I really like the following description of main character, Simon, found at another web site----"Simon is a sensitive, private, lonely, broken, and tormented soul." We are introduced to S. during his travel home for a holiday visit, travel during which he meets another young voyager (Louise), who he winds up inviting into his home. Somewhat surprisingly we find it is not upon Louise that Simon's thoughts dwell, but rather on boyhood companion (and likely more), Mathieu. Something of their earlier (most likely sexual) relationship is alluded to during Simon's visit to a local lighthouse and his conversation with Mathieu, who is its keeper. While he might have been hoping for some sort of rekindling, it soon becomes apparent to Simon, and to us, that M. is moving on as concerns his relationship preferences (yes, he likely enjoys the wild kiss he initiates with S.---at Louise's urging---but not enough to change his current course). Louise is now his focus, something that becomes 'majorly' upsetting to S.
If you require further proof of Simon's true feelings, you need only view the late-in-the-film scene in which S. enters Mathieu's quarters (when M. is away), makes his way to the bed, lies in it, eyes closed, holding the bedclothes, then the pillow, to his nose and deeply breathes in Mathieu's scent. While doing this, he is moved to initiate his own self-gratification. A tremendously sexy scene---I kept hoping Mathieu would appear in the doorway, but obviously other things were afoot.
Mother, Marie's, startling disclosure near film's conclusion, concerning one of the major relationships in Simon's life, results in an ending you are unlikely to soon forget.
PS--Much of this script is a little slow moving and, sometimes, repetitive. My 6 awarded Stars are aimed, primarily, at Ulliel's acting as Simon, but also at Garcia's as mother. I won't be throwing this out of my DVD collection, but likely will not be viewing it often.
****
SOME LATER-IN-TIME THOUGHTS (A POSTMORTEM, IF YOU WILL)(May, 2007)---
Following young (late teens) Simon as the film begins, and later meeting those who make up the short arc of his life, we begin our study of a most fragile existence. Almost immediately we're given Louise. "Learning" about this young (past mid-teens) girl who appears at story's beginning---and sticks with Simon almost throughout---becomes strangely intriguing. Who, indeed, is Louise? His fiancée-to-be......is she really? Or is she something else?
Next, there's the question of his family: Simon has an unhappy relationship with his father, one of misunderstandings. The connection with his 2-year older sister is a contentious one. That then leaves his loving and protective mother......a mother who comes across as being ultimately perceptive of a very fragile son. This, strangely, is the same mother who at film's end gives him absolutely catastrophic news......and then, ending the family's vacation, departs their seaside home leaving Simon completely alone. At that point we have been given, in a most jolting manner by the film's writer/director, something her type mother would never, never ever do.
Ah.........but Mother is not to worry for, as this tale draws to an end, a shockingly devastating scene is being caught for us and for her by "video camera nut," Simon----preserving on film, as he so likes to do, life's important events.
If any film on DVD cries out for a Director's Commentary, it is this one. As just one reason, there are numerous action jumps / changes wherein the preceding scene activity has (apparently?) nothing to do with that which follows. Some are only one shot long (such as a night-time scene of a man entering a near-distant home of two lit rooms, then moving from one room to the other, turning out lights as he goes-----leaving us with only a twinkling indoor Christmas tree as the shot fades). What's that about?
=======================
(How I love the oh-so-fitting label reviewer, Chris Knipp, of Berkeley, CA, has applied to Gaspard Ulliel--- 'Savage Fawn')
****
If you require further proof of Simon's true feelings, you need only view the late-in-the-film scene in which S. enters Mathieu's quarters (when M. is away), makes his way to the bed, lies in it, eyes closed, holding the bedclothes, then the pillow, to his nose and deeply breathes in Mathieu's scent. While doing this, he is moved to initiate his own self-gratification. A tremendously sexy scene---I kept hoping Mathieu would appear in the doorway, but obviously other things were afoot.
Mother, Marie's, startling disclosure near film's conclusion, concerning one of the major relationships in Simon's life, results in an ending you are unlikely to soon forget.
PS--Much of this script is a little slow moving and, sometimes, repetitive. My 6 awarded Stars are aimed, primarily, at Ulliel's acting as Simon, but also at Garcia's as mother. I won't be throwing this out of my DVD collection, but likely will not be viewing it often.
****
SOME LATER-IN-TIME THOUGHTS (A POSTMORTEM, IF YOU WILL)(May, 2007)---
Following young (late teens) Simon as the film begins, and later meeting those who make up the short arc of his life, we begin our study of a most fragile existence. Almost immediately we're given Louise. "Learning" about this young (past mid-teens) girl who appears at story's beginning---and sticks with Simon almost throughout---becomes strangely intriguing. Who, indeed, is Louise? His fiancée-to-be......is she really? Or is she something else?
Next, there's the question of his family: Simon has an unhappy relationship with his father, one of misunderstandings. The connection with his 2-year older sister is a contentious one. That then leaves his loving and protective mother......a mother who comes across as being ultimately perceptive of a very fragile son. This, strangely, is the same mother who at film's end gives him absolutely catastrophic news......and then, ending the family's vacation, departs their seaside home leaving Simon completely alone. At that point we have been given, in a most jolting manner by the film's writer/director, something her type mother would never, never ever do.
Ah.........but Mother is not to worry for, as this tale draws to an end, a shockingly devastating scene is being caught for us and for her by "video camera nut," Simon----preserving on film, as he so likes to do, life's important events.
If any film on DVD cries out for a Director's Commentary, it is this one. As just one reason, there are numerous action jumps / changes wherein the preceding scene activity has (apparently?) nothing to do with that which follows. Some are only one shot long (such as a night-time scene of a man entering a near-distant home of two lit rooms, then moving from one room to the other, turning out lights as he goes-----leaving us with only a twinkling indoor Christmas tree as the shot fades). What's that about?
=======================
(How I love the oh-so-fitting label reviewer, Chris Knipp, of Berkeley, CA, has applied to Gaspard Ulliel--- 'Savage Fawn')
****