smatysia Like many French movies, not a lot happens in this one. It follows a group of acquaintances for about a year. There are loves gained and lost, families who fight, and some who don't, secret affairs, and open ones, friends who sit around and talk in coffee shops, a lot of really mundane stuff. The bright spot is Virginie Ledoyen, who is just too pretty. (A cool thing is that French women seem to have discovered razors!!!) There is certainly a place for character studies, and slow-moving films. But this one failed to appeal to me on any level. Perhaps the language barrier was too much for me to overcome. I can't recommend this one.

cheese_cake i like french films, especially french films where everybody thinks they are the bomb, nobody works and everybody lounges around drinking coffee. that's my ideal in life, but enough about me. the story is about a bunch of middle aged people who each is going through some sort of crisis. basically they meet each other and discuss their life, not in a direct way, but through inneundo. are they full of themselves, yes, but it's still fun to watch. not the best of film making, but while we rot on this planet and babes like the one you see on this movie are out of our grasp, we can watch this movie. man this review is lame! fudge IMDb! fudge comments!

nini_ten Late August, Early September is a movie that will stay with me because it didn't make me obsessed over it right after i saw it. In fact, as time passed, I realized 'gee, the last best time I had with a movie was Fin Aout". So I saw it again, took a deep breathe, and realized it really was a rare, marvelous movie that I feel lucky and nourished to see.I'm suprised that noyone was asking where the music in the movie came from. Well, in case you just saw it and wondered really hard like i did, all the music that was thematiclly featured are by a south African music group called Ali Farka Toure, all the songs are from their album "The Source", and the songs are---(for the opening and the motorbike) "Goye Kur", (for Virginie Ledoyen's threesome scene) "Hawa Dolo", (for Vera's theme, the closing and many parts, the essential theme) "Cinquante Six". I'm utterly moved at seeing Olivier Assayas accomplishment. The lingering, graceful, and intricate portrayal of modern people, throughly, relevantly modern. His water-color painting, which it's moods unexpectedly stay with you after seeing the film. The chosen characters and the bold realities of their conceptions sort of leave me caring about things again. The film showed me processes of natural acceptances and natural complications in life, not mimicking it, just tip toeing through it, yet the character's lives seems to always be existing and experiencing itself in between or before the time frames of the film and so on, so forth. I took that swift, bitter-sweet feeling inside me and kept thinking about the beautiful credits. I kept feeling pleased at how I get to see charcters having been so tormented but keeping so much in, a state that uncannily comforts a lot of my trivial, constant, day to day basis state of mind. Assayas is an auteur, in a really modern sense. He writes his own things, which guarantees his vitality. I have utter faith in him and I'm grateful that his films are made, just there, living.

KuRt-33 Can actors save an otherwise completely bad movie? The answer is of course "yes". Proof, if needed, is the possibly horrible "Fin août début septembre". The only reasons I went to see it, were the fact that the movie was directed by Assayas (who impressed me with "Irma Vep") and that it starred Virginie Ledoyen (up till now excellent in every movie she ever played in). Yes, she was very nice in "L'eau froide", a not so good movie by... Olivier Assayas. Oops! Yet, with Miss Ledoyen and "Irma Vep" in mind, I went to the theatre... and was quite disappointed. The story is so lame I can't even convince myself of giving you a summary. Then we have the director... Well, I can only think of two things that must have happened. Either Olivier Assayas was constantly absent and gave the camera to his five year old nephew, or he tried to make something resembling a Dogma 95 movie. We'll go for reason number one. The camera spins and spins when there is no reason to spin. When your actors sit on the ground, you don't have to make wild images. Unless of course the cameraman is so busy trying not to fall from the stairs at that moment. Maybe falling wouldn't have been that bad: we wouldn't have had the rest of the movie.But this is going to startle you: I gave the movie a 6/10. Excuse me? A six? Well yes, a six... because the actors (mainly Virginie... again / of course) are so good that you try not to see what Assayas did to the movie. If you are somebody who can look at actors and enjoy their work, maybe you can have a look at this movie. If not, pretend it's poisoned with plutonium.(P.S. I wonder if I would have given the movie 6/10 if Virginie Ledoyen hadn't been in it. I guess only a remake can tell me that. But in case Assayas accidently reads this: DON'T EVEN THINK ABOUT IT!)