Late August, Early September

Slow-paced, nuanced portrait of the friends surrounding a dying man. Wonderfully subtle and insightful, with outstanding acting and a marvelous script. Director Assayas' skill behind the camera is evident in every shot, despite lack of variety in locations and little action. Lots of conversation but the best moments come when the camera begins to wander. The kind of film you need to throw yourself into to truly appreciate. Very, very french.

STYLIZED REALISM

A tremendous and moving depiction of friendship and love whose dialogue is obviously French and whose camera-verite is very Dogme 95. Through a hand-held whirl we see stunningly candid and enticingly bare portraits of the goings on and thoughts of a group of friends including all the nuances of relationships. In this regard, Assayas's film is very similar to "La Promesse" and the Dogme 95 films. But the dialogue is extremely French in that it is very dramatic and a little too perfect to be real: dialogues feature characters who engage in dialogue's where they listen and think rather than argue. Yet even this works in the films favor, making you all the more taken in by characters demonstrate such depth.

The performances are remarkable and for the most part, the characters brilliantly faceted.

The movie is a bit longer than it needs to be, but the subtlety of the scenes requires patient development.

If you like Robert Bresson, Hal Hartley, Lars Van Trier, or Thomas Vinterburg, go see this. The style of the camerawork and the lushness of some of the lighting makes this a must see for the screen

I was attracted to this film because of Virginie Ledoyen (The Valet, * Women), and to a lesser extent because it was written and directed by Olivier Assayas (Boarding Gate, Demonlover, Paris, je t'aime). I was not thrilled, but I was not terribly disappointed either.

Ledoyen, as were all the characters in the film was self-obsessed. Probably none more so than Gabriel (Mathieu Amalric - The Diving Bell and the Butterfly), who seemed to need a constant reaffirmation from his friends, but rejected any criticism of his aimless life.

The film revolved around Adrien (François Cluzet), a writer that lived on the margins while composing novels that no one read. In fact, most all of the characters lived on the margins in meaningless jobs. They just floated instead of trying to build something.

I guess if I wasn't fascinated with helping someone who seems to live a similar life, I wouldn't have found this film as interesting. But the acting rose above the story and it was, indeed a pleasure to watch.

The style of the film, described elsewhere as in the 'Dogme 95' genre, really works well for this story, especially on the cinema screen; on video, the transfer was made from a slightly poor-quality print, which is too bad - the photography in the movie is excellent. For the technically-oriented, "Fin Aout, Début Septembre" was filmed in Super-16mm, and in my opinion this sort of plot is perfectly suited to the S16, or the DV-originated type of storytelling technique. It's true there was no murder or gratuitous violence, no rape or incest, no endless spurting of tears and confessions, which is frankly the reason I love this film. The dialogues are believable, the characters are very real, with that feeling of people we've known and maybe not always loved or cared to be around, but who are part of life nonetheless...I admire a filmmaker who is willing to present characters that are based in life, not in movie clichés, and Assayas pulls it off here wonderfully in my opinion.

i like french films, especially french films where everybody thinks they are the bomb, nobody works and everybody lounges around drinking coffee. that's my ideal in life, but enough about me. the story is about a bunch of middle aged people who each is going through some sort of crisis. basically they meet each other and discuss their life, not in a direct way, but through inneundo. are they full of themselves, yes, but it's still fun to watch. not the best of film making, but while we rot on this planet and babes like the one you see on this movie are out of our grasp, we can watch this movie. man this review is lame! fudge IMDb! fudge comments!