Reviews (8)

Lots of Silly Fun!
The whole premise behind the 570 musketeer films that have been released thus far (Dec. 2003) is pretty flimsy, and the premise behind this one is among the flimsiest. BUT--for people who like to watch adventure-comedies in which beautiful women kick butt, this belongs on your shelf beside the CHARLIE'S ANGELS films. The chief advantage this film has over other members of this genre is that it stars the ever-adorable Sophie Marceau. We get to see her fence with evil-doers and have a tender moment or two with her aging father, the famous D'Artagnan. The script is better than average, and the film contains many other scenes that are enjoyable in various ways. Finally, if you happen to like "musketeer films," this one is far better than the half dozen big-budget productions that have come out of Hollywood in the past few years. (Sorry, Leonardo. Yours stank, despite its high-powered cast.)

Revenge of the Musketeers
The comic tone of the film disappointed me. I adore Sophie Marceau, but her talent was unnecessary for this piece. And the needless breast-bearing was insulting. Comedy should be used to tell the story in period films - not be the story. I should have suspected something foul from a film francais with an English title.

Marceau Carries The Day
The spirit of Dumas is alive and well as D'Artagnan and his three legendary companions regroup and once again go forth in defense of the Crown in "Revenge of the Musketeers," directed by Bertrand Tavernier. This time around, however, it's D'Artagnan's daughter, Eloise (Sophie Marceau), who sounds the alarm after witnessing a cold-blooded murder at the convent she has called home these many years, having been raised there while her father was off on one adventure after another in service to the King. And it's the King for whom Eloise is concerned; in the wake of the murder, she has uncovered a conspiracy to assassinate the about-to-be-crowned Louis XIV during his coronation. Her evidence is a cryptic message discovered among the personal effects of the recently deceased resident of the convent. So throwing caution to the wind, Eloise takes to horseback, alone, to seek out her father and inform him of this threat to France and the King. What she doesn't know is that D'Artagnan (Philippe Noiret) has recently withdrawn from the service of the King, and not by his own choosing. It seems that the King-to-be is something of an upstart, the fact of which D'Artagnan conveyed to him personally-- in no uncertain terms-- after which the now former Musketeer retired to private life to give lessons in the art of swordsmanship. All of which is about to change with the arrival of the daughter he hasn't seen for many years, and who to his knowledge is still safely ensconced in the convent.

To successfully present yet another episode of "The Three Musketeers," it must have that certain sense of bold carelessness born of confidence and larger-than-life adventure, and Tavernier's film has it. Though it takes a couple of scenes to find it's legs after an intense opening that makes you sit up and take notice, when it finally kicks in (which it does fairly quickly) it becomes a rousing adventure steeped in the tradition of it's predecessors. And, as in the best of the "Musketeer" movies, it's laced with subtle humor and intrigue. Tavernier sets a pace that is at times inconsistent, but he provides enough action and fun that it can be easily overlooked; it may threaten to stall occasionally, but never actually does.

Philippe Noiret cuts a striking figure as the aging D'Artagnan, who though slowed somewhat by the years, is still one of the best swords around. He successfully embodies that spirit and sense of "legend" that makes his D'Artagnan believable, and delivers it all with the confidence befitting his character.

The highlight of the film, however, is the lovely Marceau, who as Eloise proves that she can cross swords with the best of them. Her technique with a blade may be a bit awkward at times, but it gives credibility to the character; a young woman raised in a convent-- even the daughter of a famed Musketeer-- wouldn't necessarily be a master swordsman. And Marceau gives a lively performance as Eloise, diving into the action with a reckless abandon that makes her endearing, as well as fun to watch. She has a radiant screen presence that draws the eye to her, even in a crowded scene. But what really puts this character across-- and again, the entire film, for that matter-- is that unabashed spirit of adventure, which Marceau manifests in Eloise.

The supporting cast includes Claude Rich (Crassac), Sami Frey (Aramis), Jean-Luc Bideau (Athos), Raoul Billerey (Porthos), Charlotte Kady (Eglantine de Rochefort), Nils Tavernier (Quentin), Luigi Proietti (Mazarin) and Jean-Paul Roussillon (Planchet). Proving that even Musketeers beyond their prime can be engaging, especially when combined with a spirited beauty like Marceau, "Revenge of the Musketeers" is a welcome cinematic chapter in the saga Dumas began so many years ago. In the end, it's a satisfying experience that will transport you to another place and another time, when chivalry was alive and well, and right always triumphed over wrong.

All for One, One for the Ages!
With all due respect to The Three & Four Musketeers of Richard Lester, Revenge of the Musketeers surpasses these and all other Dumas musketeer films ever. This takes into account a lot of movies, from Fairbanks to Walter Abel, the Ritz Brothers, Louis Hayward, Gene Kelly, Hal Roach Jr., Gordon Scott, Louis Jourdan, Cornel Wilde, and lately Leonardo with Gabriel Byrne et al. Never mind Sophie Marceau fencing with the guys with nary a lesson. Sophie's fine. My money's on Sophie over feisty Kim Cattrall of Lester's Return of the Musketeers. It's reverence that really makes Revenge a winner; reverence for Dumas Pere. D'Artagnan first sees his daughter (Sophie) and mistakes her for long-dead Constance. He alludes to the 'Porthos thrust' and the 'Aramis thrust.' Planchet remains addled, and now aged. Porthos can be lured out of retirement with mounds of food. Brooding Aramis as always follows intrigue. Athos says much with few rasping words. They reunite and allude longingly to the old days, and we feel their aches and pains, and smile at inside references to old foes among the Cardinal's guards. Never mind the slow spots and confusing plot machinations. This is Dumas-inspired after all. Just savor the French sensibilities and the gentle mockery of Mazarin, and D'Artagnan spurring his comrades on by saying, 'We can't let Cyrano have all the fun!' Oh yeah, Sophie gets naked, which can't hurt. And the swordplay is excellent, a la William Hobbs. We may never see the likes of this one again. Magnifique one and all!

Marceau shines in respectable swashbuckler
After a slow start, Revenge of the Musketeers (originally released in France as La Fille de D'Artagnan) picks up some dash and humor by the second half and leaves the viewer credibly entertained. There are good performances from all the cast (except a fairly colorless love-interest for Marceau's Eloise), who seem to be enjoying themselves immensely. The lovely Sophie Marceau gets to parade in a variety of flattering cavalier costumes and the villains are full of bravado and duplicity as befits these sort of romps. Messieurs Athos, Porthos, Aramis, and D'Artagnan may be twenty years older than in their heyday, but they still have plenty of fight in them, and when the headstrong daughter of D'Artagnan unmasks a nasty conspiracy -- or IS it? -- they race into action once again for France and King Louis.

The production is top-notch and Marceau's Eloise suitably steals the show, giving perhaps the best swordswoman display since Kim Cattrall's Justine in Richard Lester's "Return of the Musketeers", which this film most resembles. (Close runner-up: Catherine Zeta-Jones in "The Mask of Zorro.") The pace seems less than dynamic, perhaps due in part to the strange lack of a musical score to complement the action -- you'll appreciate just how much the soundtrack can add to a scene when you watch these au naturel fights and duels. But on the whole, this was better than I'd expected and eminently watchable, with a fine spirit that even bursts out of the closing credits. En garde, mes braves! A cheval! (Add an extra star if you truly love films of this genre.) ... Read more

Description

From acclaimed director Claude Chabrol (La Cérémonie, Merci Pour Le Chocolat) comes the compelling true story of working-class housewife Marie (Isabelle Huppert- The Piano Player, 8 Women), who performs illegal abortions in France during World War II, evading the Nazis, and betraying those she loves. Brought to life by Chabrol on actual locations, The Story of Women is an honest, original, and utterly absorbing film, which won Isabelle Huppert Best Actress at the Venice Film Festival. ... Read more

Reviews (5)

An incredible true story
This powerful Claude Chabrol film, "The Story of Women" stars the incredibly talented Isabelle Huppert as Frenchwoman, Marie Latour--the last woman in France to die on the Guillotine. The story takes place in German-occupied Paris in the 1940s. Latour, whose husband is away fighting in WWII, barely manages to feed herself and her two children. Living in a tiny apartment, eating nettle soup, Latour accidentally stumbles on a lucrative profession when she performs her first abortion on a neighbour. Soon, women are flocking to Latour for her illegal services, and she rakes the money in--oblivious of the risks she runs--for herself and for her customers.

When Latour's husband returns, he accepts the situation--although he is more than a little disgruntled at Marie's new independence; however, times are tough, and he doesn't complain about the financial benefits of Marie's new profession. The Latour family prospers as others struggle, and soon the Latours expand their business dealings into new avenues....

Huppert's acting is, as always, incomparable. As the intense, single-minded, hard, and yet oddly-childlike Latour, Huppert is both believable and sympathetic. If you are a fan of French film, then this film is an absolute MUST see. Chabrol is one of my favourite directors, and Huppert is my favourite actress--their talents combined create an unforgettable viewing experience.

Worth seeing once, but leaves a sour taste
Despite reviews to the commentary, this is not exactly a pro-choice movie (the director is too subtle for that). It is true that the men in the film (French or German) are boorishly ignorant about women's bodies, needs, and aspirations. But, as the director makes clear, the ladies are unreflective about abortion and its philosophical implications. The Huppert character is no heroine. She shamelessly favors her daughter over her son (who really needs his mother more). Huppert nags her shiftless husband to breaking point. And while all ordinary French citizens were locked in a struggle to survive during the Occupation -- confronted daily with sickening dilemmas -- the Huppert character in this film is to all intents and purposes a successful black-marketeer, who plays the system well. Rather too well; pride comes before a fall. Huppert's astringency suits the part, although Trintignant as her hooker pal is more sympathetic.

Abortion in Nazi-occupied France
Claude Charbrol's stark and unsentimental masterpiece about the last woman to be executed in France--she was guillotined for performing abortions in Nazi-occupied France during World War II--forces us to see a side of war not often depicted. What does a woman with two little children do when her country is occupied by the brute forces of the enemy? How is she to find enough to eat, to buy the increasingly scarce and costly necessities of life? How is she to find joy in life? Women often turn to prostitution during such times, but Maire Latout does not. Instead she aborts the foetuses of the prostitutes and of other women impregnated, often by the Nazis. In a sense this is her "resistence." However she prospers and takes up with a Nazi collaborator. In the process she reduces her husband to frustration and humiliation.

Isabelle Huppert as Marie Latout is mesmerizing in a role that allows her talent full latitude. She is clear-headed and sly as a business woman, warm and ordinary as a mother, cold and brutal as a wife, childish and careless as an adulteress, resourceful and fearless as an abortionist, and unrepentant as she awaits the executioner (foreshadowed, by the way, by her son, who wants to be an executioner when he grows up). Francois Cluzet plays her husband Paul, and he is also very good, especially at rousing our pity. Charbrol makes it clear that both Marie and Paul are victims, not only of war, but of their divergent natures. Paul wants the love of Marie, but she wants only a man that represents success and power, a man who is clean-shaven, not the menial worker that he is. Marie Trintignant is interesting and convincing as a prostitute who becomes Marie Latout's friend and business associate.

While abortion is indeed "Une affaire de femmes" this film is about much more than that. No doubt the title is there to emphasize Charbrol's point that men really do not (did not then, and do not now) really understand abortion and why it is sometimes a horrible and abject necessity. When Marie is taken to Paris for a show trial she exclaims to a woman in jail with her, referring to the court that will pass judgment on her, "It's all men...how could men understand?" We can see that men really can't, and that precisely is what this movie is all about: showing us just how horrible pregnancy can be under the circumstances of enemy occupation.

A secondary story here, not quite a subplot, is Paul's story. What does a man do when he and his children are dependent on a woman who doesn't love him, a woman who rejects him and even goes so far as to arrange for the cleaning woman to sleep with him? It is not only Marie who humiliates him, but it is the defeat of his country, the easy surrender to the Nazis that has so reduced him. This is made clear in a scene late in the film between two lawyers who voice their shame as Frenchmen in a time of defeat.

What Paul does is not pretty (and I won't reveal it here), but so great is the provocation that one understands his behavior and can forgive him.

Classic Chabrol/Huppert
Isabelle Huppert won the Best Actress award at the Venice Film Festival for her delicate performance as Marie LaTout, said to be based on the true story of Marie Louise Giraud, who was guillotined in occupied France as an abortionist and profiting from the earnings of prostitutes. Perhaps no other director presents Huppert as well as Claude Chabrol, which explains why he likes to cast her so often. He frames her sad beautiful face in closeup to remind us of Garbo, though Huppert lacks Garbo's exquisite physical and spiritual languor. Chabrol's spare treatment of the tale underlines the hypocrisy of the execution, rationalised under the name of "moral restoration of the State" when the French were actively collaborating with the German's persecution of the Jews. The narrative also has a strong feminist stance, since Marie is a passive innocent, who sees her actions as helping other women with unwanted pregnancies, and rents her home to a prostitute because she is a friend who represents a woman who was taken from Marie for being Jewish. In prison she points out men cannot understand what she has done, and all the jury are men. Marie's tragedy reminds me a little of Madame Bovary (a later effort by Chabrol and Huppert) since she has ambition yet is stifled by her marriage to a man she does not love. We forgive her infidelity since she is so loving to her two children, and because she even arranges another sexual partner for her husband. In response to the latter extraordinary offer, he expresses his gratitude by reporting her to the police. Chabrol gives us some clever forbodings - a goose beheaded at a fair, Marie's son wish to be an executioner, Marie being a singer, her husband's cutouts hobby. I also like the predominance of blue in the colour scheme to show the glumness of Vichy apartments and the Paris prison, the use of rain, and the restraint in the abortion sequences. And while Huppert's singing voice may not be great it is a delight to see how happy it makes her. Special mention is made of the music by Matthieu Chabrol, reminiscent of Faure.

A triumph for Chabrol and Huppert
Isabelle Huppert won the Best Actress award at the Venice Film Festival for her delicate performance as Marie LaTout, said to be based on the true story of Marie Louise Giraud, who was guillotined in occupied France as an abortionist and profiting from the earnings of prostitutes. Perhaps no other director presents Huppert as well as Claude Chabrol, which explains why he likes to cast her so often. He frames her sad beautiful face in closeup to remind us of Garbo, though Huppert lacks Garbo's exquisite physical and spiritual languor. Chabrol's spare treatment of the tale underlines the hypocrisy of the execution, rationalised under the name of "moral restoration of the State" when the French were actively collaborating with the German's persecution of the Jews. The narrative also has a strong feminist stance, since Marie is a passive innocent, who sees her actions as helping other women with unwanted pregnancies, and rents her home to a prostitute because she is a friend who represents a woman who was taken from Marie for being Jewish. In prison she points out men cannot understand what she has done, and all the jury are men. Marie's tragedy reminds me a little of Madame Bovary (a later effort by Chabrol and Huppert) since she has ambition yet is stifled by her marriage to a man she does not love. We forgive her infidelity since she is so loving to her two children, and because she even arranges another sexual partner for her husband. In response to the latter extraordinary offer, he expresses his gratitude by reporting her to the police. Chabrol gives us some clever forbodings - a goose beheaded at a fair, Marie's son's wish to be an executioner, Marie being a singer. I also like the predominance of blue in the colour scheme to show the glumness of Vichy apartments and the Paris prison, the use of rain, and the restraint in the abortion sequences. And while Huppert's singing voice may not be great it is a delight to see how happy it makes her. Special mention is made of the music by Matthieu Chabrol, reminiscent of Faure. ... Read more

Amazon.com

Filmmaker Diane Kurys examines the bittersweet friendship of two women (Isabelle Huppert and Miou Miou) during post-World War II France in this semi-autobiographical account of her mother and father. The women struggle with their dreams and identities, compromising themselves with marriages that are not very satisfying. They long to own their own boutique, but domestic priorities always seem to cut short their aspirations and their friendship. They are only happy when they are together. However, the husbands struggle with their postwar identities as well, and compromise turns them into angry men. The children, meanwhile, are the quiet victims in all of this. It's a predictable yet moving film with much to offer. --Bill Desowitz ... Read more

Description

Twelve talented new filmmakers from around the world bring to life these fresh stories with unique points of view about gay men and lesbian women looking for love and seeking connection under the specter of AIDS. From a stolen sexual encounter in a New York City subway to a young man venturing out on the town for the first time since losing his lover, this is a rich portrait of life tightly embraced, featuring Alexis Arquette (Threesome) and Adrien de Van (Sitcom). Shorts: Close To, So What?, A Moment, All Is Not Black, Night Hustler, Pregnant or Lesbian?, Inside, The Tears of AIDS, Burn Rubber, The Seagull, An Ordinary Night, Cherish. ... Read more

Reviews (2)

And now a public service announcement
Jeez! What a WASTE of time. A dozen or so 5 min. "public service announcements" for safe sex. Unless you want to brush up on your French, forget this collection of "nothing" films.

A breathtaking collection of queer short films.
I must admit I was first attracted to this title by the photograph on the cover. But what gay man wouldn't be? To my surprise though, I also found 12 of the most thought provoking queer shorts I have ever seen -- 10 subtitled from France and 1 from the US and 1 from Australia. All films centre around how HIV/AIDS affect our sexual freedoms and our capacity to bond emotionally. You won't find tear-inducing hollywood 'emotion' here, but some of the most thought-provoking, lovingly crafted pieces of queer film you are ever likely to see.

Here is a brief synopsis of the 12 shorts:

CLOSE TO: a pick up in a NY cafe leads to a combined violent and tender encounter in the NY subway. But is sex better than emotion?

SO WHAT?: Two women are trying to form an emotional bond - one is HIV positive and the other is HIV negative. But who is the most scared??

A MOMENT: 2 young French guys head home for a one night stand. But they have forgotten to pick up what is required in this modern age of disease. Will they or won't they take the risk?

ALL IS NOT BLACK: This is the only short that I don't like very much. Two guys in a relationship and one says he is pregnant so his partner goes out and buys his food cravings. Perhaps it is trying to get the message across of them wanting to be just like a heterosexual couple??

NIGHT HUSTLER: A yound man finds himself selling his services for money. But what is his true motivation?

PREGNANT OR LESBIAN: A wonderful short about a teenage girl 'coming out' to her parents. This one has a great message.

INSIDE: A dying, lonely isolated young guy lives alone in his apartment and mentally recreates a past relationship that left him unfullfilled. This one is very sad.

THE TEARS OF AIDS: 2 attached guys meet on the beach and form a bond that lasts until one of them dies. A wonderful exploration of how love can happen anywhere, anytime and that HIV doesn't have to prevent that.

BURN RUBBER: A young gay couple embark on a weekend away. Has one been cheating on the other??? Well why else would he have another guys' bag in the car????

THE SEAGULL: A girl falls in love with her HIV+ bisexual best friend. This one explores the wonderful theme of 'love conquers all'.

AN ORDINARY NIGHT: His lover is dying in hospital but he is willing to spend the night with him. A very touching story.

CHERISH: Thoughts of his departed lover are preventing him from going out and finding love again. Should he or shouldn't he? Who can provide that answer??

As you can see above, these shorts bring up some great themes for gays and lesbians everywhere. Whilst there are no extra/special features on the disc, this DVD has become a favourite in my vast collection. See it, and it may just become yours as well. ... Read more