User reviews

First, let's deal with the giant elephant in the room. In the age of custom-made available on-demand adult content, one should not resort to movies like this to satisfy the curiosity for nude body or sex.

Yes, it involves relatively graphic and prolonged sexual scenes, but it's not a sexploitation movie. The Lover is based on a bestselling autobiographical story of Marguerite Duras (1984 Prix Goncourt), a well-established name in both cinema and literature who have also wrote Hiroshima Mon Amour (1959).

Although critics never loved the film, not very prudent viewer should appreciate nice cinematography, quality setting and realistic, easy to follow story played by very nice actors who look good both dressed and undressed. It's not a groundbreaking movie by all means, but there's so much more in it than people who label it with softcore or erotic can find: family trauma, living in a foreign culture, how traditions are shaping the future and how love could be cruel. It's not a movie about love, rather about the search to understand what love is when you are young and daring.

In French colonial Indochina, a French girl (Jane March) has two older brothers, Pierre and Paul. Pierre is their mother's favorite despite being a thief and a bully. They're in fear of him. She is repatriating him to France after stealing from an opium den. The family is running out of money for him to steal. On a Mekong river crossing, the girl meets a rich jobless globetrotting playboy Chinaman (Tony Ka Fai Leung). She tells him that she's 17 despite being only 15 and a half. He gives her a ride to her boarding school and starts an erotic affair. Her friend Helene Lagonelle is the only other white girl in the school.

This is a solid example of the sub-genre of exotic erotica. It's got beautiful naked people but it's not quite overt softcore porn. It's more cinematic than the classic Emmanuelle or other pornographic B-movies. The exotic locations look beautiful. It is visually stunning. The acting is competent. These are actual actors. On the other hand, the story is paper thin. The plot isn't much to talk about but that may be besides the point.

Based on the semi-autobiographical novel of Marguerite Duras, who was born in French colonial Vietnam, this film chronicles the sexual awakening of a young French girl who falls passionately in love with a Chinese scion of a rich trading family who have his marriage already arranged. They make love passionately in a way which more truthful than is usual on the screen. This film is intensely visual, written by a major French script writer, Gerard Brach, and narrated by the powerful world weary voice of Jeanne Moreau. If you have experienced consuming sexual passion and the pain which it can engender, you will understand this film. If you haven't, this film will give you that vicarious experience. It is all the more truthful because although the relationship is interracial, the passion transcends, whereas the cultural differences block the fulfilment of their true love. It is about how people miss love trapped by convention and common sense. This is a flawless film, beautifully shot--a minor classic, much under-appreciated.

Marguerite Duras' autobiographical recount of a forbidden amour fou in 1929 French Indochina, between a fifteen-and-a-half-year-old French girl (March) and a Chinese man (Leung) twice her age. This film adaptation is beautifully shot by DP Robert Fraisse, for its stunning exotic scenery and erotic lovemaking intimacy, who earned the film the sole Oscar nomination.

THE LOVER is director Jean-Jacques Annaud's sixth feature, four years after his animalistic faux- documentary THE BEAR (1988), a theme he would re-trace in TWO BROTHERS (2004) with tigers. Here, Annaud brilliantly lays the stress on the human's most primitive libido over the opposite sex in this immoral passion act, the sex scenes are the most notorious takeaway of the film, they are artistically graphic and starkly intense, but also shimmers with a tint of obscurity under the shadowy light of the so-called "bachelor room", where their trysts take place. Their sex attractions are alike, the vast differences of the opposite sexes between two cultures, two races and an upended social classes (she is from a poor French family where her widow mother works as a local French teacher in a shabby town, whereas he is a layabout who has an affluent father and a family business to take over) makes room for the story to develop in this manner.

Annaud is also no stranger to the Chinese soil, he would shoot SEVEN YEARS IN TIBET in 1997, which for political reason along with the director himself, was banned in China; nevertheless, his latest work WOLF TOTEM (2015), a Chinese-French co-production based on a popular Chinese novel is a huge box-office performer this year, one-time even selected as the Chinese entry for the upcoming Oscar's foreign picture race (which was denied by the academy since its co-production status). In THE LOVER, his treatment of the Chinese man is slightly different from Duras' words, his inferior masculinity is moderately muffled by a veil of oriental politeness and endurance, especially when encountering the provocation of the girl's brash elder brother (Giovaninetti). But, when he is alone with the girl, a contradicted struggle between love and trade torments him and soon his weakness lays bare completely when he succumbs to opium and complies to the family-arranged marriage, but a final advent of the black limousine does suggest his futile but lingering attachment in their liaison. 1992 is such a banner year for Tony Ka Fai Leung, currently has three leading performances in my year's top 10 list, his portrayal here establishes a disarming mien as "the lover", a man whose job is to love, nothing else, incapable of changing his or his lover's fate.

Accompanied by Jeanne Moreau's resonant voice-over, reciting Duras' segments of texts throughout, mainly we are channeled into the girl's perspective of the affair, her precocious nature and non-conformist behaviour, all through, in spite of her poverty-ridden background, she is the one monopolises the higher standing in this romance, ascribed to the self-imposed superiority of a colonist, even during their first sexual intercourse, she makes the first move. Tangibly, there is something morally sickening in the colonised land, apart from their blatant interracial sex trade. Such a formidable role proves to be a double-edged sword for the débutante Jane March, whose comely but aloof pretence matches the character fittingly, but also would curb her future career as an erotic desire.

Frédérique Meininger, who plays the girl's mother, in her very limited screen-time, manages to unfold a great range of emotional spectra from jadedness to chagrin, agony, then utter disillusion. Suffice to say, the film is an above-average piece of cinema erotica, which gives a shot in exploiting the colonised culture, along with some R-rated explicitness, e.g. a pair of gorgeous buttocks humping to-and-fro on the screen.

What a strange film, what a weird concept to be seen in North American theatres. This is a film that was funded by the United Kingdom, directed by a Frenchman, starred a Chinese man ( Tony Leung ) and had a European feel to it. So what the hell was it doing playing in a small Canadian city ( London Ontario, population 326 000 )on New Years Day in 1993? And why did I go see it? Probably because I had seen everything else at the time and my girlfriend at the time dragged me to it ( yes that is you Denise, if you ever read this review ). As it turned out I have to admit that I enjoyed this film, and not just because of the rampant nudity and graphic sexuality, although that was quite nice and almost served as foreplay, but also because the story was interesting and strange and weird and depressing and thrilling all rolled into one. Does that make any sense? It does to me, sort of.

The Lover ( english translation ) is a story about a Chinaman and a young French girl that seem to fall in love. I say "seem" because they are so cruel to each other at times that I really wondered if their relationship really wasn't all about sex and pain, of the emotional kind that is. She is much younger than he is and they are also forbidden to marry because of his customs and society to be wed. So they have to put on a cherade when they are at the same function or in the same place together when his family is around. There is one scene that had me angry and it is a scene when the young girl seems to go out of her way to look sexually ravenous with another man as the Chinaman looks on, helplessly. She does so, clearly to get his attention but it is so cruel and blatant that it becomes disturbing. But then again, love is that way at times (just ask my ex-girlfriend). It hurts you and it gives you pleasure. Their relationship was doomed from the start due to their age difference and their race and religious differences. So it is inevitable that one goes out of the way to hurt the other.

Jean Jacques Annaud and his DP photograph the film beautifully. The sights and sounds of the 20's are lush and colourful and the film does a great job of convincing you that it is a time period of 70 some years ago. The acting is quite good as well. But I guess the only reason that I didn't like the film as much as I could have is that I, like a previous reviewer, felt almost voyeuristic and like a pedophile when watching the film. I am not opposed to nudity in film and I think when it furthers the story it is just as necessary as the music and the script. But seeing 20 year old March in as many comprimising positions as she was sort of made me feel, well, weird. Watching the two of them go at it was almost like watching soft core porn. It was great for me as a 21 year old man, but it also may have been a bit excessive. I am not saying that the film is bad because of it, I am just saying that it is weird to see as much as we do.

The Lover is a strange film and it will probably leave you odiously conflicted as well. In many ways it is a good film but in other ways it is just, well, weird. Here in lies the conflict. Do you praise it for all that it is, or do you denounce it for all that shows? Maybe both. Still, if you ever do come across it in a video store, it may be worth a look. It is different than almost anything you will see come out of mainstream Hollywood, and that is always refreshing. And dit also made my "ex" mad. Now that was worth the price of admission alone.

It's not often I get to see a movie like this. The story of L'Amant potrays a most complex and provocative relationship between a young French girl (Jane March) and a Chinaman (Tony Leung). The two lovers' attraction towards each other are purely physical, but there are a lot of psychological burdens and suffering that they can't break free from, since the two of them are psychologically washed-up people who lives within the shackles of society that they live in. At times they treat each other cruelly while at times they treat each other with tender affection, yet we don't know whether they feel true love for each other or not. That's where the story gets very interesting and different.

The sex scenes are indeed graphic, but by no means done in bad taste or just for the sake of sex. The film is much more than about lust, it is about two lovers who found refuge in each other's arms. Jane March and Tony Leung gave great performances, showing the subtleties of conflicting emotions that they had to endure. Beautifully paced storyline with great atmosphere and soundtrack will make this a worthwhile movie experience. Very highly recommended.

I loved the backdrop for this film. The scenes and the places. For me the story was one of unrequited love. The Chinese gentleman (and he was a gentleman) was totally in love with the girl and as we find out at the end of the film , remained in love with the girl all his life. She appeared to be a self motivated rebellious teenager who thought prostitution was cool. I think she , many years later and wiser , realized what she might have had. This young girl begins to realize that her choices have a cost as she is ostracized by those around her , berated on the one hand by her brother and used by her mother to obtain more money from the Chinaman. Although her family is quite dysfunctional I found it difficult to have any real sympathy for the girl who is portrayed as a bit of a tart with a smart ass attitude and no class to speak of. The opposite in fact of the Chinese gentleman. Quite a feat of acting I would say. Both parts were played well and I thought this quite a thought provoking film in so many ways. A worth while watch.

I have seen this movie in 1992. I was quite young, in fact I was 16 and when I heard about it something inside me make a noise. It seemed to be an amazing story, a girl of my age having a lover... I said Wow. And one afternoon I left my English class and I went to the movies. It was quite a desert. It was amazing, wonderful, marvelous, a gem. This story is well written and incredibly well performed with this exquisite Tomy Leung, an unknown actor to me at those times. The scene of the car, when Tomy Leung's finger barely touching Jane March's and the contrast with the one they are arriving to the Bording School with the grip of those hands. And her breath showing her arouse.

The love of those people who cannot break the rules of the world they were living, the prejudices, the society but that at least they could enjoy a period of exquisite love, tenderness, passion, experiences that one person could never forget. For me it is unforgettable, I have seen this movie nearly 20 times and I have recommended all of those I think they deserve a piece of joy.

Very nice exotic and unusual story of a love somewhat forbidden but well consumed. Great location and lots of extras to make us feel the reality of it. This is incredible today to see so much without CGI. It almost feels unreal! Like this is not a film.

This movie is one of the very few successful attempts at evoking female sexuality and sensuality in a non-obscene way. It's an exploration of the work of the senses, not so much a story with a plot. Therefore, it is unique in the history of cinema. Whereas other movies featuring a young girl and an older lover are mostly playful, ironic or simply intent on breaking a taboo, this movie brings an ode to the senses themselves in a much more subtle way.

Difficult as this may be, Annaud brings us as close as we can get to the atmosphere of love in a colonial and exotic setting. This delicate setting with its many contradictions (race, gender, age) adds to the experience. (A young girl who explores her own sexuality, couldn't dream of a more well-suiting context). In fact, the "colony" herself is a major character in the movie; the colony with her mighty Mekong River, her smells and colors, her strange sounds and her enigmatic people.

On a more metaphoric level, the Colony represents a temporary space, a place where Western people only pass through, a space that cannot be owned forever, a place of love and hate, just like the lovers' relationship. And in the end, the lovers have to go their own way, just like the colonialists have to leave the colony they love.

The movie is poetically slow, and at times becomes an almost ritual repetition of a single act. Precisely therein lies its 'dramatic content'. Add the beautiful cinematography and you have a nice exercise in film.

I saw this movie for the first time a few years back, on video. But I didn't know what to expect. Though after I finished watching it, I saw that it was Marguerite Duras autobiography of her teenage years. Which also led me to read the book last year. Marguerite Duras (at 15) was trying to escape the abuse, from her family and found comfort in this man (at 30)who was also trapped due to family tradition. These 2 people found comfort with one another. Jane March & Tony Leung(both very talented) completely captured the love expression toward one another that Marguerite Duras was trying to proyect in the film. Also by using love making as a way to communicate to one another what they were too scare to say in their own words. If all you saw was sex, then you really didn't understand the movie. At the end of Duras' autobiography, she reunites with him at the end of his life(before he dies) and realizes that she really loved him.

L'Amant is a very beautiful, haunting and sensual film. The characters are perfect and acted in a minimalist way that's refreshing.

I see here that the main objections to this film are: 1 .. Not enough character development 2 .. The film does not have a clear direction to where it's going 3 .. Too slow 4 .. Too much sex (for some people if a film has explicit sex it can't be good)

All these objections are pointless:

1 .. The characters here are ordinary people, not that interesting by themselves. It's the love story that's interesting. Both of them know they have no future and try to pretend it's not love. I am sick of films in which the characters are sure they love each other after 30 minutes of "character development".

2 .. The fact that this film does not follow a clear path it's one of it's qualities. It adds more drama and the characters themselves are confused and don't know where they're going. The whole film plays like a dream of love and to request "clear direction" it's pointless.

3 .. Ahh! The "too slow" argument. There are films in this world that make you think about you, your life and the world that's around you. Surely you need some TIME to reflect on that. Short attention-span is a bad thing :).

4 .. This film is about love. The fact that they are shown having sex makes them real persons, with real bodies not some film characters. Sex is an escape from the world around them and I don't think it's too much, too explicit or some nonsense like that. It's so hard to have a film with sex it it that's not trivial! This is a masterpiece by this fact alone.

The persons who "though up" these arguments took the main strengths of the film and complained about them. This for me it's proof enough that they didn't understand this film or that the film didn't struck a single chord in their soul. Short attention span is the main plague of films now and the lack of it is the reason the french make such great films! Please try to see it again and not in a hurry. It's not light cinema! It's great cinema!

A wealthy man (Tony Leung) is travelling on a ferry when he encounters a pretty young woman (Jane March). It doesn't take long before they are having a fairly torrid affair, but things are difficult. He is older and a Chinese citizen, she a French girl in what was then French Indo-China. She is also a bit of a gold-digger and quite aware that if she plays her cards right, he can offer her a new, more prosperous, life than that she shares with her mother (Fréderique Meininger) and two brothers. The older brother (Arnaud Giovaninetti) is a bit puritanical when it comes to his sister, her younger (Melvil Poupaud) is more shy and usually content to keep his head down and play his piano. Despite the initially venal nature of her relationship, there gradually develops a bond that is both loving and turbulent as the political situation overtakes their love, with the French leaving Vietnam to local government. This is a well scored and stunning looking film but the story is remarkably thin and repetitive and once we've seen them have sex a few times, I began to wonder if Jean-Jacques Annaud was just a bit bereft of ideas as to how to develop either character beyond the physical or material. It's a slow burn and I'm afraid that I just didn't really engage with either as the story trundled along, narrated occasionally and rather melodramatically by Jeanne Moreau, to a conclusion that was quite a long time coming and not really worth the wait. It's watchable, and illustrates well the gap between rich and poor here in the 1920s, but is very much an example of style over substance.

A love story in Saigon.

This movie is beautifully shot. It doesn't evade erotic explicitness in the awakening body (and heart?) of the young girl, who, as a character in the movie and representing M. D. she's a wonderful choice.

The Chinese man is also an excellent cinematic choice, as in the Wong Kar-Wai movies.

The cultural conflicts are portrayed rather superficially but they are truthful. The colonial French presence is of course still very present at the beginning of the 20th century.

What I particularly liked a lot is the 'not overdone' melancholy throughout the whole movie, in the imagery, music and slow narration.

All by all, this love story is worth it for the visuals alone already. If you have lived many years in Saigon, all the more so.

The Lover follows the lives of two characters in 1920's Saigon. The French girl, who is smart and sensual yet young, poor and inexperienced. The Chinaman, who is rich and experienced but constrained by an impending arranged marriage.

These differences between the two create a lot of tension. This was a time of extreme prejudice and interracial couples were unheard of.

Instead of a normal relationship, one of lust and fulfillment takes root. With the girl desperate to help her impoverished family and the Chinaman reluctant of his future partner, they both help each other. Sexually at first but it moves towards other ways.

Visually, the film places you in early 20th century Vietnam. The sights and sounds are spot on and accurate. The content is interesting and it never loses it's grip on the audience. It is very erotic and beautiful with lots of sexual tension that exists between the worlds of men and women.

I would highly recommend this film.

There are just some books that shouldn't be made into movies because plot is not the main focus. Margaurite Duras' book was one of them, and this movie is the proof. While certainly one of the most erotic movies I've ever seen, and the cinematography can't be faulted, the movie lacks the language, POV switches (from first to third and back), and the stream-of-consciousness transitions that made the book work so well. Without those key elements, what's left is a movie that shows the "reality" but not enough of the art.

I bought this video before I ever viewed the film on recommendation from a friend. I have watched it over and over. It is fantastic, bringing nerve endings onto the surface! Visually stunning. Sensual to the point it takes one's breath away. Every time I re-watch this film, I find yet something else to savor. Now if I can only find the novel to read! Tony Leung is well-bred simmering sexuality. Jane March is hot/cold perfect as his lover!

In Jean-Jacques Annaud's flaccid soft-porn melodrama a young French girl is sexually awakened by a polite but torrid affair with a Chinese gentleman in colonial Southeast Asia. The film was adapted from the autobiographical novel by Marguerite Duras, but is actually a dimwitted cousin to 'Last Tango In Paris', with all the pretensions but none of the power of Bertolucci's film (the anonymous characters are identified only as 'the girl', 'the Chinese man', and so forth). The eroticism so vital to the story is further undermined by a script that might have been improved by subtitles (but not by much), and fatally crippled by two leads with little chemistry and even less depth. There's nothing about the vague, passive schoolgirl played by Jean March to suggest she could ever write like Duras, so it's hard to connect the often exquisite voice-over narration (read by Jeanne Moreau) with the empty sentiments coming out her mouth. Desperate publicists tried to drum up prurient interest by circulating rumors that the sex was genuine, but it's a moot point: the love scenes are no more provocative than a gymnastics exhibition, minus the dexterity and grace.

It is a beautiful love story, and the filming is so beautiful. I have watched it over and over again. It is erotic, but it is a love story.

A lost love story of two people back in the 1920's. The performance of the two main character is very good.

"The Lover"/"L'Amant" is a movie drunk on its own romantic, self-consciously exotic beauty. There is really something iconic about the image of Jane March leaning on a boat railing in her man's straw hat, loose sack dress, and crystal-embellished pumps. A number of other images also qualify as "perfect shots": the matinée-idol entrance of Tony Leung, who plays the title character, or the way the tears in March's eyes catch the light at just the right angle.

With mixed results, the movie goes to great lengths to prove it's about something more than beautiful people having lots of languorous afternoon sex. Most successfully, it comments on the double standards faced by both ethnic minorities and women in this society. The Lover takes this 15-year-old girl to his bed but insists that he must marry a virgin; the girl's family is appalled by the thought of her having sex with a Chinese man, but eventually turns a blind eye to the relationship because it helps their financial difficulty. I'm less convinced, however, that the movie makes a cohesive and truthful thematic statement about the nature of love: the concluding line, meant to be poignant and romantic, is instead totally banal.

Other than this last line, Jeanne Moreau does a great job narrating the movie: her voice is rich, aged, and mysterious, and speaks English very well. Jane March, as the younger incarnation of Moreau's narrator (isn't it nice how their names sound similar?) manages the difficult task of being both very childlike and very self-possessed. I thought Tony Leung's performance was shallow at first (perhaps because English is not his first language), but he eventually improves, and one of his last scenes is extraordinary.

In my opinion, the central relationship in "L'Amant" is a bit too poorly defined to make the movie rank with the greatest cinematic love stories—there are times when you're just not sure what part of it is love, what part is lust, what part is curiosity. But perhaps it's good that the movie leaves you with questions like these. And it definitely has a dreamy, sensuous escapism all its own.