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| 8 Femmes (8 Women) |
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  (9/10)
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Runtime: 103 |
| Public Rating: 8.29 (14 votes) |
Director: Francois Ozon |
MPAA Rating:  |
| Genre: comedy/ murder mystery |
Year: 2002 |
| Writer(s): Robert Thomas (play), Francois Ozon & Marina de Van (screenplay) |
| Distributor: 1 |
| Reviewed by: Avril Carruthers |
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Starring Catherine Deneuve, Isabelle Huppert, Emmanuelle Béart, Fanny Ardant, Virginie Ledoyen, Danielle Darrieux, Ludivine Sagnier, Firmine Richard.
In French with English subtitles.
In the combined traditions of 1950’s musical comedies such as Singin’ in the Rain, An American in Paris, Daddy Long Legs (without all the dancing) and Agatha Christie style murder mysteries of the house-party type, this stylish movie tripled the box-office takings of the quirky Amélie in its first week of opening in France.
The opening credits are superimposed on the crystals of a chandelier accompanied by orchestral matinee music. The feeling is, as intended, very 1950s, very bourgeois and intentionally, joyously, artificial. Director François Ozon’s (Sous le Sable/Under the Sand) intention was to recreate a murder mystery melodrama of the late 1950’s, and everything is geared to that purpose with delightful results. One after another eight beautiful single flowers representing the eight women of the title fill the screen. We move to an outdoor scene. It is a frozen snowy landscape, obviously a painted backdrop, suspenseful undertones are heard in the music, the camera pans to a country mansion, where a hungry red deer is nibbling at the espaliered rime-covered vines. Then we move inside and it’s exactly like a stage set. The actresses’ entrances, speeches and poses are theatrical and melodramatic, the frame is initially of the whole set, angled front on and the sounds of Emmanuelle Béart’s footsteps on the floorboards are both stagey and indicative of her character’s sulky resentment at playing the part of the maid.
The premise of this hilariously funny, exceptionally well-done melodrama is that in a gathering of eight women in an isolated, snow-bound country mansion, the patriarch is found murdered and one of the women is guilty. In the process of trying to uncover the murderess many secrets are revealed, the relationships of the women to each other and to the dead man are examined and their characters undergo various surprising and dramatic changes. The plot twists and turns and each of these beautiful, passionate women have motive, means and opportunity to do the deed. In true melodrama, the crueller the action, the funnier it is, and this is no exception. There are musical interludes, each of the women singing, and most of them dancing, their own song, which reveals an inner emotional state. It is a fabulous vehicle for actresses allowing revelations of feminine mystique at all ages.
A further, well achieved, intention of Ozon was to present each of the women as representative of different kinds of screen goddess beauty using the artificiality of the medium to highlight that, to the point of using specifically individual lighting for each of them. Their costumes, hair, make-up are all carefully and wonderfully appropriate.
For the most part the acting is enjoyable despite being totally over the top. It takes skill and restraint to manifest just the right degree of melodramatic characterisation and the director’s task in maintaining an evenness in all the performances is managed well overall. Strangely I found Catherine Deneuve’s performance in places – particularly when she is singing and dancing – a little too stiff and restrained while Emmanuelle Béart’s role is sent up a touch too much. If you, like me, detested the recent American feminine vehicle Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood, the differences here could not be more satisfying. Distinguishing histionics from hysteria and true melodramatic sentiment from sentimentality, this film has all the sophisticated panache and enjoyment the other lacked.
The characters are: Mamy, the grandmother (Danielle Darrieux), whose main preoccupation is her own security; Gaby, the mother (Catherine Deneuve), the bourgeois matron who has unexpected potentialities; Pierrette, the victim’s sister (Fanny Ardant) who has a Past and many ongoing intrigues; Augustine, Gaby’s sister (Isabelle Huppert), the histrionic, bitter neurotic who transforms most radically; Suzon, the older daughter, (Virginie Ledoyen) whose secret is the most cruel (and the most easily guessed); Catherine, the younger daughter (Ludivine Sagnier) who doesn’t read crime books all night for nothing; Louise, the maid (Emmanuelle Béart) the quintessential French maid in every way; and Chanel, the housekeeper (Firmine Richard) who knows everyone’s secrets from childhood up. The character of Marcel (who is discovered dead with a knife in his back in the first three minutes) is necessarily only pieced together from the women’s reminiscences but it is clear this man, beset by eight women, was grossly outnumbered while holding each of them in (self-)destructive patterns of behaviour. His death is a dramatic liberation for all.
The last surprise twist in the end is the best.
© Avril Carruthers November 16th 2002
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