Customer Reviews

Rendez-Vous

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Notice how the jackets of just about every video, especially the French ones, SHOUT how SEXY the movie is. In Krzysztof Kieslowski's "Blue," par example, Juliette Binoche and the film are touted as being so, so sexy. But it wasn't, and neither was she. However in "Rendez-Vous" you will see a Juliette Binoche with enough sexual power to awaken a dead man-not to say that this movie is as good as Kieslowski's "Blue." It isn't, but it's not bad.

Binoche is full of energy as a provincial French girl with a flair for the stage new to the lights of gay Paree. She plays fast and loose (and natural) with the men she meets, and dodges some serious trouble before working it out with the man she really wants. Characteristically, Director André Téchiné leads us close to the dark side of sex without really offending our sensibilities.

Jean-Louis Trintignant appears in a small role that anticipates his triumphant creation as the admiring older man in Kieslowski's "Trois Couleurs: Rouge" nine years later.

Love in the romantic sense could be described as an intense personal feeling with steps of warmth, devotion, tenderness, and attachment that could eventually lead to sexual embrace between two individuals with mutual and reciprocal feelings. Despite this description there are many struggles with discovering this truly wonderful sensation and they may skip one or all of the steps and only adopt the sexual embrace. Thus, the individual simply becomes an object for exchange of fluids and temporary lustful desire where the individual loses connection on a more cerebral plane leaving the person with a hollow and empty feeling after the sexual moment. Rendez-vous displays this sexual emptiness where a young woman drifts from man to man, as she seeks a place to sleep for the night.

A realty agency receives a new client in Nina (Juliette Binoche) who is looking for a cheap, not too small, apartment in central Paris. Currently, Nina stays with "friends", men that will let her stay for the night, frequently in exchange for her physical nearness and sexual embrace. Often she tells the men that she loves them in order eliminate questions and awkward moments when she stays with them. However, it seems as if she merely uses them for her personal needs. Paulot (Wadeck Stanczak), the representative from the realty agency receives tickets to one of Nina's performances and he learns all this from her as she leaves her current "friend".

The innocent and kind Paulot finds Nina very attractive and his feelings begin to build up within him. This presents an opportunity that Nina seizes while Paulot helplessly does everything to save her from homelessness. Through Paulot's noble attempts Nina meets Quentin (Lambert Wilson), Paulot's roommate, who seems to be a shady character with much emotional baggage. This becomes obvious, as Quentin follows Nina to her hotel room, which Paulot managed to arrange for her.

Initially, it seems as if the story is going in every possible direction without thought or consideration, as Quentin stalks Nina and convinces her to do what he says. First Quentin appears to be a psychopath with stalking problems as he follows Nina wherever she wanders, which seems to frighten her. When she finds someone to help protect her from him, she ends up protecting Quentin. Quentin introduces Nina to the world of sex theater, and eventually sways her to let him spend the night. This diverging wandering in the storyline initially seems impossible; however, patience will reward the viewers with big dividends.

Rendez-vous turns into a contemporary psychodynamic version of Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet. Nina is the film's Juliet, a part she also prepares for in a play while she is struggling to grasp the concept of love during her preparations, as she learns the emptiness of mere sexual embrace and the importance of devotion and tenderness. The director André Téchiné presents the problems in the film through the results of characters actions, which displays immature blind obsession and hatred. There is also a large portion of intolerance in the perspective of each character's feelings, as they all seem to put themselves first. Rendez-vous offers loose adaptation of Shakespeare's teenage tragedy, which leaves the audience contemplating the notion of love, devotion, tenderness, affectionate warmth, and attachment as Nina plays her cards.

"The nights I've slept alone since I came to Paris I could count on the fingers of one hand."

Directed by André Téchiné, Rendez-vous (1985) is a dark yet powerful French drama that explores love and sexual desire from the point of view of three emotionally-damaged people. It tells the story of Nina (Juliette Binoche, in her first major film role), a sexually-free-spirited young woman who has traveled from Toulouse to Paris in search for success as an actress. Upon her arrival in the City of Lights, she has a series of one-night stands while looking for her own apartment. Three very different men, Fred (Jean-Louis Vitrac), Nina's boyfriend of the moment, Paulot (Wadeck Stanczak), a real estate agent, and Quentin (Lambert Wilson), his actor/roommate, all compete for her attention. Paulot is mild-mannered; Quenten, by contrast, is suicidal, dangerous, and intense. Although Nina complains to Quentin she feels sexually used by nearly every man she encounters in Paris, eventually she has sex with each of the three men (in explicitly erotic scenes). After a theater director, Scrutzler (Jean-Louis Trintignant), casts her as the female lead in Romeo and Juliet, Nina is forced to confront her own self-doubts and fears as she rehearses for the role. Binoche brings a mesmerizing performance to Rendez-vous. Techine won Best Director honors at the Cannes Film Festival.

G. Merritt

I always wince a bit when Americans (and, really, most other nationalities) are all too confident when they poke fun at the French. But sometimes the French play into the hands of such a characiture. If one were in search of evidence that French films are obscure, despairing, and full of gratuitous sex dressed up as high art, Rendez-Vous should be exhibit A. It is almost a parody of a crappy, pretentious, and completely joyless arthouse film.

Having escaped to Paris in order to "live life," Nina does quite the opposite. The dingy depiction of the Paris underscores the impression that the city is more of a meat grinder than a place of discovery or liberation. Early on in the film, we interupt Nina at the theater while as she is about to mount the usher. He proceeds to treat her terribly, he insults her, and a pattern is born. Nina will continue to attract and be drawn to men who abuse her. Yet she is not simply a passive victim in this game. Paulot, who arranged her lodging, seems at first to have the normal attraction to Nina. Surely, this attraction is sexual, but it is not exclusively sexual. We can easily imagine Paulot, if he had never been humiliated by her, desiring a normal relationship. But as Nina later admits to her theater director, she would not sleep with Paulot. He is sweet, and she tells Paulot that she loves him, but that is not enough. She is drawn to something more sinister. Paulot's behavior at the end of the film is disgusting and degrading, but I didn't feel that this was inherent to his character. Nina has left her mark, Paulot becomes what he must be to have her. Nina is not "living life" in Paris, she is emotionally dead, and is making the same of others.

Surrounding her relationships is a storyline concerning a production of Romeo and Juiliet, its director, and a tragedy involving its previous stars. How this pertains to Nina is unclear, but the idea that "the sins (or tragedies rather) of the father will be visited on the son" comes to mind.

This film is not erotic, and Nina is not sexy. We see no evidence of her desires and there is not one loving or tender second in this movie. She runs head long into misery and sometimes can return it in kind. Ulitmately, she is a little girl who is destroyed by Paris. So what does the film want to portray? Utter despair and humiliation? How French!

I gave the movie 2 stars because I wasn't compelled to turn it off. While I didn't like the movie, and won't recommend it, I was still kept reasonably interested, and do like watching Juiliette Binoche. I hung on for some kind of redemtion, but it never came. I guess that would be too sentimental, or bourgeios. It's a shame, because I do like many French movies, and movies that do something unusual.

Rendez-Vous features a chubby adolescent Juliette Binoche before Leos carax modeled her for stardom. The movie is heavey but well worth viewing it will make you think, question reality truth and sexuality as well as entertain in a stragely voyeuristic way. Well worth a look!

Binoche as the sexual adventuress Nina, fresh to Paris from a small town in the provinces, does a terrific job of acting in this film, which is why I gave it three stars. The rest of the cast do their best to make something of this nonsensical film, but without Binoche it would merit only one star.

The plot is a rather unimaginative and shallow love-triangle, or perhaps quadrangle (it's not clear that Scrutzler [Jean-Louis Trintignant] is NOT sexually interested in her), with supernatural and pornographic overtones. Nina is clearly terrified of love, as are the other characters, and uses sex as a drug and as currency. The males Paulot and Quentin are attracted to her like flies to honey, but are frustrated and angered by her capriciousness. Nudity, pseudo-sex, and graphic violence are not exactly gratuitious, but they do not add weight to the plot, merely make the banality more offensive. Techine attempts to bring some intellectual depth to the piece by making Nina an aspiring actress in Scrutzler's new production of "Romeo and Juliet", but only succeeds in seeming pretentious and silly. The movie ends on a note of fashionably bizarre Euro-nihilism: Quentin is dead, but appears to Nina as a ghost; Paulot has requited his love for Nina in a nauseating "love" scene, and is disgusted by her; and Scrutzler disappears into the night just as Nina is set to appear on stage in her first big role as "Juliet". We last see Nina in tears, desperate, at the end of her rope, as her big chance dissolves in front of her eyes.

No wonder it got a prize at Cannes!

Paris is presented to us as deliberately dingy, I suppose in an attempt to be "artistic". The soundtrack is sugary, pretentious, and a little bizarre in the ugly context. The subtitles are intrusive, and not always faithful to the original French. The sex scenes are deliberately degrading and not at all erotic, in spite of Binoche's attractive young body. Brian McFarlane's adulatory "essay" in the accompanying program guide just compounds the offense.

It is often said that the French confuse sex with love. The films of Rohmer, Truffaut, Renoir, and others bely that canard, but Trechine seems intent on proving it. He did a decent job of presenting believable and interesting characters in "Ma Saison Preferee", but he fails miserably in "Rendez-vous". This is an ugly film.

If you like Binoche and are interested in her development as an actress, you may find some value in this film. It is otherwise very missable.

Rendez-vous is a beautiful, sexy, art-film. It won several prestigious
international awards and is critically acclaimed. Juliette Binoche is
completely uninhibited and gives a brave, fearless performance where
she bares herself completely...both emotionally and physically.

Thus, this film is not intended for the immature. Those with childish
minds who cannot handle looking at a beautiful woman's body (such as
feminists or other philistines) are advised to avoid this. Another
reviewer called it "pointless drivel" and complained about the
"gratuitous nudity". If seeing a woman's vagina is too much for the
immature mind of that viewer to handle, then their kind should avoid
high-art cinema such as this. Their kind would be better served watching
crude, low-brow gay-porn garbage, loosely disguised as "comedy", such as "Bruno". That type of film is more suited for those misandric simpletons who prefer looking at male genitalia. Those who appreciate complex,beautiful art and appreciate the female form will enjoy this.

Nina (Juliette Binoche) moves to Paris and she becomes the love
interest of three very different men and has tumultuous concurrent
relationships with each. Multiple plot and character lines develop from
this. This movie will challenge you and you'll find yourself pondering
some of the scenes days later. Highly recommended.

This is a movie to challenge our intellects as well as emotions.

The main protagainist is admirably played by Juliet Binoche who bares all, body and soul, in this French film.

It takes place following a rail journey which may be a metaphor for a journey through life or an assumption about someone's career choice. It emerges that Binoche's character is free spirited but who has an impact on everyone she comes into contact with.

As the plot unfolds with a dynanism which is hard to follow, the viewer is challenged to understand the levels of meaning and relationship which are thrown at you by the film. In seeking to understand what is going on the question one must ask is one of how we think and how we feel.

In some ways this is a very cerebral film, something Binoche retuns to in the exquisite Cache, yet in other ways this is a raw emotional film where passions run high and feelings are crucial.

Not something one can just see and move on to but a very worthwhile piece of art.

André Téchiné made this 1985 film RENDEZ-VOUS before his promising career was established, giving us such fine films as My Favorite Season, The Innocents, The Wild Reeds, Beach Café, Alice and Martin, etc. The sensitivity to character development is tightly wound in this work but some of the finesse that followed his later works is missing. In the end we are left wondering a bit about what happened to almost everyone.

Nina (Juliette Binoche in her first film role) has traveled to Paris from her small home in Toulouse to try her hand at acting and to live the wild life that has been unavailable to her in Toulouse. She beds nearly every man she encounters and acts bit parts in small theaters, barely eking out an existence. Tired of one night stands and sharing quarters with others, she sets out to find her own apartment, stopping in to a realtors office where she encounters Paulot (Wadeck Stanczak) who is immediately smitten with her sensual good looks and manner. Having no place to stay Nina agrees to spend a few days with Paulot in a flat shared with the hauntingly strange Quentin (Lambert Wilson). Nina is oddly attracted to Quentin and is somewhat put off by the fact that Quentin is an actor in a sex theater. We discover Quentin narrowly escaped death some time back when the actress playing Juliet to his Romeo was killed. Nina has an approach/avoidance conflict with Quentin, all the while fending off offers by the pathetic Paulot to care for her. Quentin is killed in a car accident, Nina meets the elderly director Scrutzler (Jean-Louis Trintignant in a splendid cameo role) who promises her the role of Juliet in his casting of the Shakespeare drama, and her career as an actress seems to be launched. Full of self doubt and fear stimulated by the ghost-like appearances of the dead Quentin, Nina prepares for the role, copes with Paulot's advances, shares a flat with him, and is finally left in the stage wings with her focus on becoming an actress challenged with her needs for physical and stable love. And we are left there.

Juliette Binoche is very fine in this her 'maiden voyage' and it is a happy finding that she is far more beautiful (as well as a far better actress) in her current more mature state. Lambert Wilson gives a fine performance, finding the line between lurid sexuality and lonely afterlife ghost a position he easily treads. The film definitely has moments but it is only a hint (and a strong one) of just what to expect from the gifted André Téchiné. Not bad for a twenty year old film! Grady Harp, November 06

This story is basically about a woman attracted by so many men besides her which end causes one cases of dying and others all left her in the end, especially the director whom ask her to act in Romeo and Juliet play left her.....see the movie if you wish to know more about it......recommended to those whom are interested in this genre of DVDfilm/movie......

Rendez-Vous


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