Jean-Jacques Annaud's film version of Marguerite Duras, one of France's most esteemed writers, is quite erotic... told from the perspective of a 15-and-a-half-year-old French girl, who learns very early about passion, love and heartbreak...
It's the crossing of the river... The crossing, on a ferry, of one of the branches of the Mekong, in the great plains of mud and rice of southern Indochina...
A pretty young girl goes back to Saigon... She is standing on the deck, extremely defiant, wearing a silk dress, a pair of 'cabaret' high heels, and a man's hat... She is approached by an elegant dark man from Cholon who is also crossing the Mekong that day towards Saigon... 'I like your hat. It's original. A man's hat on a young girl,' he expresses, and continues: 'If you want I can drive you to Saigon.'
The rich Chinese playboy with a black Rolls-Royce is 32 years old, from that financial minority that owns all the popular housing of the colony... He's back from Paris where he undertook some business studies...
The film, beautifully shot, is a dreamy fantasy of escape through sex... The escape is that of the poor French teenager from the horror of her house in Sa-Dec... While the girl merely abides her innocent mother, she loves her younger brother poetically, without reserve... Her brother is handsome but not bright, romantic but terribly fragile... She fears her elder brother, a brutal and lawless dissolute man, stupidly dependent on his mother... The inexperienced girl wants to see him in pain...
The most remarkable aspect of the story is the strength of character of the young girl who is always a little sad... She finds the strength to proceed against the forbidden with a calm determination... "I've never followed anyone into a room yet.," she exclaims...
The room was dark, shipwrecked, surrounded by the never-ending clamor of the town, carried away by the flow of the town... Her body was in that public noise... Their love was erotic, immediate, unrestrained... It was physical, violent, devastating...
But the girl loves other young woman in the boarding house, the 17-year-old Helen... Her passion for Helene is intense... Helen is immodest... She don't realize she walks naked in the dormitory... She doesn't know that she's very beautiful... She's innocent lingering on in youth...
'The Lover' parallels the life of Duras herself... The setting, in Indochina, is one she knows intimately... The story is set mostly in the early 1920s following the decline of French domination of the territory that is now Vietnam... The film is the most exciting journey along a winding river of passion, which ultimately flows to the sea...
Jean-Jacques Annaud handles the story with real sensuality, romance and dramatic power... He shots much of the film with a distinguished style...
Jane March is attractive, but not obviously beautiful... Her impressionable teenager's gradual understanding of sexuality is well presented... She was subjected to a close, penetrating gaze by Annaud's camera..
Tony Leung, as the rich Chinaman, is the lusty son unable to escape his family's commands...
Although unseen, Jeanne Moreau jaded voice narrates the action and imparts a special flavor... Her words are poetry, as any Duras reader knows...
It's the crossing of the river... The crossing, on a ferry, of one of the branches of the Mekong, in the great plains of mud and rice of southern Indochina...
A pretty young girl goes back to Saigon... She is standing on the deck, extremely defiant, wearing a silk dress, a pair of 'cabaret' high heels, and a man's hat... She is approached by an elegant dark man from Cholon who is also crossing the Mekong that day towards Saigon... 'I like your hat. It's original. A man's hat on a young girl,' he expresses, and continues: 'If you want I can drive you to Saigon.'
The rich Chinese playboy with a black Rolls-Royce is 32 years old, from that financial minority that owns all the popular housing of the colony... He's back from Paris where he undertook some business studies...
The film, beautifully shot, is a dreamy fantasy of escape through sex... The escape is that of the poor French teenager from the horror of her house in Sa-Dec... While the girl merely abides her innocent mother, she loves her younger brother poetically, without reserve... Her brother is handsome but not bright, romantic but terribly fragile... She fears her elder brother, a brutal and lawless dissolute man, stupidly dependent on his mother... The inexperienced girl wants to see him in pain...
The most remarkable aspect of the story is the strength of character of the young girl who is always a little sad... She finds the strength to proceed against the forbidden with a calm determination... "I've never followed anyone into a room yet.," she exclaims...
The room was dark, shipwrecked, surrounded by the never-ending clamor of the town, carried away by the flow of the town... Her body was in that public noise... Their love was erotic, immediate, unrestrained... It was physical, violent, devastating...
But the girl loves other young woman in the boarding house, the 17-year-old Helen... Her passion for Helene is intense... Helen is immodest... She don't realize she walks naked in the dormitory... She doesn't know that she's very beautiful... She's innocent lingering on in youth...
'The Lover' parallels the life of Duras herself... The setting, in Indochina, is one she knows intimately... The story is set mostly in the early 1920s following the decline of French domination of the territory that is now Vietnam... The film is the most exciting journey along a winding river of passion, which ultimately flows to the sea...
Jean-Jacques Annaud handles the story with real sensuality, romance and dramatic power... He shots much of the film with a distinguished style...
Jane March is attractive, but not obviously beautiful... Her impressionable teenager's gradual understanding of sexuality is well presented... She was subjected to a close, penetrating gaze by Annaud's camera..
Tony Leung, as the rich Chinaman, is the lusty son unable to escape his family's commands...
Although unseen, Jeanne Moreau jaded voice narrates the action and imparts a special flavor... Her words are poetry, as any Duras reader knows...