b-bellagamba There are films one loves to hate. This one is so awful, so contrived, so inane, so pretentious, so ludicrous at times ( particularly the dialogue ) that I wonder how well-known actors like Azema and Auteuil condescended to be part of such an abysmal opus. That it was well-received in France and Belgium is a sad reflection on some people's critical faculties, and also on the topics that we deem worthy of attention ( or rather on our treatment of them ). I understand that the directors, the Larrieu brothers, until their disastrous foray into serious film-making, had made documentaries about insects, quite a worthy enterprise ( one has only to think of the superb BBC productions ). Perhaps their intimacy with these tiny creatures have deprived them of any savoir-faire when dealing with human beings and their problems, since their stilted direction and clumsy camera work make the spectator wonder:" am I missing something? Is there some hidden intention in such lack of talent ?" I am relieved to note that there is a reviewer in Germany who shares my opinion that this film is unadulterated faeces.

Bob Taylor This is a very good little film that starts off enigmatically (I thought I was watching something by Rohmer from his Green Ray period) and gets better and better as it goes along. Daniel Auteuil and Sabine Azéma play very well together (their first pairing; I hope there will be more) and Sergi Lopez and Amira Casar are also good as the couple who make swinging look so easy. William and Madeleine are mid-50s, their daughter is getting married in a couple of months so they are facing an empty nest with a little trepidation. Adam and Eva enter their lives and quickly establish an emotional dependency on the other couple's part. It is this dependency and not the sex that becomes decisive for William and Madeleine.This is the first feature by the Larrieu brothers that I have seen; it is very promising. They know how to create an emotional atmosphere without camera tricks or an annoying sound track. I advise men with heart problems to skip the scene with Hélène de Saint-Père: when she takes her dress off she reveals a truly astounding body.

groggo Any film with Daniel Auteuil and Sabine Azema is, for my money, worth watching. They are two of the world's great actors, capable of reaching across the full range of the acting spectrum, from explosive emotions to farce to whimsical or dark introspection, as they do in Peindre ou faire l'amour.Auteuil, he of that magnificent Gallic face, plays a retired meteorologist who, from force of habit perhaps, slips into regular, inane (and humorous) asides about the weather. As his beautiful wife, Azema is a talented landscape painter. They're both in their late 50s, and they decide to retire to the country and live out their golden years in idyllic examinations of wondrous nature and the philosophy of being.Anyone living in retirement (this writer for example) knows this is a noble idea, but it rarely, if ever, works. Boredom and ennui creep in very quickly after one retires, despite the bullblip and smarmy insurance company agitprop to the contrary. Retirement means disorientation, a separation from routine and self, and the characters in Peindre, etc. demonstrate this very well.Enter Sergei Lopez, an edgy and terrific actor who so convincingly played the violent and obsessively jealous husband in the Spanish film Sole Mia. In Peindre, etc., he is a blind man who captivates Azema through his disturbing mystique and his super-sensitivity to smell and sound. Lopez's wife is the lovely Amira Casar, and they're called Adam and Eva, not exactly a subtle choice of names by writers-directors (and brothers) Armand and Jean-Marie Larrieu. Lopez and Casar, in the non-Biblical sense, metaphorically create a new world for Auteuil and Azema. Lopez's character is deceptive; he appears kind, caring, gentle, but beneath it there's mischief, if not malice, brewing: he 'sees' much more than the merely sighted, and he quietly manipulates both Auteuil and Azema, so much so that they begin to alter their lives because of him. Both couples just casually fall into an adulterous relationship that is done with such minimalist matter-of-factness by the Larrieus that you really wonder if it's happening at all. The mini-'swinging' is done with an unusual lack of fuss -- you won't see the usual (and, these days, hopelessly overdone) surfeit of moaning, writhing and sweating bodies. The adulterous act, a first for Auteuil and Azema, is initially traumatic, but then becomes a galvanizing force in their new, 'retired' lives. Questions arise: what does love really mean when partners 'switch' for sexual purposes, while still professing profound love for each other? Are they, in fact, REALLY in love? In the midst of their carnality, who are they really deceiving other than each other? Does sex really have any meaning other than self-satisfaction or self-absorption? I liked this understated film because it skillfully handles difficult subject matter and raises very human questions. The moods of the characters and the film's premises are complemented by magnificent scenery (light, shadow and dark are regularly examined and contrasted). The aesthetic visions of both the artist and the sightless man, who cannot 'see' beauty in the literal sense, but articulates it through other heightened senses, lead you to ask once again the ageless question: what is art? The haunting music of the late Belgian 'cafe' singer Jacques Brel is a tremendous bonus. Both he and Canada's Leonard Cohen are unmatched in expressing powerful visceral and cerebral poetry in songs that probe the eternal mystery of love and why we somehow, through the eons, have never really understood its source or its power.

writers_reign This is a movie that just begs for someone to observe how FRENCH it is, the implication being that other countries somehow can't get their celluloid souffles to rise quite like the Gauls. Be that as it may this IS, I suppose, typically French, whatever that means. Sabine Azema and Daniel Auteuil are a well-heeled couple of the 'early retirement' school. Azema likes to dabble in landscapes and whilst she is thus occupied a blind man (Sergi Lopez) tells her and shows - if that is the right word - her a house that is for sale. In nothing flat she and Auteuil are installed and beginning a new life in which Lopez and his wife (Amira Casar) quickly become their new best friends and in the fullness of time - probably about two or three months - it's wife-swapping time. Azema and Auteuil take to this like ducks to water so much so that they're soon advertising for like-minded couples. If it sounds sordid on the page it doesn't come across like that on the screen, possibly because it's French. All the principals are on top of their game and Casar proves that there IS life after Catherine Breillat. Well worth a look.