Film Reviews by CSF

It is quite possible that I am not refined enough to appreciate this film because the quality of this film went right above my station. I keep wondering what is so great about it. The usual story of a murder and not knowing who's done it. The best scene is played by the dog, he should have had the Oscar of the best animal actor. Why this film went abroad when so many excellent French films never pass the Channel. It is easier for a migrant to cross the Channel that for a French film.

From the trailers and the Cannes Festival, I expected a lot. The first half was great then it become liquified and very boring.

Once more it shows that it is very rare to find happiness coming from Russia. All their writers, poets, film makers talk about violence, crualty, and suffering. I feel sorry for the population itself. A pity as they have great artists and intellectuals. The film is one more exemple and it lasts too long. The best scene, of course, is their arrival in India and the reaction of the Indian people.

It is a modern version of the famous Jean Cocteau's film, The Beauty and the Beast. I loved the Shape of the Water too. I am a fan of Guillermo del Toro. His films are unusual, refreshing, sometimes with a poisonous or disturbing atmosphere. He grows beautiful flowers on manure. The ending of the film is very much like the Beauty and the Beast (NOT the Disney one) the Cocteau's one. Happiness can fly up or dive down, it has the same effect; love takes you very far. No, it is not naf, not soapy, not corny. I feel sorry for people who think like that, they lost their ability to feel.

I loved everything in this film: thewriter, the director, the actresses BUT not the story. I mean the way the story was told. I find Tennessee Williams better for reading because his words are more effective than the pictures. Usually there is something very poisonnous in the heart of the play like in Suddenly Last Summer. Here, this kind of poisonnous atmosphere is brought up by the tramp who is a playboy and a homeless but too much is left to the imagination of the spectators. Also I noticed that T. Williams and Henry James tend to picture Europeens like depraved people of the old world with its very dusty values and the Americans kind and naïve.

Both the serie and I have got older and weaker. It is not as good as the previous episodes. I wonder if the film makers were not under the influence of the 'Woke' theory. Also I begin to wonder what the cinema would do without the existence of the Nazis. There must be other badies. On the other hand, the young generation are kept informed of this dark part of History.

I would not call it a tale since it is the true story of a woman of her time. Max Ophuls has always an original way to film his narrative. However he didn't need to be that original since Lola's life was far from being common. Martine Carol has not always been a great actress. Like Brigitte Bardot, all she had to do was to appear on the screen and the audience would swoon over. Still the film is interesting by the way it is made and by showing the clash between the narrow minded of the 19th century society and a woman years ahead of her time. For the rest I would agree totally with NW's comment.

It is the opposite of everything they put on the enveloppe to advertise the film. It is sooo predictable, so corny! Of course one can say it is dated but there are many films in those days that were much better science fiction than that. People in a submarine (it looks like a sardine tin) are pretty scared by ridiculous events; even these great movie stars could not save the film, in fact the film 'drown' them.

Another type of coming of age. Great actors, great director. Not afraid to challenge the new philosophy of 'Woke', therefore very realistic and wise. You can draw your own conclusions and debate endlessly about it.

Very difficult to write a review without spoilers. Some people succeeded remarkably! It is about a sheep farm in the middle of nowhere in a very cold country. After losting one, the happy couple of farmers manage to have a child eventually. Very slowly and very artistically, we are led through an incredible revelation. The first revelation is quick and one has to be attentive; you even wonder if you really saw it. Then comes the next revelation and you try to recover from the soft blow. When a member of the family visits them, he goes through the same soft blows as the spectator and reacts as the spectator (which is a relief). The film could also have been called The Silence of the Lamb, even if it has nothing to do with this story. I would say that the meaning or the lesson in the film is that one can be happy even when one is very different from the norm. But for how long..... My criticism is that I found the film too sober!

The film is well done, well performed, informative and entertaining but, too sober. Sometimes repetitive whereas there would have been a lot more to say. Not enough importance is given about the people who just show inertia, indiferrence or cowardice.

I must say I wanted to see Roberts and Clooney and a light comedy. Very disappointing. I'm glad I didn't pay the cinema to see that. The British comedy, Love Actually' is hundred times better. I am probably prejudiced but I can't remember an American film that makes me laugh (in the old days perhaps). What's more one can see that everybody is walking on eggs. It is most unlikely that a woman highly educated with a potential interesting career, would leave her friends, family and job for ever to live with a fisherman at the other end of the world. But we have to be soooo politically correct! The slightest gaffe and the film is done!!

I loved that film. The actors are incredibly natural. It is almost a remake of the Belgian film, The Eighth Day, directed by Jaco Van Dormael, 1996. Both are moving and funny and, at last, show the world that the Down Syndrome people are far from being retarded. In fact they are just innocent. The story is about the dream of a boy with the D S. He wants to be a fighter and his dream will change people around him for the better and that is rare.

Some directors think that black and white would make their film more intelligent or more artistic. This one is neither. Sheer boredom. I could not see a trace of jealousy anywhere in this story but people trying to survive their own boredom. There are thousands French films that are very exciting, original, interesting but these seem to stay in France. England is not very good at importing good foreign films; not only French one but Italy too is making great films that never come here.

I have never been so bored! It has nothing to do even with the poster or the title. To such an extend that one of the character has to explain why things happened on this beach. If the main point was to live a whole life in 24h, it doesn't show at all. Some events happen out of the blue like a foreign mending piece added when the action is streching for too long. So many questions prop up during the story that it is not credible anymore. For me, 'The Sixth Sense' was the only great film he made. All the others are a vacuum and based mainly on faces looking scared.