White Wedding

I remember seeing this movie for the first time and about 15 more times over the years. When I was young it was a lot because of Vanessa's beauty and slightly because of the plot. Over the years the truth behind the story, the way the film unfolds, made me realize how emotional I get every time I see it. It's something all of us have gone through in one form or another. My heart went out to Mathilde and her feelings. Add to that the scenery and the atmosphere and you have the perfect tear bearer movie. Excellent acting and wise choice of actors make the movie very believable. You sympathize with all the characters and feel there emotions. A great movie for a rainy night.

Was this a joke? Stunning young pupil falls for droopy, haggard old philosophy teacher, becomes obsessed with him, disaster ensues. Imagine "Lolita" with the predatory roles reversed, none of the humor, literacy or irony, and delivered with a sleep-inducing dullness. The "erotic" scenes are laughably soft-core. The film's attempts at a sex/death dialectic are pathetic---you'd do a lot better with Kubrick's Nobokov adaptation, Pabst's "Pandora's Box" or at least "American Beauty", Tragic Jailbait stories with intelligent subtexts.

Vanessa Paradis is transcendental. She enlivens the film, even if her character is written in a cheap, tawdry and uninteresting note. The sight of Cremer slobbering over Paradis' silky young skin gave me the shivers, almost as much as watching Harvey Fierstein making out with Matthew Broderick in "Torch Song Trilogy": anything to skip this Creepy Old Guy fantasy that doesn't show any awareness of its own ludicrous hamfisted-ness.

Double Ewwwwwwww...

Vanessa Paradis is most famous today as American superstar Johnny Depp's longtime girlfriend, but she is also a FRENCH actress, which means she, of course, she has an early role where she plays a nubile teen in love with a middle-aged man. The French penchant for drooling over beautiful teenage girls may be annoying to some, but is it really worse than the American/Hollywood penchant for pretending they're NOT drooling over the beautiful teenage girls that seem to find their way into every other movie somewhere? But really there is no "eew" factor here--there are no on-camera sex scenes between the man and the girl, and 17 or not, a few shots of a naked Vanessa Paradis are not going to make ANYONE go "eew".

The bigger problem with these French "lolita" movies is the plausibility. Middle-age men don't generally date teenage girls, not because they find them icky and physically unappealing, but because they're very rarely as worldly and sophisticated as the fictional nymphets in these French movies. Moreover, even in France very few girls that age are probably too interested in ennui-filled men old enough to be their spry young grandfathers. It's actually understandable that the married middle-aged philosophy teacher in this movie would fall in love with his brilliant but troubled student since she is absolutely beautiful (clothed and unclothed) and wise beyond her years. But Paradis' character is supposed to be this streetwise urchin who has dabbled in prostitution in the past, and it is a little hard to believe she'd fall madly, obsessively in love with a fifty year man just because he shows her some kindness. (Also, while 17 may not get you twenty in a French bastile, I'm pretty sure it would get you kicked out of the teaching profession).

Paradis is indeed pretty good in this (although she would be better playing another troubled teenager a few years later in "Elisa"). And this movie is definitely well-made with some memorable scenes of sad beauty. It still remains somewhat of a middle-age male sex fantasy however, which doesn't make it at all distasteful, but does make it somewhat implausible.

Not a bad movie about impossible love, but I would suggest that you see Eric Rohmer's films a second time before taking a look at this one. What is the fascination of older man for young Lolitas? In this one, it's Vanessa Paradis, who's playing the student who get her philosophy teacher (Cremer) all tangled up in a web of difficulties. The fascination also with the troubled girl who's despaired, all the while hiding a terrible secret: she's smart, very smart. The movie is ok but sometimes a little bit too improbable. Performances are good, not great. A better film in the same genre: À la folie, pas du tout... (with Audrey Tautou). On the bright side, the movie offers an inside of what kind of feelings teachers like François are capable of developing. Every day, there's teachers who put themselves in the same situation. Society seems to be able to understand why a young girl like Mathilde could fall in love with a much older man, but the reverse ain't true.

Out of 100, I gave it 73. That's good for **½ out of ****.

Seen at home, in Toronto, on May 11th, 2004.

It's been over a decade since I saw this film, but I do remember it rather fondly. It showed sensitivity for the characters as well as the subject matter, instead of being exploitative. At the same time, it was quite frank in dealing with the story and of course, it ends tragically. I also remember being impressed with Vanessa Paradis, both for playing a difficult role deftly, and for her physical beauty. It was only recently that I became aware of her real-life relationship (being Johnny Depp's girlfriend).

I would love to see the film again, but it seems it hasn't been widely circulated on DVD, and the R2 disc is hard to find. What a pity.