1st watched 1/23/2005 - 9 out of 10(Dir-Francois Ozone): Well crafted drama/mystery/musical that is so full it's hard to critique into a summary. The basic plot is that 8 related women find themselves in the same place at approximately the same time when the lone man is presumed to be murdered, who happens to be the grandfather, father, husband, bearer of child, lover etc
of the women(not necessarily in that order). You talk about complexity of plot? Every time someone opens their mouth another twist is thrown into the mix. I think it would take at least another viewing to understand everyone's relationship with everyone else by the end of the movie. And besides this, musical numbers are thrown in to help us understand the characters that are sung by themselves and sometimes backed up by the rest of the cast(ala Bollywood). One thing I have always noticed about French movies is that they come across as a confused people but they're OK with that, instead of the American's who believe that "they" have the answers to everything. This makes it slightly un-comfortable for us pompous Americans to view movies like this where every "real" thing in life is kind of taken with a little tongue-in-cheek mentality but this is the reality of their people and it's present often in their movies. Good for them!! This is so evident in this movie where because of it's mystery plot, we think that who did the killing is what's important, but what we find out is that there is much more behind the so-called answer we're seeking which makes for a very complex experience. Thank you French cinema. Without it there would not be movies like this.
