Sweet illusion, don't ever become reality!
Added 6/5/2007
Francois Ozon shows us an original proposal around the intimacies of a couple who started so promisingly a magnificent relationship, but along the road they will meet one each other and the final result will lead them to an expected painful finale.
Valeria Tedeschi was intense and fabulous in this film, hovered by musical memories of old Italian songs that present us the story through a smart flash back, where the end of the movie was their genesis as couple.
On one hand, the final sequence with the fixed camera reminds us Antonioni, and the way Ozon edits reminds us to Erich Rohmer, but the script is extremely crude and powerful that supports and makes of this movie a must see.
If there`s authentic love the fidelity has no sense, because is included in the word.
1 out of 1 people found this helpful.
|
Good French cinema undeniably exists (the Polish-French collaboration Double vie de Veronique ranks among my favorite films) but from my own personal experience, a disproportionate amount of movies made in France turn out as puzzling disappointments. Perhaps it's that the sexual-spiritual intensity of so many of the relationships that are captured in French literature and film contain too much internal feeling to translate well to a foreign audience. I say this with what I hope is other than a hidebound, Hollywood-centric point of view, having seen motion pictures from a dozen other nations, and having known a fair number of French people in my life, some fairly closely.
5x2 (its title comes from there being five flashback segments to this film, all concerning two people) sounds on paper like a sure winner. It co-stars the talented Italian actress Valeria Bruni Tedeschi (she might be remembered by US film-goers from her cameo in Munich) as a quietly self-damning Frenchwoman named Marion, and like the recent American film Memento, 5x2 tells its story in reverse, commencing with an overdue divorce and concluding with the meeting of the couple around whom the tortured plot carelessly revolves. Sounds good, you're thinking? I, too, was of that optimistic expectation before I actually saw the film.
5x2 goes badly wrong early on and veers farther and farther off course. Its characters range from frustratingly foolish to absolutely despicable, and its vignettes into the lives and pasts of the couple at the story's heart are all held at arm's length to the point where we cannot warm to anyone or care about the apparent tragedy of their fates. The scene five minutes in where Gilles proceeds to rape his by then ex-wife was so horrendous the remaining 80-odd minutes of screen time seem merely diminished filler.
If you have free time and money to spare, and you're a fan of European cinema, you might not feel this investment of ninety minutes is entirely wasted; however, in my view this film should be bypassed in favor of more worthy titles.
If you've read this far and wish to know what the five segments in this film are, I'll list them here, spoilers and all. So if you think 5x2 sounds like your next DVD purchase, stop reading now.
Part One: Gilles and Marion are seen in the opening moments finalizing their divorce with a Parisian magistrate as he irons out such details as custody of their young son, financial support, and living arrangements. The couple then check into a hotel and celebrate their divorce with plans of sex. (See what I mean? French whims don't translate all that well to American sensibilities. How many U.S. couples skip from divorce court to a gleeful tryst with one another?) What starts off consensual ends up as rape when Gilles, a boor throughout the forthcoming film, brutalizes Marion. Afterwards, as she is leaving, Gilles offers to forget the past and start over again. Marion merely closes the hotel room door, and leaves. (And instead of a fade-out as I'm sure virtually all other directors would have done, Ozon proceeds to pointlessly trail Marion down the hallways for the next half minute. Why I don't know.)
Part Two: Their marriage is shown in its latter days, months before the concluding/opening segment, and Marion and Gilles are hosting Gilles' homosexual brother and his latest paramour for dinner. Relations between the married heterosexual couple are strained but each ignores this and pretends to be depthlessly interested in the goings-on in the lives of the brother character and his much-younger love-interest. The couples get stoned and drunk and the brother confides to Marion that though he spends his money readily enough, the young man with whom he is involved will not actually make love with him. Some heavy-handed foreshadowing of Gilles and Marion's own marital fate is tossed in.
Part Three: In the ultimate example of what a jerk he is, Gilles will not travel to the hospital where Marion is having serious complications during the birth of their son. Why Marion tolerates Gilles is puzzling and I think it's meant to be.
Part Four: The wedding night of Gilles and Marion is featured. The couple, half a decade or more younger than we see them in the opening divorce scene, appears in love and happy, and yet even then we see the roots of their future misery. Gilles drinks himself unconscious and passes out in bed before his marriage can be consummated. Marion, probably setting some sort of speed record for infidelity, goes outside, and in her anger makes love to an American man, by a lake right outside the hall where her wedding festivities are still going on.
Part Five: While on holiday in an Italian coastal resort, a single Marion and a romantically attached Gilles first meet. They know one another slightly from past business relations and have an instant attraction. Though each tries to ignore the pull they feel, Gilles does eventually betray the trust of his girlfriend and becomes involved with Marion. The last scene is shot in sunshine with happy music, and in its attempt to portray the tragedy of what we know awaits the young lovers, it smacks too heavily of melodrama and simply doesn't work. By this time I, and I suspect many other astute viewers, were so disgusted by the weakness of this movie that we don't much care.
0 out of 4 people found this helpful.
|
"5x2" (Five Times Two) is written & directed by Francois Ozon, who previously made the English language film "Swimming Pool." That film was a noir-ish murder mystery with lots of sex. A lot of people didn't like it, a lot of people loved it. I fall into the second category. In 5x2 he takes a step back as far as entertainment, but takes a step forward in realism. This movie isn't very original, the story's been done before and the reversal thing's been done hundreds of times...But the dialogue and events happen pretty realistically, which helps. When we meet Gilles (Stephane Freiss) and Marion (Valeria Bruni-Tedeschi), a married couple they are in front of a divorce lawyer about ready to sign their divorce papers. Once they do and they are officially divorced, they go to a motel room and have quick meaningless sex that neither one of them enjoys. After Gilles asks Marion if she'd like to try again (marriage, that is) she simply leaves. The film jumps backwards to a fairly awkward moment. Gilles and Marion are entertaining Gilles' gay brother and his boyfriend, where Gilles makes some fairly odd revelations. Skipping back again, we see the difficult birth of their son Nicolas; Their marriage; How they met and then, finally, them walking off into the sunset after their first encounter. I know it sounds as if I just ruined the ffilm for you, but rest assured. I just described every event in the film and didn't really tell you anything. This is a good foreign-film; This movie could take place in America just as easily and almost everything Ozon has in this film really happens to the most average couples (with the exception of Gilles' revelation. That only happens with certain ones). The film is no masterpiece and it's not "Brilliant!" like the cover says. It's an interesting character study for sure, the scenes of nudity are nice, and it keeps you fairly entertained. As I said, his previous effort Swimming Pool was much better...But this isn't a bad film. In a few words; Rent It First.
GRADE: B
4 out of 4 people found this helpful.
|
Looking Back
Added 3/18/2006
François Ozon (Swimming Pool, Under the Sand, 8 Women, Water Drops on Burning Rocks, etc) is a French director with a style of telling stories that is entirely his own. He seems to revel in challenging the audience to participate intellectually and emotionally in the common stories through which we daily walk. He doesn't strive for 'the big moment' or startling revelations: he is content to place a tale before us to encourage us to re-think our own existence, our parallel lives with those of his characters.
'Cinq fois deux' (5X2) is a study of a couple who meet, fall in love, marry, have a child, and divorce. But the story is told in reverse: we begin during a meeting with the lawyers who present to Marion (Valeria Bruni Tedeschi) a successful business woman, and to Gilles (Stéphane Freiss) and equally successful businessman the papers outlining their divorce settlement. All seems calm, yet after the signing the couple appears in a hotel room for one last sexual encounter that speaks volumes about their finished relationship. From that scene we move into the life they shared as a married couple with one child, a family that seems perfect, yet during a dinner party with Gilles' gay brother Christophe (Antoine Chappey) and his lover Mathieu (Marc Ruchmann) we begin to see parallels of relationship fallacies. We step back further to the wedding of Marion and Gilles where Marion's parents likewise illustrate marriages with both the sour and semi-sweet sides and the cards are on the table. And on their wedding night Gilles falls asleep on their marital bed and the frustrated Marion falls into the arms of an American stranger (Jason Tavassoli). A step further back to the courting days reveals more dissident threads, and finally the couple's original meeting at a seaside resort where Gilles is retreating with his then girlfriend Valérie (Géraldine Pailhas) suggests patterns of behavior that, knowing the ending because it was the beginning of the film, bring the audience into the realm of understanding.
The cast is excellent, the lovemaking scenes are seductive and well filmed, and the transitions for the retrograde story are smooth and intriguing. The film allows us to examine three sets of relationships in detail and in doing so gives us insight as to just why trust is so important to success. Recommended. Grady Harp, March 06
2 out of 3 people found this helpful.
|
this is a pretty good french movie
Added 3/3/2006
i've seen some of the totally backwards styled movies, this one is about how a marriage and relationship diluted gradually. there's no obvious reasons but a feeling and a shadow that both of the couple knows that their marriage would gradually come to an end. this is not a pretentious french movie, neither great nor bad, watchable but somehow nothing special. only one thing really run true: a marriage or a relationship is such a fragile existence that sometimes does not need any excuse to hang on or go on any longer. just like the heroine said: 'i'm not happy about it, i'm just happy it's done, and it's over.'
'shall we try it again?' her ex-husband asked.
she just closed the door....
0 out of 2 people found this helpful.
|
beauty, not death
Added 5/1/2009
i feel this flick is about beauty, ultimately: else, why would francois choose melvil poupaud, one of the most etherially beautiful men in cinema, to play the lead? only eduardo norriega is comparable. the beauty of choices, the beauty of dying with one's dignity intact (even if that means dying alone), the beauty of real relationships, the beauty of one's home (whether that be a place or a state of mind).
one of the crew members in the featurette described melvil as looking like christ: when he is skeletally thin and shorn of his lovely, curly locks, his beauty is not diminished, just changed -- it is ethereal, unearthly, preternatural. very like the achingly, exquisite beauty of the christ of the pieta. here is a beauty which is both cerebral and visceral; no escape from it's power. there is no escape from the power of this film, either; it latches on and does not let go. take the ride; you shall not regret the time spent in such beauty with such exalted company.
0 out of 0 people found this helpful.
|
Charming Touching Story
Added 9/5/2008
Sharing a traditional charm of a French cinematography, Francois Ozon tells us of a bi-photographer's preparations to meet inevitable resulted eventually from his brain tumour development.
A touching story.
0 out of 1 people found this helpful.
|
not one of the best movies on dying
Added 6/25/2007
I just didn't see what was so great about this movie. The description made it looked like it would be a wonderful tearjerker of a movie. Instead, I found myself impatient for the end.
Romain is a young gay fashion photographer, who likes to score coke on the side. When he blacks out on the job, he is told, by his doctor, that he has an inoperable brain tumor. In addition, chemotherapy wouldn't do much help and he has little time left.
So, Romain rejects any form of treatment. He decides to alienate himself from his boyfriend and family. He breaks up with his boyfriend. Of course, one can understand that he is trying to spare his boyfriend the grief and pain of his pending death. Despite his parents' plea to be nice, he insults his sensitive sister. Regardless of everything, he doesn't tell anyone about his health. He only tells one person: his grandmother. He only tells her because she would die soon.
After that, the movie pretty much lost my attention. Even when he was asked to impregnate a woman since her husband was sterile. His dying scene wasn't touching at all. You wanna cry hard about someone one dying at the beach? Then, go rent *Beaches*.
2 out of 3 people found this helpful.
|
