8 Women
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Movie Reviews of 8 Women
Movie Review: A classic film noir
Summary: 5 Stars
This is one of the finest french movies that I was able to enjoy in the last couple of years. It is a must see!!!Movie Review: Les Femmes Françaises
Summary: 4 Stars
When it comes to French women on film, the only sure bet is that they aren't what they appear on the surface. And it's not just in controversial genre-benders like recently acclaimed French flicks Amelie or the sadomasochistic tour-de-force, The Piano Teacher. Sure, they can sizzle with sheer physical oomph on-screen. But unlike their more physically endowed, brasher and brighter Hollywood counterparts, the French diva is more well-rounded in terms of repertoire and emotional sophistication. And it pays off cinematically. In 8 Women (8 Femmes), the reigning divas of French cinema converge on a genre-bending murder mystery musical, and ham it up with convincing panache and verve amid hyper-glam `50s costumes and sets. There's a cracking plot, but the film is more a tongue-in-chic tribute to la femme francaise in all her varied plummage.
François Ozon's campy murder mystery romp is less an ensemble performance than a simultaneous showcase for top divas (down to the lighting, painstakingly arranged so as to favour ALL of the leads equally on screen). It has all the archetypal caricatures out on display: The seductive femme fatale in blazing scarlet. The demur housemaid with a gift for service. The elegant mistress of the house. The dutiful catholic schoolgirl and her free-spirited sunny younger sister. The spinster aunt. The kindly crone grandma. Yet delightfully, each of these silver screen sirens hides a secret so powerful it threatens to disrupt the delicate balance of power in the household, while the notional patriarch, Marcel, is noticeable only by his absence. As the murder victim, his sole relevance is as the object of a internecine and feminine intrigue over his wealth and affections.
The artifice of 8 Women may be self-conscious, but it's still a sheer delight watching the most eminent French actresses of the age ham it up on screen. It's their aplomb, cool intelligence and sheer force of character on screen that prevents high camp from collapsing into farce. As if to demonstrate her dramatic versatility, Isabelle Huppert, who won high acclaim for her charged performance in the title role as the Piano Teacher, once again steals the show - this time as the uptight spinster sister-in-law, sending up the stern, stone-faced roles she tends to take on. She remains completely convincing once her character undergoes a dramatic makeover near the end of the film. It's a real pity that each character's individual musical monologues (in which much of their inner landscape is revealed through song and dance) have not been translated.
So what is it about la femme française that shines onscreen? It's not exactly the looks - few of these celebrated divas (with perhaps the exception of pouty Emmanuelle Béart who plays the buxome housemaid) are classically attractive dames in the Hollywood sense. Yet they bring to the screen that rarest of pleasures: mystique -- the fascinating countenance and intriguing smile beneath which a thousand secrets are concealed.
Movie Review: A brilliant whodunit
Summary: 4 Stars
Those who liked Gosford Park and The Sleuth will certainly like this flick. This movie is an interesting whodunit and styled on a stage play more than a movie and with absolutely no nudity. Must say, this is very rare for a French film.
The entire movie setting is in one house, belonging to Marcel. Marcel lives with his wife, Gaby, his two daughters (Catherine and Suzan), his invalid mother-in-law (Mamy) and his sister-in-law (Augustine). The staff comprises two maids - Chanel (an amazon woman, much like Mammy in Gone With The Wind) and Louise (a good looking young woman). Thus, there are 7 women living in the house. The 8th woman is Marcel's sister, Pierrette, who lives in the neighbourhood and whom no one in the family likes; appears she is promiscuous.
The movie begins with Marcel being found in his bed with a knife stuck in his back. The phone lines are dead, the gates of the mansion are closed and it's snowing terribly. Hence, all the 7 women are trapped in the house and are not able to get out even to call the police. Because the dogs did not bark all night and even in the morning, the 7 women come to the conclusion that one of them is the killer. What ensues are conversations amongst these women that tell their secrets - and each of them have some (not just one!). Of course, someone (a woman) had also telephoned Pierrette to tell her that her brother has been murdered; she drops by (with a lift from a baker) to ask if this was true. Thus, all 8 women gather in the same house, each suspecting each other of murder and all working towards proving it.
The plot thickens when secrets are slowly revealed; there are a lot of secrets that cross the paths of these women as well and have nothing to do with Marcel, per se.
The end is twisted and well made. I was impressed by the fact that it actually had a logical conclusion. Of course, I am going to keep the suspense going and not reveal the end in the hope that you all watch the movie!
Although the story is a bit complicate in terms of its inter-linkages, it is precisely this that makes it very interesting. The characters do break into songs periodically (5% of the show time), but that is only a way of introducing a perspective of that particular character. The musical style has been used tastefully and does not come across has jarring to the viewer. All-in-all, a really good whodunit - you will not be disappointed.
Movie Review: Farcical who done it with chanson
Summary: 4 Stars
This farcical "who done it" is funny, absurd, campish, and silly all at the same time. Starring a kind of premiere selection of leading ladies of the French cinema, 8 femmes reminds me of similar tongue-in-cheek "who done its" such as Agatha Christie's Ten Little Indians and especially Neil Simon's Murder by Death.
Adapted from the play by Robert Thomas, which accounts for the stage play feel to the production, this one begins--as a proper murder mystery might--with a murder in a well-appointed house out in the country. Somehow everyone is stranded there and of course under suspicion. While Neil Simon made fun of detectives in Murder by Death, and Agatha Christie made fun of murder, period, here the fun is on the players themselves. What follows, as all point fingers away from themselves, is a whole lot of dirty laundry and closet skeletons being tossed about.
The scandalous revelations, including interracial lesbianism, same- and heterosexual incest, etc., are particularly ironic since the film is set in the staid fifties. (Note Suzon's pink/orange pony skirt.) To quote a line from the film, "it's a sad family affair" played for laughs with a kind of absurdist delight. Yet, there is no nudity or anything resembling sexual titillation anywhere in the film. Strange.
In another sense this is a celebration of some of the French cinema's leading ladies who get to strut their stuff and play it for laughs.
Catherine Deneuve heads the cast as Gaby the wife of the murdered. She looks stately, beautiful and more than a bit spoiled. Danielle Darrieux at 85 steals a few scenes as the mother, Mamy. Isabelle Huppert makes herself into a neurotic, dotty old maid named Augustine while Emmanuelle Beart plays Louise, the sexy maid. Fanny Ardant is Pierrette, Gaby's scandalous sister-in-law. The cast takes turns doing lightweight song and dance numbers which tends to fluff out the production in a sweet fifties-ish way. In a kind of gender joke, no men appear in the movie, although we do see the back of Marcel (Gaby's husband) a couple of times.
You will not be able to guess who done it, but I will not tell you why.
See this for Danielle Darrieux, one the grande dames of the French cinema whose film credits go back to 1931--yes, 1931. She has a lot of fun in a juicy part.
Movie Review: Whatever you do, don't take this film seriously!
Summary: 4 Stars
The creme de la creme of France's glamorous dramatic actresses have been brought together in this murder mystery in which all manner of sordid family secrets are revealed.Who'd have thought such a premise could be so funny?
With 8 Women, director François Ozon crafts a brilliant satire of the old drawing-room murder mysteries, and fills it with a giddy, campy glee. All the characters are stock stereotypes, the plot twists grow more and more convoluted until they start contradicting each other, and the actresses perform the tongue-in-cheek dialogue with almost melodramatic seriousness.
And each of them gets a song.
It's very clear here everyone's having fun, especially Isabelle Huppert, Fanny Ardant, and Virginie Ledoyen, who get to make fun of the deadly serious roles they're known for (such as in The Piano Teacher, Elizabeth, and A Single Girl, respectively). Ludivine Sagnier, who is both frightening and scorchingly sexy in Ozon's more recent film Swimming Pool, is the exact opposite here: the young, bouncy, innocent daughter who seems to wear her mind on her sleeve.
Sets and costumes are bright and lush, like they were back in the day when color in film was a novelty. The songs are a delight: diverse, character-appropriate, and irretrievably French. And while all eight actresses really sing their songs, Ozon adds to the campy fun by having each actress lip-synch to her own voice while engaging in the kind of cheesy choreography one expects from cinematic song-breaks (Sagnier's "Papa T'Es Plus Dans l'Coup" is probably the best example of this).
My only real complaint is with the DVD itself. There are no special features (the French DVD has interviews, behind-the-scenes stuff, and more), the English subtitles are irremovable, and French subtitles aren't even offered. The chapter breaks are awkward; a couple even cut into the beginning of songs. I got the feeling that the folks at Universal just didn't care enough about the film to give it the DVD treatment it deserves.
I highly recommend this film, but remember: despite the previews and the all-star cast, don't expect for a minute that this is a serious movie. Think of it more like "What if the French had made Clue".