swimming pool

swimming pool
Directed by François Ozon
France/UK 2003 18 R
Review by Jim Eadon

Know that swimming pool is interesting as a character-driven movie and is psychological in nature. The movie is a French/English collaboration, and contains subtitles for much of its stretch. A frustrated writer, Charlotte Rampling, is invited to stay at half-sumptuous half-austere French house courtesy of her publisher, for a pleasant working holiday. Once there, she potters about aimlessly, then encounters the publisher's daughter, Ludivine Sagnier, and the pace picks up. Cue buckets of bitchy antagonism, jealousy, intolerance and mutual contempt that hallmark a time-honoured simmering feminine turf war.

swimming pool benefits from the sexiest species of movie eroticism: French! The nude scenes may seem jarring to, say, some of our more religious friends, but for me, the strategic, ridiculous camera angles beloved of mainstream movies that hide all naughty anatomy of naked people, are far more contrived and distracting than bare flesh. It seems the citizens of many countries still harbour puritanical Victorian values, and/or need to be treated like children and protected by censors such as the MPAA. Except many of the same movies willingly glorify violence instead. Sex creates far more life than it takes away, contrast sex with guns (I don't mean like that!). In general, tits in movies are deemed corrupting whereas killing people in movies is considered entertainment: the morality of a peculiar, hypocritical, perverse, sick, culture. Religion is very much to blame for such decadence, and America in particular is culpable to promoting such hypocrisy. I don't mean to attack America per se, it is just that most movies in Western cinemas are made in the US, which as a nation is infinitely preferable to radically left wing countries such as China, where government sanctioned torture and murder is routine. But that may be a case of damning by faint praise :)

The acting in swimming pool is skilful, I'll remember this movie for quite a while. But do not expect perfection. There are some flies in the ointment methinks. However that is always forgivable in imaginative, honest movie making. swimming pool is a little something for the more thoughtful grownups, an antidote to blockbuster hell.

spoilers corner Spoilers!!!! Warning: this box contains a movie post-mortem analysis that freely gives away important plot twists and details. If you have not yet seen this movie and intend seeing it, avoid this spoilers box until afterwards. Bookmark the page, see the movie, see if you agree with my review then write an arsy comment saying I am talking total b*ll*cks :-)
	swimming pool is meditative, made me care about the characters and their relationships, and flirts with the concepts of creativity and age. But the blurring of reality within swimming pool with imagination can be jarring, (There are echoes of Adaptation here) it is like the "oh dear, it was all a dream" plot device, i.e. ultimately unsatisfying. The movie drips with symbolism for the sake of symbolism, the navel gazing is overpowering. Oh look at all the reflections, how symbolic, wow that use of montage: how very meaningful. But that didn't matter until the murder plot. Up until that death, swimming pool is a masterful movie. When Frank died, the movie seemed to die, it lost its soul. The film struggled to try simultaneously to explain its clever tricks and to throw up another riddle or two that I didn't care about. Still, it was the sexiest murder scene ;) I foresaw the twist about the daughter not being the real daughter from the her very first scene, and I'm not that good at guessing twists, mainly because I don't analyse movies that way as I watch them. But swimming pool had "metaphor" and "twist" written all over it, so I guess I was more alert. But by that very same token, twists are becoming less satisfying, they're subject to the law of diminishing returns. here. But it is easy to chat for too long about what was unsatisfying, but I rate this movie 8/10, over all I was absorbed and intrigued.
There are no more spoilers below this point, except maybe in any user talkback comments. End of spoilers corner

Jim's preferred ending: Julie invites me over for a swim

Rating: 4/5

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From:	Bobby	Subject:	Swimming Pool: OK, what happened?	2004-01-13 22:22:25
From:	Dick	Subject:	review of the movie swimming pool	2004-01-17 04:45:06
From:	Lisa	Subject:	Swimming Pool	2004-01-18 16:08:55
From:	kymberlee	Subject:	swimming pool ending	2004-01-20 12:41:21
From:	Graham	Subject:	Swimming Pool Ending	2004-01-23 21:11:05
From:	pete	Subject:	swimming pool plot	2004-01-25 14:55:25
From:	TL	Subject:	Swimming Pool	2004-02-03 12:13:50
From:	pete	Subject:	swimming pool - why a book to publisher?	2004-02-05 19:06:31
From:	Jimmy	Subject:	cross in room	2004-02-21 04:10:32
From:	Max	Subject:	What really happened is ...	2004-03-06 23:08:02
From:	Sarah	Subject:	Sarah's Wild Imagination	2004-03-23 05:10:16
From:	Woody	Subject:	Help	2004-04-14 02:10:55
From:	jeff	Subject:	how about this for a theory?	2004-04-15 20:33:56
From:	Lori	Subject:	Complete Confusion	2004-04-21 16:32:19
From:	Lori fans	Subject:	We agree with Lori	2004-07-04 04:22:25
From:	Lisa S.	Subject:	This is what I think	2004-07-14 10:11:32
From:	bee	Subject:	A Paradox	2004-07-15 10:01:58
From:	Jesse	Subject:	Excellent Analysis	2004-07-16 11:56:52
From:	Milena	Subject:	i'm trembling.....	2004-07-24 00:50:23
From:	Bev	Subject:	swimming pool	2004-08-15 13:19:22
From:	jemmy	Subject:	finding out	2004-08-29 21:43:51
From:	susan	Subject:	Good on Lisa S.	2004-08-30 05:26:10
From:	Andrea	Subject:	question.......	2004-09-08 07:13:32
From:	Rachel	Subject:	Swimming pool	2004-09-19 08:22:16
From:	Rhonda	Subject:	Swimming Pool	2004-10-14 13:31:58
From:	Jimbo	Subject:	Solution	2004-10-24 22:03:01
From:	Jimbo	Subject:	solution...	2004-10-24 22:09:15
From:	Tyson	Subject:	JULIA!	2004-11-25 18:17:31
From:	Tyson	Subject:	I see	2004-11-25 18:28:07
From:	Sarah	Subject:	swimming pool	2004-12-13 22:28:09
From:	danny paul	Subject:	case closed	2005-01-11 10:47:34
From:	david	Subject:	The midget did it	2005-01-21 01:53:52
From:	Hoss	Subject:	Sarah's Hot Flashes -- Part I	2005-03-14 03:51:38
From:	Hoss	Subject:	Sarah's Hot Flashes -- Part II	2005-03-14 03:53:33
From:	Hoss	Subject:	Sarah's Hot Flashes -- Part III	2005-03-14 03:54:32
From:	fred hutchings	Subject:	swimming pool	2005-03-22 21:21:09
From:	Knott	Subject:	Very frustrating	2005-04-11 09:40:43
From:	donostia	Subject:	thank you!	2005-04-15 08:34:28
From:	Stanton Simon	Subject:	Movie is a dull knock off - Part 1	2005-05-26 10:48:07
From:	Stanton Simon	Subject:	Dull Knock-Off Part 2	2005-05-26 10:48:46
From:	Chrissy	Subject:	How to find the answer	2005-06-06 08:27:41
From:	Steve	Subject:	About Rhonda's comment	2005-07-08 20:35:47
From:	Blndbat8710	Subject:	'Daughters'	2005-08-22 07:05:56
From:	Dan G	Subject:	swimming pool - part one	2005-09-04 15:02:03
From:	Dan G.	Subject:	swimming pool - Part 2	2005-09-04 15:03:55
From:	Dan G.	Subject:	swimming pool - Part 3	2005-09-04 15:04:44
From:	Bean	Subject:	here it is. are you ready? ok.	2005-10-11 05:05:27
From:	Bean	Subject:	continued ...	2005-10-11 05:06:10
From:	Kevin	Subject:	Swimming Pool	2005-10-30 04:00:10
From:	Kevin	Subject:	Swimming Pool	2005-11-02 08:23:53
From:	James	Subject:	Hmm..	2005-11-29 18:29:07
From:	Randy	Subject:	swimming pool	2006-03-23 16:57:12
From:	Becca	Subject:	American Psycho	2006-07-01 01:03:02
From:	Robert	Subject:	Swimming Pool answers {PART ONE}	2006-07-06 10:27:06
From:	Robert	Subject:	Swimming Pool answers {PART TWO}	2006-07-06 10:30:04
From:	Robert	Subject:	Swimming Pool answers {PART THREE}	2006-07-06 10:33:28
From:	Robert	Subject:	Swimming Pool {PART FOUR } Conclusion	2006-07-06 10:41:18
From:	Robert	Subject:	Swimming Pool answers {PART TWO}	2006-07-06 10:48:02
From:	Robert	Subject:	Swimming Pool answers {PART ONE}	2006-07-06 10:48:05
From:	Dax	Subject:	Cesspool	2006-07-23 05:07:41
From:	djr	Subject:	swimming pool theories	2006-08-23 16:12:42
From:	Cynthia Wolfe	Subject:	Swimming Pool is museterious indeed	2006-09-04 06:37:11
From:	Cynthia	Subject:	Swimming Pool museterious, continued	2006-09-04 06:59:59
From:	Cynthia	Subject:	Swimming Pool museterious, end	2006-09-04 07:06:28
From:	Pomrana	Subject:	not so difficult	2006-10-25 04:33:08
From:	Lisa V	Subject:	one detail	2006-10-31 05:09:18
From:	Deborah	Subject:	Swimming Pool	2006-10-31 15:48:50
From:	lj	Subject:	sp	2007-06-10 06:24:11
From:	eric	Subject:	swimming pool	2007-06-21 14:10:10
From:	joy	Subject:	swimming pool	2007-06-27 08:30:18
From:	KN	Subject:	OZON'S ANSWER TO MOVIE!!	2007-07-11 17:36:10
From:	jewel	Subject:	swimming pool	2007-07-25 04:27:34
From:	bill	Subject:	The Swimming Pool	2007-07-26 21:08:11
From:	alex	Subject:	swimming pool review	2007-11-16 07:02:28
From:	Timothy	Subject:	Check site for analysis - interview	2008-02-03 19:47:46

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