Besuch am Meer

The film is directed by the controversial François Ozon. See the Sea is also his first long feature, as that said; the film isn't very long, only 52 minutes.

See the sea is very short and very powerful, but it's also very minimal. Like, there are only three characters in the film, and only two of them can talk, and they barley do. And there is no music or sound effects, everything is quiet, and it's stylistic photographed. It kind reminds me of Roman Polanskis masterful film Knife in the Water.

See the sea is a good and very rarely film, but where the film totally failed is the "shocking end", because it isn't shocking, I saw the ending just after five minutes.. So the surprise effect is totally gone, and that ruin the film a lot. But still worth watching.

The story begins with a crying baby and ends with a crying baby (but under very different circumstances) and in between we become involved in a intriguing and somewhat sinister drama about two very different women. The beauty of the beach location with its golden sand contrasts in an interesting way with the ugliness of the tragic events. Simmering not far below the surface is the sexual yearning of two women, each of them lonely in their own way.

Baby Chiffre is a great little actress - smiling, gurgling, crying and doing all the right things at the right time. The two women made a nice contrast in characters - Sasha Halls as the lonely elegant wife and Marina de Van as the intruding back-packer. The development of the plot as the cunning back-packer with her insensitive questioning manipulates the wife into accepting her presence inside her home is an exciting thought somewhat frightening aspect of the story.

There are a couple of details I would like to question: Firstly, would the obviously well-bred wife put the toilet roll at her feet on the bathroom floor? Secondly, whilst admitting she was very hungry, would the backpacker pick up her dinner plate and lick off the gravy with her big fat tongue? While the toothbrush scene might offend some people,I found it quite acceptable in the context of the desperate character.

Husband Paul appears late in the film as a businessman returning from Paris. The shocking scene which he discovers on arriving home stuns him into absolute silence, hand over mouth to stifle his cry. I think a cry of terror, panic, disbelief - call it what you will, would have added more dramatic impact.

Summing up: top quality film, interesting, exciting and disturbing. I am still trying to understand the significance of the title.

It's not until a feature filmmaker reaches a certain status that their short films are released beyond the festival circuit. Now the short work of Francois Ozon is available on DVD after a short cinematic release.

Ozon offers impressive tapas here, with concise, impeccably structured short films. Plot twists are reminiscent of Roald Dahl, while the sensual undercurrents approach Anais Nin's erotica, without being nearly as explicit.

In Summer Dress (1996, 15 minutes), two gay teenagers are on holiday at French beach community Isle d'Yeu. While wasp-waisted Sebastian mimes to 'Bang! Bang!', by chanteuse Sheila, his lover Luc begs him to be more discreet. Until Luc dallies with the older, knowing Lucia at the local 'beat'. After Luc's forced to wear her dress home, he comes out of the closet.

The cinematography is flashback 1950s, with azure sea, bronzed boys in swimming trunks and rose-red lips. But this nostalgia avoids sentimentality, instead increasing the dreamlike quality of Luc's experience. And the interplay between the characters demonstrates an essential sexual fluidity present in all Ozon's films – although his characters may have definite sexual orientations, there's no guarantee they'll follow them. In addition, as gay auteur Ozon's focus of desire is men, it liberates his women from the 'male gaze' and allows them to be more interesting.

Sharing the same island setting as Summer Dress, the standout film of the collection is See the Sea (1997, 52 minutes).

Englishwoman Sasha (Sasha Hails) is holidaying alone with her baby daughter when ill-kempt backpacker Tatiana (Marina de Van) pitches her tent in the backyard. From the first, something is not quite right about Tatiana, but lonely Sasha wants someone to babysit. As the suspense develops, Tatiana becomes more repellent but also fascinating, an earthy id to Sasha's ego. At the same time, while Sasha may be clearly normal, she is also a careless mother. While, the relationship between the two is reminiscent of Ozon's Swimming Pool, the outcome is much darker. ****/***** stars.

Francois Ozon has proven himself an unflinching observer of the human animal's dark side. Its amazing how Ozon can infuse a short film about a seaside vacation with this much oppressive atmosphere and fright. The two characters are very human thanks to Ozon showing the good and bad of all parties. A film this gritty should never be called gratuitous. Rather it puts a good person and an evil one in a fishbowl for us to observe and although neither is perfect you are left with no question as to which is which at the end of one hour. Without a doubt worth your time and possibly purchase if someone else can speak to the quality of the DVD's available out there.

If your idea of suspense is waiting for a sullen, unhinged character to finally snap, then I suppose this qualifies as supsenseful. But I found this film to be a pointless string of evocative imagery without much of a soul. I was waiting for something awful to happen, and after 50 minutes, something does. I walked away feeling deadened, and cheated. Or is that how I was SUPPOSED to feel? oooh.