A Nos Amours [2 Discs] [Criterion Collection]

MOVIE DESCRIPTION:

Director, co-writer, and star Maurice Pialat brought his typically unblinking New Wave style and interest in socially aberrant behavior to this psychological drama, winner of two Cesars (the French equivalent of the Oscar) for Best Film and Most Promising Young Actress (Sondrine Bonnaire). Bonnaire plays Suzanne, a 15-year-old girl who has become sexually promiscuous with anyone who will have her, despite her lack of affection for any of her lovers. The only boy she refuses is Luc (Cyr Boitard), whose feelings for Suzanne are sincere. When Suzanne's beloved father (Pialat) abandons his increasingly neurotic wife (Evelyne Ker), Suzanne's depression and lack of direction deepen. While her mother becomes a screeching mental case, her brother Robert (Dominique Besnehard) begins beating her, although he also harbors a disturbing attraction to Suzanne. In the denouement, Pialat depicts the devastating long-term results of Suzanne's abusive upbringing. Pialat draws powerful performances from his cast, with no finer example than the riveting acting Bonnaire -- in only her second film. ~ Karl Williams, All Movie Guide

DVD FEATURES:

• Region: 1
• Number of Discs: 2
• Aspect Ratio: 1.66:1 (Vistavision)
• Audio: Dolby Digital Mono
• Screen: Color, Enhanced Wide Screen Letterbox for 16x9 TV
• Subtitle: English
• Features:
  • New, restored high-definition digital transfer
  • Original theatrical trailer
  • New and improved English subtitle translation
  • The Human Eye, a 1999 documentary on the film
  • Archival interview with Maurice Pialat on the set
  • A 2003 interview with Maurice Pialat on the set
  • A 2003 interview with Sandrine Bonnaire
  • New interviews with filmmakers Catherine Breillat and Jean-Pierre Gorin
  • Actor auditions
  • Plus: a booklet featuring essays by critics Molly Haskell and Kent Jones and interviews with Pialat and cinematographer Jacques Loiseleux

AWARDS

• French Academy of Cinema

•     Won Best Picture - 1983 (Maurice Pialat)
•     Won Most Promising Young Actress - 1983 (Sandrine Bonnaire)

• French Film Critics Circle

•     Won Prix Louis-Delluc - 1983 (Maurice Pialat)

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION:

• Cast:

  
       Sandrine Bonnaire - Suzanne
       Maurice Pialat - Father
       Dominique Besnehard - Robert
       Evelyne Ker - The Mother
       Anne-Sophie Maillé - Anne

• Director:

  Maurice Pialat

• Producer:

  Daniel Toscan du Plantier

• Screenwriter:

  Arlette Langmann, Maurice Pialat

• Cinematographer:

  Jacques Loiseleux

• Featured Music:

  Henry Purcell

• Editor:

  Valerie Condroyer, Sophie Coussein, Yan Dedet, Jean Gargonne, Corinne Lazare, Catherine Legault, Nathalie Letrosne

• Production Designer:

  Jean-Paul Camail, Arlette Langmann

REVIEWS:

• {$Maurice Pialat} elicited an award-winning performance from fledgling actress {$Sandrine Bonnaire} in this brilliantly penetrating examination of the life of an unhappy teenaged girl. Near the end of the film, {$Pialat}, who also plays the father of this girl who seems so incapable of love, says to her, "Some can love." "Not many," she replies, echoing {$Freud}'s saturnine assessment of the human race. The director eschews conventional dramatic structure, opting instead to carve out a cross-section of moments in the life of his heroine so fresh as to seem improvised. Except for the boy who loves her, the magnetically attractive 16-year-old {%Suzanne} ({$Bonnaire}) is on a mission to have sex with any male who interests her. She enjoys flaunting her sexual powers, yet, unable to become emotionally involved with any boy, she becomes increasingly more depressed. In what may seem a conservative but not implausible take on her angst, the film begins to connect it with her family's slow disintegration. Her mother ({$Evelyne Ker}), a raving, puritanical hysteric, mercilessly abuses the girl for her behavior, with the help of her like-minded brother. Although only the tip of the iceberg is revealed, it's no surprise that her more temperate father, who is also the girl's confidant, is leaving the family for another woman. In a startling pre-wedding scene which offers a sliver of perspective on these clouded relationships, {$Pialat} seems to assure the family's demise. At the film's end, nothing about this girl is clearer than it was at the beginning, yet one has an abiding feeling that she's been sentenced to an emotional gulag. ~ Michael Costello, All Movie Guide
• Maurice Pialat elicited an award-winning performance from fledgling actress Sandrine Bonnaire in this brilliantly penetrating examination of the life of an unhappy teenaged girl. Near the end of the film, Pialat, who also plays the father of this girl who seems so incapable of love, says to her, "Some can love." "Not many," she replies, echoing Freud's saturnine assessment of the human race. The director eschews conventional dramatic structure, opting instead to carve out a cross-section of moments in the life of his heroine so fresh as to seem improvised. Except for the boy who loves her, the magnetically attractive 16-year-old Suzanne (Bonnaire) is on a mission to have sex with any male who interests her. She enjoys flaunting her sexual powers, yet, unable to become emotionally involved with any boy, she becomes increasingly more depressed. In what may seem a conservative but not implausible take on her angst, the film begins to connect it with her family's slow disintegration. Her mother (Evelyne Ker), a raving, puritanical hysteric, mercilessly abuses the girl for her behavior, with the help of her like-minded brother. Although only the tip of the iceberg is revealed, it's no surprise that her more temperate father, who is also the girl's confidant, is leaving the family for another woman. In a startling pre-wedding scene which offers a sliver of perspective on these clouded relationships, Pialat seems to assure the family's demise. At the film's end, nothing about this girl is clearer than it was at the beginning, yet one has an abiding feeling that she's been sentenced to an emotional gulag. ~ Michael Costello, All Movie Guide

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