Average Reviews:
(More customer reviews)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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SWIMMING POOL - DVD Movie
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