The directing is flawless and very interesting, although you always wonder where the director drives at in this scheme where a man, looking like a hired gunman - and certainly not a perverse - takes a beautiful woman as a sort of hostage. But this is not a two people movie, two people alone in a flat. That's only for the first part. The overall film could although have been a stage play, theatre. I don't understand why this feature was not widely released, at least since 1967. Bruno Cremer was not a great actor in this time, but he became since. This is not a boring film, but it could be a short film. I am also afraid that many viewers found many things unexplained in this more than weird movie. But worth watching.
2 Reviews
simple plot, until the end
deanmonti15 July 2022
Warning: Spoilers
This French film is not a well-known or widely-released although it does have two outstanding actors -- Swedish star Bibi Andersson (looking amazing and speaking fluent French) and Bruno Cremer.
Taking the narrative of the first hour of the film at face value, a woman lets a man into her apartment. The man takes the woman hostage. She's told that her husband is in danger but if she complies with the man, she will not be harmed. It is notable (in retrospect) that she never seems as terrified as one might expect. The man receives a phone call every hour to, presumably, make sure all is going smoothly. We don't know who is making the calls. It seems the audience is being set up for a hostage intrigue film, but it veers off into something very different.
For the first hour, they play a cat and mouse game. He ungags her. He unties her on a few occasions so that she can cook for her and so that she can, um... read to him from books in her apartment.
Here come the big spoilers. Inevitably, they do go to bed together, but it's at her insistence. Not his. This is the first of many clues in the film that suggest things are not as they seem. Maybe a fantasy on her part being played out? It would seem.
By the end of the film, when the intruder turns out to be not a stranger, but one of the evening's dinner guests, and it appears the husband was never in danger, we are left to wonder how much is real, and how much has been imagined. It's possibly she's fantasized everything (and/or that we have been watching what *will* happen rather than what *has* happened. Or, more likely, that it happens frequently.
A notable scene is where where she is "compelled" to read to him. It's an odd request for a captor, to say the least. He chooses books from her shelf and seems to be able to find passages quickly, and the books are noticeably dog-earred, suggesting that these books have been opened to these pages many times before. During this same scene the camera pans 360 degrees and we see Bibi Andersson (unbound) reading the book in various places in the apartment -- sitting, standing. Again, it seems to be saying that this scene has played out between them many times before.
And then there's that photo of Bibi Andersson in the pool that is revisited often enough to make you wonder much more about it. Namely, if he was there when the photo was taken. I think he was. I like that I'm never told for sure.
Throughout most of the film, his actions are atypical of a captor (although he has a gun and fires it once, he rarely seems threatening and never makes her undress. Nor does he hit her). And her actions are atypical of a captive (she rarely seems terrified, she speaks her mind freely). Which all keeps the film interesting.
The film is well-directed and despite the fact that little happens in the first hour beyond what I've described, it remains engaging.
Whether it's all in her mind, or a tryst that occurs often, that's left to the unknown, right up to the end. And here, I liked that mystery and all the other little unanswered details. In another director's hands, or with other actors, it might not work, but it all comes together here.
Definitely worth watching (and perhaps re-watching) to ponder these questions. A good late 60s French art film to blow your mind, to be sure.
Taking the narrative of the first hour of the film at face value, a woman lets a man into her apartment. The man takes the woman hostage. She's told that her husband is in danger but if she complies with the man, she will not be harmed. It is notable (in retrospect) that she never seems as terrified as one might expect. The man receives a phone call every hour to, presumably, make sure all is going smoothly. We don't know who is making the calls. It seems the audience is being set up for a hostage intrigue film, but it veers off into something very different.
For the first hour, they play a cat and mouse game. He ungags her. He unties her on a few occasions so that she can cook for her and so that she can, um... read to him from books in her apartment.
Here come the big spoilers. Inevitably, they do go to bed together, but it's at her insistence. Not his. This is the first of many clues in the film that suggest things are not as they seem. Maybe a fantasy on her part being played out? It would seem.
By the end of the film, when the intruder turns out to be not a stranger, but one of the evening's dinner guests, and it appears the husband was never in danger, we are left to wonder how much is real, and how much has been imagined. It's possibly she's fantasized everything (and/or that we have been watching what *will* happen rather than what *has* happened. Or, more likely, that it happens frequently.
A notable scene is where where she is "compelled" to read to him. It's an odd request for a captor, to say the least. He chooses books from her shelf and seems to be able to find passages quickly, and the books are noticeably dog-earred, suggesting that these books have been opened to these pages many times before. During this same scene the camera pans 360 degrees and we see Bibi Andersson (unbound) reading the book in various places in the apartment -- sitting, standing. Again, it seems to be saying that this scene has played out between them many times before.
And then there's that photo of Bibi Andersson in the pool that is revisited often enough to make you wonder much more about it. Namely, if he was there when the photo was taken. I think he was. I like that I'm never told for sure.
Throughout most of the film, his actions are atypical of a captor (although he has a gun and fires it once, he rarely seems threatening and never makes her undress. Nor does he hit her). And her actions are atypical of a captive (she rarely seems terrified, she speaks her mind freely). Which all keeps the film interesting.
The film is well-directed and despite the fact that little happens in the first hour beyond what I've described, it remains engaging.
Whether it's all in her mind, or a tryst that occurs often, that's left to the unknown, right up to the end. And here, I liked that mystery and all the other little unanswered details. In another director's hands, or with other actors, it might not work, but it all comes together here.
Definitely worth watching (and perhaps re-watching) to ponder these questions. A good late 60s French art film to blow your mind, to be sure.
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