HistoryProf

cheap is exactly what the ending felt like...and the more I thought about it after, the less I liked it. The movie looks great, and I don't mean the nudity, but the ending absolutely ruined it for me....so it goes....

MrX

My thoughts exactly

Caliking

i watched it last night and i thought it was just ok. i would give it a 6/10. the ending can be looked at in two ways i guess. i liked the ending but it wasnt that big of a twist and didnt really do much in terms of "shock and awe" for me.

by the way, Ludivine Sagnier is a super hottie!

Buford T Pusser

TopHatCat64 wrote:


And sadly the dvd cover will not look anything like that I bet, more big heads...


Hmmm...




Why did the suit change color? Was she wearing a suit in the first place?

onebyone

That is exactly how I felt too. I didn't like the ending but thought that maybe if I slept on it I would like it better, but it didn't work out. At all. The more I thought about it, the madder I got. I mean, really. I am a fan of some of François Ozon's other movies, but certainly not this one. I enjoyed it up to the "big" finale, but that finale killed the love cold.

talemyn

Different versions . . .

Regular Version



Unrated Version

talemyn

Whoa, whoa, whoa . . . I didn't see it that way at all. I saw it as . . .


Dang it . . . now I need to watch it again to see if my theory doesn't work out.






On a side note, does anyone know what the differences are between he R-rated and Unrated versions are?

Geofferson

I just got finished watching this movie. All in all, I was satisfied with the movie as a whole - though the ending threw me for a bit of a loop. Still not quite sure what to decipher.

CUBuffsMike41

lesterlong

Pics?

Giles

As I interpreted it

I am surprised that there is an unrated version of the film available, the movie was pretty explicit and bordering on a NC-17 anyway.

talemyn

Yeah . . . I did. If, in fact, . . . . . . then you are right, it is lame.

Here are a few of the things that I noticed that made me think the way I was thinking: There are a handful of other things that made me think they way I did on the ending, but these are the ones that came to mind.

I would be pretty disappointed if it were the way you were suggesting . . . that would be a pretty cop-out ending. However, I'd really be interested in hearing some of your reasons for thinking the way that you have. I never had considered that interpretation and can only, personally, think of a few things that might support it. As much as I like my take, I wouldn't want to miss out on what he really meant.

bdots48

talemyn - those are interesting points I hadn't considered - you've got me looking at it in an entirely new light. I think it does make sense that way.

CUBuffsMike41

Well, here's what I thought...

Giles

Dr. DVD

I saw this movie in the theater way back in September on my B-Day but never saw the discussion here. Ludivine was a great little present.

I thought the movie was great until I looked at moviepooper.com and read that the "intended" ending was I too thought that kind of like a copout, but now I see it might not have really had to be that ending in particular. I like the interpretation

Pants

How is "the daughter was there but everything was an exaggeration" any different from "everything is made up"?

Exagerated/Made up

Tomato/Tamato

Tsargrad

Finally saw this film, and found it fabulous - better than 8 Femmes.

I did enjoy the ending, and certainly the nudity was thoroughly enjoyed

Big Quasimodo

Here are some interesting links:

Ozon Interview



Here is an excerpt from another Ozon interview:

iW: The big tease in this film is how the imaginary and the real link up. Is there a discrete moment when the real veers into the imaginary?

Ozon: I don't want to give you the key. I myself have an opinion about it, obviously -- but I wanted to keep the film open-ended and let every viewer imagine what he wishes. It's a movie that gives viewers the freedom to make their own film. I wanted to show that when you create, the lived, the imagined, and the written get all mixed together. When I make a film, it's as if I'd lived it. You share many emotions with the actors and characters. As I said before, when there's a murder in the film, I myself commit it, too. "Swimming Pool" keeps everything on the same plane: fantasy, reality, creation.

iW: Question: when John phones Julie in the country, and Julie hands the phone to Sarah, he's not on the other end. So what piece of that was real?

Ozon: What did you think?

iW: I didn't know what to think.

Ozon: Me neither. I wanted you to wonder: was it really John? Is Julie for real? Is she lying? Is John avoiding Sarah out of guilt?

iW: So this film is a kind of puzzle.

Ozon: Exactly. And it's full of false starts. It's like that when you create a story. You begin in one direction, then take another. The viewer thinks there's going to be a lesbian liaison between Charlotte and Ludivine -- but it turns maternal and tender. I thought it would be too obvious to get them into a sexual relationship. I lay down all sorts of clues, then choose one or another direction.

iW: The final scene at John's office is a mind-twister. Did his daughter ever actually go to Provence?

Ozon: What did you imagine? Okay, I'll give you my version. [He does, but I won't spoil the film by revealing it here.]

iW: Why the title "Swimming Pool?"

Ozon: The pool is like a virgin screen before the filmmaker writes on it. And it's Ludivine's habitat, the place where Sarah creates her.

iW: Why do you turn out films so fast?

Ozon: That's my rhythm. I like to keep moving forward – I don't need five years, like Kubrick. For me, if a film isn't completely successful, if it's not a masterpiece, it doesn't matter. Maybe I'll get it just right the next time out, or before long. I don’t look back. When a film is finished, it's finished. It's just like in love -- I need to keep moving.


Here's one man's (rambling) review: Review

majorjoe23

You exagerate facts, you make up fiction/lies. Exagerations have a basis in truth, fiction/lies need no such anchor.

MrN

I would say if someone is lying, they are trying to convince someone and so they have to have some basis - they attach the lie to a basis in truth to make it work. I'm sure there's exceptions here, like a murderer saying 'I didn't do it' but he would have to extend the lie to make it convincing.

Anyway, I don't think I've heard anything to convince me that Julie didn't exist in anything but Sarah's imagination. As someone pointed out earlier, the publisher's daughter was the inspiration for the book - but it was the imaginary daughter.

majorjoe23

But then why no recongnition at the end? They bumped into each other. You would think there would at least be a smile or a look or something.

Pants

Either way what we see on the screen isn't what really happened, a certain amount of it is screened through the conscience of the author. Whether you call that "made up" or "exagerated" doesn't matter. They both boil down to "What we are seeing isn't what happened."

P.S. can we stop with the spoiler tags now, I don't think anyone who hasn't seen the movie is going to read a 2 page thread where people are argueing about the ending.

Aphex Twin

This movie is deep. Is is amazing how a seemingly mundane story can be transformed into something so elaborate in the last 15 minuits.

Maybe I am reading too much into it but I have a few theories. I will start with the things I most believe to be true:

-Sarah has strong feelings for John and effects much of her thoughts.

-Sarah once wrote a love story a long time ago and presented it to John. He told her it was not very good, and convinces her to write crime stories instead, that was his bread and butter. She saves this story and resurects it on this trip.

-Sarah spent her time alone in France, there was no Julie, noone shows up to stay with her.

-Julie represents Sarah's career. The many men in her life represents that many novels Sarah has produced. There is very little love left in the act for both of them. Only once was she in love, this represents the earier novel she had produced (very romantic as Julie had characterised it).

-Julie's mother represents an earlier version of Sarah. I suppect the young and aspiring writer, not the bitter woman we see in the film.

-Sarah has a multiple personality disorder. Julie is a personality she creates. The most telling clue to this is the men that Julie sleeps with. Sarah is a much better match for these men. Flash back to the very first scene of the movie she says, "You must have mistaken me for someone else." Does she really believe this? Also notice how Sarah is somehow aware that harm has come to the waiter guy (sorry, forget his name). There is no justification for this, I think she knows because she did it acting as Julie.

-Acting as Julie, she does indeed kill the guy, because she goes into a jealous rage that he is more attracted to Sarah than herself.

- In the last scene where we see her sleeping with the old guy, we either finally get a glimpse of her playing Julie (in her bed) or we see her realization that Julie and her are the same person.

-Had Sarah been at the house before? Dose she remember it as Julia's familiarity with the place? I am not sure how this would work myself, but there seems to be alot of emphasis on Julia's mother. I wonder what that means, and how it fits the puzzle.


Other possible scenarios:

1) It was all real. John has two daughters that are very similar. Sarah acts way out af character and conceals a murder for someone she just met. Flashback scene does not make much sense.

2) It was all a dream. It was all in her head, she imagined the whole thing. She started imagining what Johns daughter might be like, and created this whole tale. This way nothing needs to make sense. Major plot letdown.

3) Daughter does show up at the house but we see the fictional character that Sarah is crafting, rather than the real Julia. The scene where Julia passes Sarah without recognizing her does not make sense.

Heat

Personally, I'm leaning towards the "it was real and the Julie that she met was some stranger that walked in off of the street", though this scenario from the post above does sound very real to me, this would explain where the "mother's manuscript" came from.

Also, what are the differences between the 'R' and 'Unrated' versions? I just saw the 'R' rated version.