another DVD. My stomach was in knots for most of the movie. I really felt all the emotions the main character Martin was feeling. I went through a divorce and a relationship right after which was much like his relationship with Cecelia. She even looked like Cecelia, who to be honest I thought was attractive. Not built like a 12 year old boy like most Hollywood actresses. To each his own. But I could totally see why Martin was obsessing over her and there were so many times I yelled at the TV to STOP, IT'S GOING TO KILL YOU. And it almost did.

I have felt exactly like Martin and it was painful then and was painful to watch. I give this 5 stars, because for once a movie evoked strong emotion. I NEVER want to see this movie again but it was gutwrenching.

Hollywood produces really terrible movies compared to the French. Unfortunately, the French believe love has to be painful.

Cedric Kahn's "L'Ennui" is the story of a middle-aged man, Martin (Charles Berling) who has just gotten divorced and starts having an affair with a women half his age, Cecilla (Sophie Guillemin). At first the relationship is purely a sexual one. He doesn't care for her and we suspect she doesn't care for him. But soon Martin realizes he may love her but she is a girl to love loved. He thinks she is cheating on him. And thus his world begins to crumble as he tries to catch her in the act.

Other movies have dealt with similar ideas. Right now I'm thinking of "An Affair of Love", which was about two people who answer an ad in the paper about meeting for a casual affair once a week. Soon the two fall in love but never confront their emotions. The other movie is "Intimacy". A story about two people who meet every Wednesday for their affair. But soon the man realizes he loves her but finds out she is married and tries to win her over. Both films worked. "L'Ennui" on the other hand doesn't.

Martin is a philosophy teacher and boy does he talk a lot! I've haven't becomed this annoying watching a character in a while. The entire film consist of him questioning Cecilla. But I'm jumping ahead, let me explain. Cecilla was seeing a much older man, a painter, who was drawing nude pictures of her. He died while making love to her and when Martin finds out about this he is intrigued by her relationship with the man, hence all the questions. If only Martin would shut-up once in a while and actually listen to people maybe he wouldn't be in the state of mind he is. Even has he is making love he never stops questioning her. And don't think Cecilla is a treat either. Who is she? What does she want? Does she love Martin? Can she love anyone? Who knows, and more importantly, who cares? We don't like either of these people. I don't see how they can even stand each other out. If I sat in room with Martin I don't think I'd last 30 seconds with this guy.

What "L'Ennui" needed to do was drop some of Martin's dialogue give him more actions and tells us something about Cecilla. By the end of the picture we have a good sense of Martin, he's a pest and a loser. Cecilla though just seems heartless. But is she really?

The movie was directed by Cedric Kahn who also directed the recent "Red Light", a much better film. Kahn is interested in human relations. He likes to put his characters in intense situations and just watch them explode. That sounds fine but you have to give us something to care about. I never cared for these people. I never understood them.

Some people may watch the film because they find it erotic. One can't really comment on that because different people find different things erotic. I didn't think it was. But who knows.

Bottom-line: Do you feel like watching two annoying people for two hours? This is your movie!

I guess people wants to see this movie for different reasons, I'll try to analyse this movie according to what I expect viewers are looking for and try to dissuade you from seeing it. There is nothing in this movie where you can't find in another with more bells and whistles and fun.

[1] If you're looking for hot arousing sex scenes, forget about it.

[2] If you're trying to explore / understand the psyche of middle aged men, forget about it too. All you'd see is this divorced Professor of Philosophy in his 40s/50s being obsessed about a girl half his age, ringing the girl at all times, tracing her phone numbers, and being confused why he likes the dull boring girl so much. Interesting, but you might wonder if you really need to spend 2 hours to examine the issues?

This is a classic case of great performance, shame about the movie. Sophie Guillemin is quite a revelation - in every sense - without ever appearing to do much or indeed anything. Here she reminded me a lot of Isabelle Huppert in The Lacemaker (only with much more nudity), with much of Huppert's brand of everyday sexuality.

Guillemin's a blank slate of a schoolgirl/model that men in crisis project their fantasies on to. She gives them her body but nothing else, and seems constantly detached and immune to surprise or emotional or intellectual involvement, much to the distress of her latest part-time conquest, recently divorced teacher/author Charles Berling. The downward spiral of obsession that will destroy his life is a given, and that's the problem. The film constantly tries to raise the stakes to surprise us by how much further it will go, but by the last third he's become so intensely irritating in yet another variation of the previous scene - only louder and more desperate - that you lose interest. Had it ended half an hour earlier it might have been more successful, but this seriously outstays its welcome.

Poor movie, but definitely worth a watch for Guillemin.

If you enjoy the raw and pure storylines of French filmmaking, this one's for you. Only the French know how to take a simple subject matter and turn it into a riveting drama. The casting is perfect with Charles Benning and Sophie Guillemin. You would think they were lovers in real life (maybe they are). And the music is a perfect background for this erotic adventure. A must. All 5 stars!