The Age of Commercialism

I don't have all the words right now but this film is a work of art.

It’s not bad or unwatchable but despite the amplitude of the spectacle, the end result is underwhelming.

It’s sentimental, ridiculously long and only occasionally funny

Ozon made this film from an early play by Fassbinder. It's an intense and claustrophobic love story—the whole thing happens inside an apartment—in Germany in the 1970s. Ozon divides it into acts, the first of which shows Léopold (Bernard Giraudeau), a handsome and assertive businessman in his 50s, talking to a young man, Franz (Malik Zidi). The conversation becomes a seduction, and they go to bed, enacting a dream Franz had, an enactment that recurs several times, with variations. Then they've been lovers for months, and though the affection and attraction persists, there's a destructive element in Léopold that shows up as restless discontent and mean-spirited bickering. Nothing Franz does is right, and though he wants to leave he is still in love. While Léopold is away on a business trip Franz's old girlfriend Anna (Ludivine Sagnier) shows up, and she brings some sunlight into the dark rooms of the flat, with her beauty, her optimism, her loving plans for a future with Franz, her joy in lovemaking—as well as the fact that she opens the curtains. Franz almost stops moping, but then Léopold returns. The movie almost descends into farce as Anna finds Léopold attractive, and then Léopold's former girlfriend Vera (Anna Thomson) arrives. When Léopold proposes a menage à quatre, the girls run giggling to the bedroom, but lags behind, telling Léopold, "You don't need me." He answers, "But you need me." As Léopold and Anna have some vigorous sex, Vera steals away, feeling superfluous, and she sits beside Franz on the floor and tells him her story. Nothing, not even a sex change, was enough to maintain Léopold's desire, and though he abandoned her and treated cruelly then and now, she says "I'm his creature." Franz, too, is his creature, and he's dying—he's taken poison. Weirdly, he calls his mother and has a brief, matter-of-fact conversation letting her know what's happening, and then he dies. Léopold seems just as unperturbed, and goes back to bed with the weeping Anna. Vera tries to open the apartment window but it's stuck. We see her standing, head down, weeping, her hands pressed against the glass as if trying to escape a trap.Although much of it is dark, the colours and photography are impressive, as is the acting of all four characters. Giraudeau delivers a fine mixture of sleekness, power, affection, and selfishness, while Zidi's part is also a mixture—of a kind of neo-existentialist disaffection (he likes to say things don't mean much to him), innocence, and injured affection. Thomson is surprisingly powerful in her one big scene, when Vera tells Franz her story. Sagnier is quite wonderful, very young-looking, fresh, with that husky voice and that gorgeous body Ozon loves to film. While there's no graphic representation of sex acts here, there's a lot of sex, mostly as it begins but also one or two brief scenes in the process.Over all, the movie appears to be a story of the heartlessness and destruction at the core of some relationships, or at the core of some people it is dangerous to love at the same time that it is impossible not to love them. Very sad.

François Ozon has flair and style ('Swimming Pool', 'Under the Sand', '8 Women', etc) and in scripting Rainer Fassbinder's 1970s play 'Gouttes d'eau sur pierres brûlantes' for the screen he has created an edgy, fun, and poignant examination of the lives of four people at their intersection.Act I (for that is the way the film is laid out in homage to Fassbinder's play): 50-year-old Léopold (Bernard Giraudeau) is entertaining 19-year-old Franz (Malik Zidi), who he has picked up in a bar, with sharp repartees about his past loves and is sparred by Franz relating his current affair with the young and beautiful Anna (Ludivine Sagnier). The conversation gradually gets around to seduction and both Léopold and Franz happily reenact each other's physical fantasies. Act II: some months later and Franz has moved in with Léopold becoming the devoted housewife in lederhosen to Léopold's increasingly cranky self. They argue, threaten, but eventually succumb to the safety of the boudoir to settle differences. Act III: Léopold's ex lover Vera (Anna Levine) arrives at the door to find Léopold in a new life and departs brokenhearted. Anna likewise arrives during one of Léopold's absences and for two days Franz and Anna try to recapture their previous affair. Upon Léopold's return, Anna finds Léopold appealing and behaves seductively. Vera arrives, reports that she is a transsexual now in a female form, and Léopold is delighted with the idea of a ménage a quarte. But it is Franz who has found his true life and love and how he deals with the proposed turn of events forms the rather surprising end to this film.Each of the four actors is excellent and Ozon paces them well. There are some really fine moments, as when Franz reclines in his bath quoting Heine's poem 'Lorelei' revealing how far more penetrating the changes in his vision of his life really have become, when Ozon improves on Fassbinder. Not a great movie but a bit of the different that spices movie viewing. Grady Harp

After the original but distressing "les amants criminels", François Ozon decided to adapt a German play. The action takes place in Germany during the seventies. A flat is the sole scenerie and the movie focuses on an homosexual love affair between 2 characters: a fifty year-old man and a student. François Ozon films their love life with reserve and discretion and confirms his skill of making.This is a movie that is worth for its clever dialogs and especially its outstanding performance. Bernard Giraudeau dominates the cast. An important part of the movie rests on his shoulders. François Ozon's movie is also a reflection about love and sexual desire. On the other hand, I think that the end of the movie is rather unsuccessful, from the moment when Giraudeau comes back in the flat with a friend of his. The sequence where the 4 characters are dancing on a disco music is particularly laughable. Apart from this, a smart movie that skilfully avoids filmed stage production

I wasn't prepared for this one. I expected to view a "normal" movie ... but this wasn't one of them.It is an adaptation of a teather piece, and all the action takes place in a apartment.During the first three acts I was a bit stirred by the open showed homosex situation between the lad and the man, and I thought i was to give to this movie a 2/10 vote.But I have to admit that the dialogues between the two characters, (deliberately stirring and oscillating between drama, satire and paradox), are well done.When the girl and the woman enter the scene, the movie turns into total paradox till the paradoxal ending.It starts almost like a reality movie, but it is all except a reality movie.It's a black drama with satire and paradoxes, that revolves around the profound (and, to me, degradating and disgusting) effects that sex can have on people.Not for all tastes.Vote 5/10