I enjoyed this film in ways that made me indirectly think of HBO's "Sex in the City." Not just for the frank discussions, nor for the fact that I preferred the women just talking amongst themselves (coworkers together, and also coworkers with clients) rather than interacting with the men in their lives...
"Sex in the City" flipped more than a few stereotypes, and in "Venus" we find the lead character a woman who has grown weary and too jejune for "je taime". She's not so much in a state of despair as one of dispassion. We see men in films like this...and watch as somehow they are wooed back to vivaciousness, but not often do we see similar women.
I mean, I don't *really* think Stella ever lost her groove, it was more like she knew it was under the blankets on the floor. But Nathalie Baye's fallen Angele is past searching for Mister Right, she's hooking up with a series of Monsieur Wrong Nows.
Light spoilers follow...I'd recommend seeing this film, and I would echo what another reviewer stated, this probably will be appreciated by a slightly older audience. Or more honestly, by jaded types of any age!
For other reviewers here and elsewhere who seem to take a tack of, "Why, I'd never..." Um, even if you swear on a stack of Emily Post's books, still I think if your husband cheated on you and you accidentally shot him in the face, who knows...you might. And more to the point, maybe you should... Mishima liked his women to have a flaw, although he was more partial to a physical one to set off the pure beauty...the same axiom can be applied to personality traits. So lighten up and embrace your dark side. Just don't shoot anybody...
Anyways back to this film, there are also nice touches of humor throughout. A lot actually. And poignant scenes too, such as when Angele talks to a girlfriend not from the salon. I really liked the open dialog between those two, their blunt assessments of each other. The old dramatic element of visiting one's nemesis under disguise or false pretenses worked as it almost always does; here we see it when Helene comes to the salon.
As for the salon itself, well people have talked about its pulsating pinkness. There may be no glass ceiling, but there are certainly glass walls housing them. It makes for a nice dichotomy between women on display, and the actual women inside. Only Audrey Tautou remains under glass even when she's taken out of the shop...in a very steamy, or actually smoky, scene. That scene is doubly voyeuristic, and her *small* role here hits about 11 on the naif scale.
Tautou is gorgeous no doubt, but for those of you who spend all your time slow-motioning her strip-tease, you are skipping over the real beauty of Venus, Baye's performance here is a gem...with some defining blemishes. You could draw parallels from her Angele to Kim Catrall's Samantha, I honestly preferred the former. I never thought of the "Sex in the City" fantastic four as remotely real, I did not need to do so to enjoy them. I feel similarly about the Women from Venus. And I only had a one-nighter with them, whereas I saw Carrie and company off and on for years.
7/10
"Sex in the City" flipped more than a few stereotypes, and in "Venus" we find the lead character a woman who has grown weary and too jejune for "je taime". She's not so much in a state of despair as one of dispassion. We see men in films like this...and watch as somehow they are wooed back to vivaciousness, but not often do we see similar women.
I mean, I don't *really* think Stella ever lost her groove, it was more like she knew it was under the blankets on the floor. But Nathalie Baye's fallen Angele is past searching for Mister Right, she's hooking up with a series of Monsieur Wrong Nows.
Light spoilers follow...I'd recommend seeing this film, and I would echo what another reviewer stated, this probably will be appreciated by a slightly older audience. Or more honestly, by jaded types of any age!
For other reviewers here and elsewhere who seem to take a tack of, "Why, I'd never..." Um, even if you swear on a stack of Emily Post's books, still I think if your husband cheated on you and you accidentally shot him in the face, who knows...you might. And more to the point, maybe you should... Mishima liked his women to have a flaw, although he was more partial to a physical one to set off the pure beauty...the same axiom can be applied to personality traits. So lighten up and embrace your dark side. Just don't shoot anybody...
Anyways back to this film, there are also nice touches of humor throughout. A lot actually. And poignant scenes too, such as when Angele talks to a girlfriend not from the salon. I really liked the open dialog between those two, their blunt assessments of each other. The old dramatic element of visiting one's nemesis under disguise or false pretenses worked as it almost always does; here we see it when Helene comes to the salon.
As for the salon itself, well people have talked about its pulsating pinkness. There may be no glass ceiling, but there are certainly glass walls housing them. It makes for a nice dichotomy between women on display, and the actual women inside. Only Audrey Tautou remains under glass even when she's taken out of the shop...in a very steamy, or actually smoky, scene. That scene is doubly voyeuristic, and her *small* role here hits about 11 on the naif scale.
Tautou is gorgeous no doubt, but for those of you who spend all your time slow-motioning her strip-tease, you are skipping over the real beauty of Venus, Baye's performance here is a gem...with some defining blemishes. You could draw parallels from her Angele to Kim Catrall's Samantha, I honestly preferred the former. I never thought of the "Sex in the City" fantastic four as remotely real, I did not need to do so to enjoy them. I feel similarly about the Women from Venus. And I only had a one-nighter with them, whereas I saw Carrie and company off and on for years.
7/10