-Janet Maslin, NEW YORK TIMES
"Ozon may be a new master!... Think Rohmer meets Hitchcock!"
-Armond White, NEW YORK PRESS
"A menacing masterpiece!"
-Dennis Dermody, PAPER MAGAZINE
As James Quandt sees it, REGARDE LA MER is part of Francois Ozon's 'immature' period. Despite this dismissive assessment, the film brought a new attention to Ozon's work as he transitioned from a short to feature filmmaker. The film's disturbing story and infamous images should not overshadow Ozon as a true cinematic talent that communicates volumes through is frames and use of montage. REGARDE LA MER centers around a young mother living with her infant daughter in relative isolation and the mysterious backpacker that interrupts their idyllic surrounding. The film touches on Kristeva's notion of the abject as a disruption of system, identity, and order. What unfolds during this terse 52-minute film is a violent exchange of identity that leaves the spectator restless, breathless, and disrupted.
Suggested Supplemental Screenings: PERSONA (Ingmar Bergman, 1966) and BLACK SWAN (Darren Aronofsky, 2010)
Wow, so basically this movie further proved why I am slowly becoming a bigger and bigger fan of Ozon. That movie was superb, and strangely ties in with everything else I have seen from him. In 205 we saw Summer Dress (its on this movie's special features), and it looked like it took place in the same house and on the same beach, and some similar things happen. Then I saw Hideaway last semester which was about a pregnant woman whose boyfriend overdoses on heroine, and there is a scene in the bathtub where out of the murky water (in hideaway though the murkiness was beautiful, her hands rise up and rub her belly. In this movie they are using soap for other things and also her head rising out of the water.
ReplyDeleteHis movies are so good in that they are, on the surface very linear stories, where not all that much is happening all at once plot wise. His characters, and his themes are more complex than most. There are so many questions about the nature of sexuality, loss, loneliness, etc. Or even if none of that is going on, it is still incredibly beautiful to look at and never for a second boring. This movie is especially special in that he kept it at 50 minutes, the exact length it needed to be. He probably could have compressed it, or stretched it to a feature running time, but then it would not have been nearly as good.
The forest scene was especially interesting because in Summer Dress, a gay man goes into the woods to have sex with a woman, and here she watches and receives oral sex (the image of his arms and her legs and the tree is spellbinding by the way). I don't know if he thinks that the forest has this weird sexual energy (which would sort of fit into Von Trier's Antichrist), or that it is just a hidden place where no one can see (although in both movies there are clearly spectators). I thought that it went a long way to show her sexual repression since her husband has been away. And there are all the doors the husband walks through which signal his separation, and her longing for companionship other than her daughter so much that she lets this creepy girl stay with her.
Also, the image at the end is one of the most disturbing things I have ever seen.
After viewing "Regarde La Mer", as with most of the films in this class I tried to digest what I just saw. The film, set in a beach side home, centers around a mother and her child living in isolation encounter a strange drifter. Ozon really plays with his characters here, and shows the mothers desperation for companionship and friendship. The drifter and the mother grow closer together, to the point that she is letting her take care of her child. I thought it was brilliant how whenever the child and drifter were left alone, the baby would immediately begin to cry letting the audience know that there is something wrong with this person. I was surprised that Ozon was able to show feces and get away with it. After seeing that scene, I definitely kept wondering whether or not it was real. Either way, it was perhaps the most disgusting thing I have seen so far in this class in terms of gross out. What truly surprised me about the film was how there really wasn't that much going on, yet I was completely involved with the characters. I never felt bored but rather entertained, which is strange since this film is part of the cinema of cruelty. The final scenes in which the husband discovers his wife's mutilated body and the drifter gets away with the child and the identity of the mother, will definitely haunt me. It was so stunning and beautiful, yet at the same time deeply disturbing and difficult to watch. Ozon definitely keeps his audience thinking, this film was chalk full of yonic symbols.
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ReplyDeleteThere's something about Ozon that keeps catching my eye and I really haven't figured out why; just that the guy's a genius. The first time I saw Ozon's work was when you showed us "Un Robe D'Été" in 205 and it automatically became my favorite short. I found it online (yes an illegal download, sorry!) and since then, I've shown it to most of my friends and anyone who I want to show something interesting to.
ReplyDeleteRegarde La Mer basically deals with the same imagery and many similar themes as Un Robe D'Été but in a slightly different manner and definitely some more elaborate shots, but I hadn't realized this until the scene-by-scene stills you showed in class. Actually during our screening, we even discussed how it felt like a student film because of the natural light. But I think it's really more of an exploration featurette with which Ozon is testing the waters with by carefully picking and choosing what to touch and what not to touch.
I think key to this exploration are the subtleness of the images that build on each other. He shows perfectly normal scenarios and removes extremely delicately more and more details until finally you realize that, shit, this woman IS a terrible mother. The scenes at the beach were Sasha and her daughter are sun bathing start as a fun day at the beach and then well, Sasha leaves to the woods and we all know what that means for Mr. Ozon.
Again, I thought this film was as grotesque as I thought I was brilliant. It's another one of those movies that you have to let sink in and then go, WOW, that was an amazing experience. Plus, I went to the beach last night to see the full moon, and the title keept popping up in my head because I was literally, seeing the sea...
Regarde la Mer, out of all the movies we have watched, will probably have the longest-lasting effect on me because since watching it, I have yet to brush my teeth without thinking about it. Although I wasn’t particularly keen on the storyline, I thought the movie was wonderfully crafted and it certainly bothered me at the parts it was supposed to. I think the biggest problem I had with the story was that I just felt extremely uneasy about Tatiana right from the beginning and it bothered me that Sasha couldn’t see she was trouble right away. I was also a little unsure about the whole rendezvous in the woods scene. I understand it is important in that it conveys Sasha’s loneliness and sexual frustration, but it just seemed really out of place for me. I really liked Marina de Van’s portrayal of Tatiana. She did a very good job of being extremely creepy and disturbing. I also thought the baby did a magnificent job: she cried at all of the right times. (This made even more sense when someone in the class explained that it was Sasha’s own daughter.) As for what happened at the end, I do believe that some sort of sexual encounter happened between Sasha and Tatiana. I feel that Tatiana shed a tear because she regrets having an abortion earlier in life, so at the end she takes Sioffra to raise as her own. I do not believe that she tosses the baby overboard (although that’s what I was expecting/hoping for). After listening to the class discussion, I really began to appreciate all of the yonic images being invaded in this movie such as the giant red tent, the broken tomb, Tatiana’s book, etc. All in all, I thought this was a masterfally made and visually beautiful movie.
ReplyDeleteWhat on earth did I just watch?
ReplyDeleteOkay, I want to say first off that I did enjoy the film. I did also think though, that it was pretty clear where it is headed.
The opening reminded me a LOT of "The Labyrinth" (yes, with David Bowie) just between the crying child and the woman's impatience with having to take care of it. She really is a terrible mother to this baby. I mean, she leaves it sleeping in the hot sun on the beach to go have an orgasm from a gay man in the woods...
I really enjoyed a few of the WTF moments, like crazy lady walking around the graveyard and the grocery store. At the same time, these moments still gave it away.
I know I'm kind of all over the place here, but why in god's name would you let someone into your house after seeing a journal like that? I mean, really. And wouldn't you taste feces on your toothbrush? Perhaps I just have a discerning palette.
I really loved the shot of her husband going down the hallway and opening doors. Very "journey in the womb."
Also, I can see why you posted the Persona trailer along with this, although I will say I enjoyed this more than Persona. Maybe it was the shot of the woman in the tent; no I'm not weird, I've just been jonesing for some real extreme something.
I think those are all my thoughts...
I had planned on turing this response for Ozon’s “Regarde La Mer” much sooner than tonight. But, in a way, I am actually glad that I waited till the last minute…
ReplyDeleteThis has undoubtedly been the most personally affecting film that I’ve seen thus far in the class. After watching the film, I just felt this emotional devastation. I’m not quite certain as to where this feeling came from and I’ve been running the different possibilities through my mind all week long – what exactly is it about THIS film that has left me void and fearful in a way that these other screenings have not. I have actually enjoyed and admired and celebrated the films we’ve seen thus far. And I admire “Regarde La Mer” a great deal as well – it’s beautifully realized in its precise imagery and subtle tension. But I remember going into class on Thursday and not looking forward to actually speaking about the film – I’m actually not too thrilled to be writing about it now either. It feels to me like one of those things that need to be seen and not spoken of.
Anyway, I felt a little sick the night after I watched it. I feel a little better now. And I wish I could say more about the actual film, but I still don’t feel like I’m there yet…
Something I found particularly interesting about REGARDE LA MER - François Ozan's visually beautiful and thematically powerful film - is the ways in which both female characters fuse in and out of each other, both metaphorically and physically. The film deals heavily with issues of identity and imbues an emotional yearning as the centerfold of these issues, so that the work as a whole is deeply resonant and, in a very staggering and breathtaking way, profound. In the way that I interpreted the film, both Sasha and Tatiana, upon meeting each other, develop a type of thirst to "become" the other, to switch, not just lives but emotional beings. Where Sasha's life is devoid of company it seems, Tatiana's life, is to her eyes, a life marked by unpredictability and is limitless and unbounded. Where Tatiana's inner-self is numb to the point of complete death it seems - Marina de Van is specifically used here, her physicality lending appropriate and striking resemblance to that of a ghost - Sasha motherly connection to her child implies that she is eternally connected to another human being. As the characters begin to invade and navigate each other's physical and psychological spaces - the house and the tent being a primary example that represents both - an intensity of desire itself increases, until reaching a climax of unrelenting and unbearable pressure. A desire to be the "other," to feel different, to feel. It is also interesting that the film places so much emphasis on oceanic landscape - even to the point of titling the piece after such motifs - as water can be used to represent desire. When one thinks of la mer, there are immediate positive connotations associated with it, such as tranquility and hope, especially when considering the "new horizon" aspect that pertains and is so closely attached to the symbolism of the ocean. However, the films seems to be commenting on the more negative associations of the ocean, connecting its vastness and limitlessness to yearnings that can transform people into the worst version of themselves, to a certain type of "trapped," deception, solitude, the unclean and the forbidden. By the film's end, it is almost as if the transformation of both character's complete, each successfully "becoming" the other: Tatiana, quite obviously, looks the spitting image of Sasha, with her red dress and sunglasses, while Sasha has become quite literally a soulless object, dead and forgotten, much the same Tatiana was before. Besides commenting on the dangerous divide inherent in desires of any kind - sexual, psychological, etc. - the film is always gorgeous to behold, Ozan making effective use of foliage, climate, scenic backdrop, meticulous setting and placements, and strong, intrusive, overt, controversial and suggestive imagery, especially when handling the sexual and characters awakening to these deeply-rooted desires. It is an unforgettable film, truly, and shattering in a very beautiful way.
ReplyDeleteI don't understand quite understand the enthusiasm for "Regarde La Mer." From a technical, thematic, and symbolic standpoint, I now have a considerable grasp on the narrative, thanks in large part to the class lecture on the film. Still, it's carried little resonance in me, and I only have a vague idea as to why.
ReplyDeleteFirst, the good. There was a humanity in Sasha I could empathize with, certainly, despite her controversial parenting. A sympathetic loneliness underlies her actions, even when concealed behind a red dress. The irrational nature of some of her decisions outrage reflex-sensibilities; but ultimately, one can forgive her misguided choices. Tatiana, on the other hand, is so vile and unlikable, one can't help but side quickly with Sasha, which helps make the ending as powerful as it is.
Ultimately, I felt little impact from this film. I can't exactly identify the why. I've seen "A Summer's Dress" and one other short film from Ozon. His use of color, editing, and his courage in exploring taboos in all his work I've viewed so far is certainly something I respect. Thematically, however, the constant exploration of sexuality--sexuality from a very particular slant--is something that has created a detached cognitive understanding, with little emotional investment.