Paul and Agnes have been going out for quite a while and Agnes is shocked to learn that he'd rather live with two roommates on campus than move in with her. As soon as he meets one of his roommates, Louis-Anault, Paul's behavior changes - he is attracted to Louis without realizing so himself. Agnes, on the other hand, gets quite jealous and offers a bet: Whoever gets to have Louis-Anault first, wins... If she does, Paul will no longer explore his homosexual desires, if he does - she'll walk away. Meanwhile, Paul meets Mecir, a young Arab worker, who shows him there's more to life than elite colleges...
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Very best movie i ever watch
Beautiful, moving film.
The performances transcend the film's tropes, grounding it in characters that feel more complete than this subgenre often produces.
The acting in this movie is really good.
I rented this film and just felt compelled to have to comment on it. This is one of those rare gems that stays with you for days. You can't help to admire the beauty of the Paul and Louis as you wish they got together. The music and men in this film are fantastic. The nude scenes and love making scenes are so beautifully done you wish you could join them and never leave and I'm straight!!!. The women were strong in their role and intelligently written. Everything about this film was artistically and beautifully made. The vision of the director certainly jumps out at you and grips you to the end. On the down side the movie does portray the sorrow of having to deal with feelings that sometimes are beyond your control. I applaud the director for using this cinematic language to describe the gut wrenching hurt you can suffer when you love someone so much when specially they don't seem to feel the same for you. I shall highly receommend this film and it should be one that every film lover should have in their collection.
The title translates to "The Best of Schools," the school of life. This film really makes me wish I was fluent in French, including idioms and nuances that must be flowing every moment. Subtitles just can't cut it. But there's a great line in the film, which translates pretty well, I think: "You don't get it at all. Hetero, homo, all that's finished. It's outdated and it doesn't matter." In the "Making of..." feature, the director (Robert Salis) says, "...the theme is based on the notion of choice, or, actually, the disobeying of imposed choices...." and "crisscross desire" (which he insists is not the same as sex). He also said, "...it's like a dresser with drawers on top of one another. To find out the complete contents you have to open the drawers separately one after another." He does just that very skillfully.Needless to say, it's a complex film, with happy parts, sad parts, sex galore (men with women, and a man with a man), sexy men showing full frontal nudity, and all that. About halfway through, it felt exactly like "Maurice," (and Salis even mentioned that film in the "Making of..."), but then it changed to something totally different after that. This isn't a Gay film. It's a "men who have sex with men" film. "MSM" is a term sex researchers use because most men would never self-identify as Gay, but usually will privately admit if they've had sex with men.There's a lot more depth, but I'm not going to analyze it to death. Great movie! Watch it. Don't watch the trailer or the "Making of..." or anything else first though.Back to "desire": Salis'closing line in the "Making of..." is, "There's only love and the lack of love. And desire naturally goes hand in hand with the lack and nourishes itself." I think I'll have to watch the movie all over again now to understand that.
I think that this movie is a kind of modern version of Maurice, the love from the upper class for the lower class is now transformed to a theme of this century. I liked the set and the story. Especially the start in Carcasonne is amazing, really beautiful castle with the fireworks. The script can be understand by a lot of people. To study for the first time and have roommates to cope with and fall in love. The complexity of this upper school and what this does to your feelings derives perfect from this movie. Being in love with a woman and then discover your other feelings, very realistic. The music is also good. I can recommend this movie to everybody. I only think the poster does not cover the story. It does not give the right impression.
The production values aren't the best in this film, but one rarely expects better of a film festival entry. Seeing beyond that is what festival fare is all about, in my opinion.Tha said, I was easily taken in by Paul and his emotional struggle. At first, I was put off by the ambivalent and quirky behavior of Paul and the others, but I began to recognize that this was a representation of the nuances of real life, as opposed to the packaged fare that Hollywood usually dishes out. What another reviewer found confusing to me was an invitation to get inside the heads of characters who, like real people, weren't exactly sure what they wanted or who they were trying to be.The relationships were complex and yes, frustrating to figure out at times. But the acting was good--complexity is mush harder to convey than the broad-brush emotion that Hollywood paints larger than life. I loved Mecir--superbly acted--his earnestness nearly brought me to tears. I thought the ultimate outcome of Paul's relationship with him (and with Agnes) mirrored real life as well. And just when I thought Arnault was a shallow caricature, the character surprised me with intelligence (if cynical) and depth.I agree that the third roommate (name?) disappeared mysteriously in the middle of the film; it had seemed he would play a greater role at the outset. The peripheral characters were neither well developed nor exceptionally acted, but are no reason to dis the film.The film was marred for me by the extremely self-conscious and forced 3-minute conversation near the end about class struggle, corporate greed, etc. I liked these themes in the film, but this Cliff-Notes style summation was so artificial that I--and the audience I was with--laughed out loud at every pontification, each more hysterical than the last. My immediate comment was "it's like a French parody of the French!" Profound thoughts and deep convictions, spewed with piercing emotion--ultimately lasting as long as a cigarette and washed away with a glass of Bordeaux.Except for that camp exchange, I very much enjoyed the movie and would see it again.