Jean (2000) User Reviews

Well Acted Short Film of Transformation

[sf_fred · 8/10 · 8 February 2003]

"Jean" was for me the best and most ambitious film in the compilation DVD, "The First Annual Planetout.com Short Movie Awards Highlights." The dialogue-less movie, filmed in the U.K., stars Susannah York as the lady of a manor preparing a fancy dinner for the man of the house. Life is a bit drab, in black and white. We then watch in color as an intruder (played by Gyuri Sarossy) breaks in and looks about carefully and thoughtfully. The woman goes upstairs to investigate a noise, and the story resolves. The pantomime is excellent.

SPOILER: The movie is not mysterious if one notices similarities and is willing to symbolize concerns about a past physical and psychological transformation in a single, present confrontation. The choices of film stock at the end signal an acceptance of the new order.

Very impressive, but what does it exactly mean?

[eroka · 21 February 2001]

This is a very impressive film as far as technique goes. But what does it all mean? *Note: My idea of the Plot follows* It's a beautiful short film about a wife who is celebrating her anniversary (in B&W) - she getting dinner ready and she gets flowers delivered; then a young guy (in color) walks into the same house to battle this woman (while is naked in the bathroom) over something. Why does she want to kill this guy? I saw this elsewhere and it said there: "Jean is the story of an attractive, mature woman, living with her husband in a fine country house. But all is not what it seems.

On the day of her anniversary, Jean is preparing a celebratory supper. But her activities are disrupted by an intruder - a scruffy young man. Is he a burglar? No... Perhaps it is her son?

Who is he, and what does he want from her?

The truth exposes their shared secret, and just how much Jean has sacrificed for an 'ordinary' life."

Well - I don't really know. It's like a horror film, and the son (?) in the end "castrates" himself with the knife his mother (?) just tried to kill him with; she manages by drowning him and then he wakes up and it is suggested he cut his penis off. And I ask again - what is the story here? Well, by the end the guy is gone (he will remain a ghost, I think) and the woman and her husband are having dinner, in color.

I didn't get it but was impressed by the vision, lights, sounds, music and editing. No dialogue by the way to help us through.