8 FEMMES
8 WOMEN |
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Director:
François Ozon
Screenplay: Ozon & Marina De Van, freely adapted from the play
by Robert Thomas.
Cast: Pierrette: Fanny Ardant
Louise: Emmanuelle Béart
Mamy: Danielle Darrieux
Gaby: Catherine Deneuve
Augustine: Isabelle Huppert
Suzon: Virginie Ledoyen
Madame Chanel: Firmine Richard
Catherine: Ludivine Sagnier
Awards: Best Actress (ensemble cast),
European Film Awards (2002).
Running time: 113 minutes
Year of production: 2002
Rating: Restricted (mature content)
Gauge: 35mm, DVD (color)
Language: French
Distributor: Swank Motion Pictures
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“A
spectator’s delight. With verve and finesse, 8 Women elicits
laughter and emotion of a kind unusual in contemporary cinema. If
the film is constructed on the most classical of foundations . . .
it uses these assets to the full and doesn’t let itself get trapped
by them.” Jean-Michel Frodon, Le Monde. |
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A murder-mystery
musical, Ozon’s send-up of ‘50s melodramas features star
turns by three generations of France’s finest actresses. Comic,
irreverent and nasty, the film’s twisted story, soap acting,
camp costumes and decadent decor suggest a hybrid of Vincente Minnelli,
Douglas Sirk and John Waters. Gathered for the holidays in a secluded,
snow-bound mansion, a seemingly straight-laced bourgeois family
discovers the man of the house murdered in his bed. The phone line
has been cut and the only car sabotaged: clearly the murderer is
among them. But who is it? The patriarch’s frivolous wife (Deneuve)?
Her repress-ed spinster sister (Huppert)? Their miserly mother (Darrieux)?
The old housekeeper (Richard)? The insolent new maid (Béart)?
One of his daughters (Ledoyen & Sagnier)? His estranged sister
(Ardant)? In this sequestered atmosphere everyone is a suspect--and
everyone has her motives. As tensions rise the veneer of cordiality
crumbles. Insults and recriminations fly--a catalogue of sins is
unearthed beneath the brittle shell of bourgeois decorum: blackmail,
fraud, infidelity, incest. Amid the mayhem characters break into
song, revealing in French variety numbers feelings hidden behind
the artificial decor of the happy family.
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