Swimming Pool (2003)

Rating:

The latest and a top contender on my selectively short nevertheless well-deserved director-slash-to-die-for-genius list would be French director-writer Francoise Ozon. His body of work is volatile and exceptional, it’s almost infuriating he’s blessed not only with rare talent, but ruggedly-handsome good looks as well. After seeing his films, only to discover he’s the man responsible for them is quite inconceivable, since no two are alike in style, story or script. For instance, the debut of “8 Femmes” in 2002, showed a charming and quirky 50s inspire whodunit mystery musical with an all-star female French cast including Catherine Deneuve, Emmanuelle Béart, and Virginie Ledoyen (from The Beach). In comparison, his recent venture, “5x2”, had the typically bland European aesthetic and played by unfamiliar actors, but skillfully gave a deconstructed narration on the five different events of a degrading relationship in which the end was the beginning and the beginning was the end. Opening with a scene in some depressingly stale motel room where we witness the hostile and awkward last encounter of an ex-couple going for one final romp just after they’ve settled their divorce papers, and eventually concludes with the touching truth of how they innocently fell in love.

Slow in pace yet seductively intriguing, Francoise Ozon’s much-acclaimed Hollywood release “Swimming Pool”, is a psychological thriller laced in ambivalence. A weary mystery writer in the midst of quitting, Sarah Morton (Charlotte Rampling) jets of to the south of France, to her publisher’s countryside home in the hopes of finding inspiration for her forthcoming novel. Stereotypically, Sarah personifies the prim and proper dinosaur mind-set of uptight British principals. While on the other hand, the publisher’s daughter, Julie (remarkably portrayed by Ludivine Sagnier), is an exaggerated embodiment of the sensually-charged, laissez-faire French impudence. Julie’s unexpected arrival immediately brings tension, and prompts Sarah to base her new book on the reckless and audacious daughter, whose exploits are practically the equivalent of the town slut. While the author further studies her character, she begins to fixate over her subject and spies on Julie one night in the living room couch with the latest run of the mill conquest. A bare drunken image of the couple is reflected in the foreground off a glass door and aptly mirrors Sarah’s suppressed uninhibited desires as she watches closely in the shadows. This unyielding however subtle sexual innuendo is what the French do so well; and became the film’s battleground for beauty and power, youth and experience, freedom and morality, as both women recognize the parallels of the other’s nature and face their inner demons. Ultimately, Julie, upon discovering she was to become Sarah’s next topic, did what any proud muse would do- play the card of the drama queen, blow her persona out of proportion, and commit a sacrifice for “art’s sake”.

In “Swimming Pool”, the suspense is neither contrived nor standard, because the mystery is gently divulged in unpredictable details that creep up at you with each little neurosis and repressed anxiety. Then just as you’re ready to nod off from the monotony of mundane scenes, the plot reels you back in with another upsetting turn. So, in a worst-case scenario, what does happen when you throw a pair of polar opposites in some isolated location for an unbearably lengthy period of time with nothing much to do but indulge in idleness, curiosity, and sunbathing? Francoise Ozon’s unresolved answer was a murderous catastrophe of cabin fever delusion. You’re left to question whether all that you just saw was real, and if you’re hallucinating and as disturbed as all the other characters, creating the whole story itself in your own little head! This basically, my dear audience, is the simple magic behind any brilliantly accomplished film- the mere suspension of your disbelief. And for those with an intelligently discriminating palette, it’s quite a remarkable feat to suspend that much jaded disbelief. That ability to unintentionally forget who you are for the approximated 90 minutes leaving all your woes, then to completely fit into someone else’s proverbial shoes and in delight, voyeuristically sink into fantasy.

© 2007 Kathleen J. Compuesto, Toyski.com
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