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Rendez-Vous
RRP: £19.99
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Why? Why Not?
Review date: 2008-03-06 Rating: 8 out of 10
This is a movie to challenge our intellects as well as emotions.
The main protagainist is admirably played by Juliet Binoche who bares all, body and soul, in this French film.
It takes place following a rail journey which may be a metaphor for a journey through life or an assumption about someone's career choice. It emerges that Binoche's character is free spirited but who has an impact on everyone she comes into contact with.
As the plot unfolds with a dynanism which is hard to follow, the viewer is challenged to understand the levels of meaning and relationship which are thrown at you by the film. In seeking to understand what is going on the question one must ask is one of how we think and how we feel.
In some ways this is a very cerebral film, something Binoche retuns to in the exquisite Cache, yet in other ways this is a raw emotional film where passions run high and feelings are crucial.
Not something one can just see and move on to but a very worthwhile piece of art.
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Reviews
Let's be fair, it's just not really all that good
Review date: 2007-07-31 Rating: 4 out of 10
I disagree with both the previous reviews, but more with the second than with the first.
Rendez-Vous was a film I'd been looking forward to seeing for years, and not just because it was Juliette Binoche's first major role and she gets her clothes off in it. David Thomson had called her 'startling' in it, and I respect him.
But let's be honest: the film is a mess. It features Lambert Wilson as a character who's supposed to be fascinatingly tormented, but who in fact comes across as an attention-seeking jerk. Binoche's character is at the centre, but as a living character she barely exists, and while she's very pretty (she was about 20 when this was made) the viewer gets the uneasy feeling that it was partly conceived in order to have a young and cute actress get her kit off as often as possible. (Compare Rivette's 'La Belle Noiseuse', in which Emmanuelle Béart spends most of the film naked, but which isn't the least bit prurient. Rendez-Vous is leering at Binoche throughout.)
The story collapses halfway through and Anne Wiazemsky, one of the most blazingly intense actresses in French cinema, is thrown away in a bit part. I would really have liked this movie to be good, but it's not.
Birth of a French superstar
Review date: 2007-04-14 Rating: 10 out of 10
I couldnt agree less with the previous review. "Rendez-Vous" is a moving and original examination of obsessive passion.
Winner of Best Director at the 1985 Cannes Film Festival, Téchiné's film marks Juliette Binoche's first starring role. As the eighteen year old Nina, Binoche gives a remarkable performance that would begin an exemplary career.
The film tells Nina's story as she arrives in Paris without a home or a job, but with high aspirations of becoming an actress. She meets the young and sincere Paulot, who wants a relationship with Nina. She however is more interested in his flatmate, the dangerous and depressed Quentin. This relationship also brings a third man into her life, the enegmatic theatre director Scrutzler.
Téchiné's film follows Nina as she goes from a naive ingenue to a cinical and worldweary Parisian. Binoche is a revelation here. She trusts Téchiné and it shows.
The dialogue in the film is often lyrical and romantic, but it carefully captures the raw emotion of the central characters, while the cinematography by Renato Berta conveys the decaying reality of lowdown Paris.
All in all "Rendez-Vous" is a great Téchiné and a great Binoche.
DVD is good quality but has no extras
Painful
Review date: 2006-08-10 Rating: 4 out of 10
Ugly cinematography, embarrassing dialogue, unpleasant characters; even the subtitles were strewn with errors. It probably didn't help that I watched Rendez-vous straight after Claude Sautet's glorious Nelly et Monsieur Arnaud, a tough act for any to follow.
At least the actors appear to give it their all. Perhaps Techine had convinced them they would be starring in a film of importance and profundity rather than the pretentious, bone-headed nonsense that actually resulted.
Finally, if your interest is primarily an unobscured view of Ms Binoche's lovely form then I recommend instead the infinitely [..] The Unbearable Lightness of Being, also available on DVD.
Product Details/Specifications
Actor(s):
Juliette Binoche
André Téchiné (director)
Creators:
Juliette Binoche (Primary Contributor)
Director(s):
Recording label: Metrodome Distribution
Manufacturer: Metrodome Distribution
EAN: 5028836030935
Binding: DVD
Number of items: 1
Format: PAL,
Release date: 2006-03-13
Audience rating: Suitable for 15 years and over
Region code: 2
Running time: 83 minutes