Afouotos Although it has its amusing moments, in eneral the plot does not convince.

ChanFamous I wanted to like it more than I actually did... But much of the humor totally escaped me and I walked out only mildly impressed.

DipitySkillful an ambitious but ultimately ineffective debut endeavor.

FirstWitch A movie that not only functions as a solid scarefest but a razor-sharp satire.

bandw This is a tour de force for Charlotte Rampling - her performance alone makes this worth watching. Things begin with Marie (Rampling) and her husband Jean (Bruno Cremer) heading out of Paris to their summer home in the country. In following the mundane activities of their trip and first night away we learn quite a bit about them. The rhythms of their married life have long since been grooved. Marie's attachment to Jean is apparent, but Jean's feelings for Marie are less well established and this becomes a relevant plot element.On the day after their arrival at the summer home the couple go to the beach. While Marie suns herself, Jean goes for a swim and he does not come back. Marie goes through all of the expected reactions - waiting anxiously, calling the police, witnessing the search, and finally giving up. It is here that we move into the deeper waters of the story, as it were. The expressions on Jean's face just prior to his going on the swim sets the tone of ambiguity as to the cause of his vanishing. Was his disappearance an accident, suicide, or willful?Marie deals with this bewildering situation by entering into a state of denial and this is where Rampling and Ozon boost this movie beyond the ordinary as they subtly trace the gradual chipping away of Marie's illusions. The reaction shots of Marie's seeing an older man swimming in a pool, or receiving a recorded message that a body has been found, are powerful in their understatement. The use of lighting to accentuate Marie's moods is quite effective, like the use of harsh white light when she is in obvious agony.Rampling is at the top of her form and she completely puts to rest any idea that a woman in her 50s cannot be sexy.The subtext of how Marie's friends try to deal with her reactions is engaging, making you wonder about the best way to deal with a friend in a state of denial. You want to be supportive, but also want to encourage them to face what you think are the realities of the situation.Relationships are always more complicated than the participants understand and, as is the case here, a traumatic event can unleash emotions and thoughts previously unexplored. I took the ambiguous ending to personify the hopes, fears, and unknowables in Marie's relationship with Jean, and maybe in all significant relationships.

noralee "Under The Sand (Sous le sable)" is a cross between Bergman/Ullman's "Faithless (Trolösa)," for its humorless look at a middle-aged, comfortable marriage, and "Truly, Madly, Deeply" for how not to deal with an unplanned break-up.Charlotte Rampling's face and body language are wonderfully expressive, as she alternates between facing reality and basking in fantasy, and in French and English.While it's always interesting to be a movie tourist inside middle-class Parisian apartments, we don't really get much insight into individuals or relationships.It's just sad.(originally written 5/20/2001)

Diand Simple story: Husband goes missing after a swim on holiday and his wife is in denial about the situation. The idea here is to tell the story by showing only the outward reactions of all involved. Ozon hereby creates a mystery (is he really dead?, was it a suicide?) but the over-explanatory character spoils all the fun. The walk in the woods, his face before the swim already tell everything, but if that's not enough Virgina Woolf is thrown in (if you dislike reading check out The Hours).So the rest of the movie we rely on the acting, which is average but not that interesting. We have the almost obligatory love scenes, redundant fantasies and much talk about nothing. Everything is mildly interesting. But one scene stands out: that between Suzanne (Andrée Tainsy, who just passed away) and Marie (Rampling). Andrée Tainsy mixes so many facial emotions in that scene it makes the whole movie worth watching.Ozon is a very traditional filmmaker who seems to strike a chord with his French audience. But he could have lived thirty years ago and made the same movie. It's almost as if he is in denial of the great French film history. Luckily we still have Jeunet, Besson and a lot of new talent to save the day for the French.

raymond-15 This is definitely Charlotte Rampling's film. On the screen nearly all the time she admirably plays the part of Marie, a middle-aged woman whose husband Jean disappears suddenly during a sunny day at a lonely beach.Her mounting despair and refusal to accept the facts which seem to point to his certain death by drowning grip our attention at once. The uncertainty of the incident and her disbelief nurture in us the hope, however meagre, that somehow or other he is still alive.The acting throughout is both sensitive and convincing. Charlotte Rampling is a great actress moving with such grace she can even make the preparation of a cup of coffee interesting to watch. The magic of this film is found in the simple every day incidents that make up our lives...like going to the beach or wondering who is at the other end when the telephone rings. Add to this a mystic quality and you have a winner.Not every one perhaps will agree with the ending, but I think this one is intriguing. A big question mark confronts us. Our hopes rise..... There comes to mind the old saying...."The wish is father of the thought".