Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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581 of 641 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
tension and eroticism is experienced through the eyes, August 8, 2003
This film creeps up on you and is absolutely spellbinding. It's the simple story of an aging mass-market crime-fiction writer called Sarah Morton (Charlotte Rampling) who rambles off to the French countryside to find relaxation and hopefully inspiration for her next-in-the-series mystery book. While staying at her publisher's luxurious yet quaint summer retreat, she is confronted by his young daughter Julie (Ludivine Sagnier). Subsequently, all sorts of wild, unpredictable mischief ensues as the prim and proper Englishwoman clashes with the sexually carefree vixen, who evolves into an unexpected muse to the older woman. My pal Oscar and I have spent the summer watching a number of French films, and one thing we both have learned and agree on is that for the most part, unlike most mainstream American films, they are mostly unpredictable. SWIMMING POOL is no different. Just when I thought I had it figured out, a number of odd plot twists move the narrative down an unsettling and unforgiving path until a sensitive and poignant ending reveals tragic truths about life, getting old, and the whimsy of youth that can be difficult for the young to face but which in many ways are empowering to those getting on in the years. If the film instructs anywhere, it is in the wisdom that we are only as old as we feel. Expect tantalizingly erotic moments, mostly surrounding Ms. Sagnier's natural sensuality. There's plenty of eye-candy here, and in the viewing, one cannot help but feel strangely connected to the voyeuristic tendencies exhibited by Sarah as her dismal stoicism slowly disintegrates. Indeed, much of the film's tension and eroticism is experienced through the characters' eyes. Ernest Hemingway said, "I like to listen. I have learned a great deal from listening carefully. Most people never listen." Surely the realm of the author is also to look, and more importantly, to see, as sharply illustrated by Sarah Morton's experience. In the end, her book may be the better for it -- to the possible chagrin of her publisher. Thus in some way, the film has much to say about the way literature is produced (through a "sexual" creative act) and how authors are oft times stripped of soul, reduced to rote formula, marketed, sold and neglected in pursuit of the next best selling author down the pike. In the film, Sarah attempts to transcend this trend through her collision with the young Julie (and in her fictional portrayal in the book she is writing). Expect to be somewhat dismayed by the ending, but give it a moment, put the pieces together and it will all make sense. It's shear pleasure to enjoy a film these days that doesn't fill in the blanks for the audience, and this little gem is a clear winner. The fine acting betrays the taint of sentimentality. The sublime beauty and vivid verisimilitude of the setting and cinematography enhance the overall cinematic experience, and in more than one instance will leave the viewer breathless. Some might complain that the film seems to meander, but this is true of many French films I've seen. This one is no different. Rather than commit to a rigid narrative form, the film appears more like a painting, with rich textures and colors folded onto the canvas in layers. Each scene builds on the last, every moment touches the next. The film is an experience as much as it is a story.
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35 of 38 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Just a theory, September 13, 2003
By A Customer
A theory: The writer made up the whole story. She does indeed take the house in France, and maybe makes phone calls to the editor, which he ignores, but staring at the swimming pool from her window gives her another idea for a book. I think she's sick of herself, her books and her readers. (Think of her reaction in the editor's office when the other author says his mother can't wait for her next book. Also on the subway she doesn't acknowledge that she's the author of the book the pudgy middle-aged lady is reading.) In my opinion, the characters: Julie, the waiter, all those men; the situation: the murder, the diary, the story of Julie's mother, the editor as a libertine - all made up. She includes herself in the story, acts it out in her mind, and what we see is the acting out. She'd rather be the person she portrays herself as. Know what I mean? She makes herself sexier and more attractive (remember how pleased she was that the waiter preferred her to Julie?). She makes herself clever and heroic when she helps Julie cover up her crime. She makes herself more maternal when she comforts Julie and understands the loss of her mother. Julie trusts her even when she finds out she's read her diary. I think she's miffed at her editor over perceived slights and doesn't think he respects her talents except in a limited way. Even in the end, she's very pleased with her new book and knows it's her best by far, but he likes the steady cash cow. She knew he would which is why she gave it to another publisher, although she'll give him her next Inspector So & So book. The biggest clue to me was at the end in the editor's office. He's read the book and although he doesn't care for it, is not upset or furious which he would have been if it had really been about his daughter; if he had recognized himself as the creepy, absent father, and included his wife's story, which he supposedly had read and thought was destroyed. He doesn't react because he doesn't see any resemblance between himself and the people in her story because there is none. And of course in walks cute, pudgy little Julia, and by the way they greet each other you know there's a good relationship between them.
The author looking puzzled at the end is either a ploy to throw us off, or her musing for a moment on the contrast between her Julie and his Julia.
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180 of 216 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Pool of Blood, July 4, 2003
Intelligent, expertly written, extremely well acted and story-lined for the adults, "The Swimming Pool" is Francois Ozon's first film in English. Ozon has no trouble maneuvering his way around and into a difficult, non-linear story, especially after seeing his "Under the Sand" and "8 Women." And he proves it once again here.
Charlotte Rampling plays Sarah Morton, a successful English detective novelist who is experiencing a bad case of writer's block. Her publisher, John Bosload (Charles Dance) offers her his French Country home for a vacation to re-energize her writing juices. And it works as Sarah begins a new book. But then Bosloads daughter Julie (Ludivine Sagnier) shows up with the nubile sex appeal of a young Brigitte Bardot. And basically all hell breaks loose.
In her early scenes with Bosload, Rampling plays Sarah with an outward cool, yet it is obvious she is repressing a strong attraction to him. At this point Rampling is the picture of English spinsterhood: all bottled up in a buttoned to the neck cardigan and cinched up in sensible shoes. But when Julie arrives on the scene with her gorgeous, hair, eyes and body, Sarah cannot help herself it seems as she spews a ghastly amount of venom on her. For Sarah, Julie is not only a disturbance; she's an interloper, not only of her writing but also of her placid, solitary life. Julie is alive, vibrant, and outwardly sexual: all the things that Sarah isn't. It is reminiscent of those nature films in which the reigning, older Lioness must prove her superiority by clawing and humiliating the younger Lioness. Both Rampling and Sagnier go at each other in such a fury and with such conviction that you can feel the undeniable and tangible heat of all the passion, hate and jealousy emanating from their scenes together.
Ozon calls upon several other films for inspiration but as Sarah becomes more interested in Julie as a subject for a book, he calls upon Bergman and specifically "Persona"
and it's story of transferred personalities and character traits.
"The Swimming Pool" is a sly, immensely enjoyable yet persuasively adult film. It is also a testament to the sterling talents of Francois Ozon, Charlotte Rampling and Ludivine Sagnier.
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