Those Who Love Me Can Take the Train (1998) User Reviews

Fascinating

[User-29 · 5/10 · 20 August 2004]

*****- Unmissable ****- Very Good ***- Average **- Poor *- Rubbish

I enjoyed this film because i start my review of it. The beginning was very touching in which we here an interview as a voiceover this is effective. In the title of the film "Those who love me can take the train" the most important word is love. This film goes to show what real love is. The love is on two levels, one part is the love for this man who has died and the other is what happens after the death. The idea of a train being a way of expressing there love is clever. If you think about. Some of the one-liners in this film are quite good. There is also the scene in which a relative reads out a funeral speech which is then tra*nslated into french. That is very clever. There is a lot of emotional depth to this film. I feel the film however looses it slightly with repetitive dialogue in the last half an hour. I do think the transexual is a very important and effective character in plot, as she helps us to understand about how love can change towards someone when they are something different.

****/*****

Explorative, often frustrating but quite confrontative on the whole; the film hits more than it misses but this is a strained effort.

[johnnyboyz · 6/10 · 31 May 2013]

Patrice Chéreau's film "Those Who Love me Can Take the Train" will not be for everyone, a film one cannot help but describe as "an acquired taste", even if such a statement is often branded out with too much regularity. Even then, going with it will not necessarily equate to having loved it. The film, a piece about life that happens to have that of a dead body at its core, enjoys amassing characters and gathering them into the restricting, confined space of a train carriage; enjoys depicting them speak to one another; has fun tackling homosexuality and even finds time to deal with interracial falling outs within wider circles of families still. One of its final shots, a full frontal composition of a nude transvestite getting into a bath, ought to have been more striking than it was. Is this out of the fact we've spent so much time with these issue-ridden people that we've accepted this person as a human being and do not jolt? Or is it out of the fact we forget to react out of being numb through such an intense series of dialogues.

Spliced into three very distinct sections, the film is about love; life; death and kinship - a film detailing the coming together of those who are apart of a wider family furthermore related to someone that has recently died. In continuing on after the burial, the film plays its hand and reveals that it was never about the gathering for the service et al. in the first place; moreover, it is a film about an apparently crumbling family and a series of exchanges between very aggressive, often confused, persons doing their best to deal with grief and being stuck with one another under these circumstances. It's here one pays special attention to the title: "Those Who Love Me Can Take the Train", a statement seemingly made beyond the grave, a line as if uttered by the deceased in relation to those travelling to his burial at one of Europe's largest cemeteries. This infers that it was never about a family coming to terms with how they felt about the deceased, but in fact with each other: many of them here do indeed 'take' the train – everybody bar one specific individual. Now that the burial's happened, let's see what they all think of each other as the piece enters its final forty minutes.

Things are socially awkward at the beginning of the piece, starting out at such a stage before taking a bit of a nosedive anyhow. People meet at a station bound for the city of Limoges, where the said burial will happen for an elderly relative who made his way through life as a painter. Things are chaotic, finding everybody and getting everybody on is a struggle in itself; the train rocks around, nobody has anywhere to go – two young men find solace with each other in the toilet compartment; children are difficult to control and a woman strains to talk about her drug addiction problem. Away from the train, Roschdy Zem's character Thierry shoots down to the cemetery in his estate car, coffin in tow. He's aggressive and we're aware of what chaos he would have brought to the proceedings on board the train. He picks up hitch-hikers that have no relevance to the narrative and later allows his rage to get the better of him en route.

We sense Chéreau could be producing better. They have a decent ear for dialogue and they spread the screenplay around a table consisting of either gender; various races, people from different backgrounds and of stark ages. Later on, when the family arrive at this huge graveyard, there is a neat cinematic flourish involving camera and sound working with one another in a way that doesn't happen at any other moment in what is a two hour film. Chéreau feels as if he's reigning things in, playing things down – they seem to be going out of their way to create something more neo-realistic, something that's stripped of mostly all the things synonymous with mainstream film-making (regardless of nation) and more inclined to veer into territory more associated with a brand of cinema people can find frustrating and alienating, even though there is ultimately lots going on on-screen.

As stated, the approach to break the film up into distinct chapters consisting of the travelling to the burial; the process of burying said relative and then what essentially materialises as the 'wake', which is the chief point of interest here. For a film with the approach that places so much emphasis on a group of people congregating out of the fact someone in their wider family has died to carry on after the funeral itself, in spite of the triumphant aforementioned flourish once at the place we all sense will be the setting for the finale, is unsubtle at worst. I'm not sure if the film has as much energy as it thinks it does, and there are large sections of play whereby very little neither happens nor is necessarily that important. Where visually, and in terms of bare content, the film does flounder its overall thematic stands it in good stead for the long run. This is a mature film going about a serious subject matter in a fashion that screams for artistic recognition, but one that is far from perfect.

A Very..i Mean Very Subjective Film!

[javierubio · 5/10 · 21 June 2020]

This is a type of movie to which I refer to that type of director in which He believes that bringing a lot of drama to the context and passages that have no relation to each other and that do not form a whole that carries a message. Throughout the plot I could not see a hint of love, sensuality, mystery, attraction, curiosity and all those ingredients that a good movie must carry and above all transmit. The entire stage in that train was full of negativity, bad performance and left me more overwhelmed than I started! Too bad because there were good actors in this movie (Like Pascal Greggory) but once again I think the way the Director takes this movie has to do with the impact at the end!!

Frenetic, glossy, OTT, sexy

[patronus · 14 November 1999]

A drama queen's wet dream. It offers up a magnificent, almost epic gloss of the melodrama of at least 14 characters. The problem is that with a Robert Altman-sized cast crammed into 2 hours (Altman would take 3 or more), and screen time distributed more or less democratically, it's hard to get to know the characters--but some are very compelling anyway. The film is narrated and edited ridiculously, as if a novel had been tossed into a blender. Most scenes feel like they're less than a minute long yet are packed with dialogue. You might wonder if the filmmakers are trying to obscure script problems by making routine exposition an unusual chore.

However, the film's melodrama is presented in a lushly dark, romantic, Gallic way. There's something heady about the experience. And the film has some extraordinary settings. The cemetery is one of the most stunning locations since Scarlet O'Hara walked through the endless Confederate dead. And the train, crowded and zipping through the French countryside, is metaphoric in an undeniably physical way. Since Americans don't support public transportation, esp. trains, this experience struck me as unique.

An Ok movie, the region 1 DVD was poor quality

[scotty-37 · 4/10 · 9 February 2002]

This movie was ok--and probably better if you speak French since it would be easier to watch and not strain to see the poor subtitles on the DVD.

The region 1 DVD isn't an especially great value. For one thing, the subtitles are part of the letterboxed movie image--not a separate subtitle track that you can turn on or off (as you can on most DVDs). The subtitles were also difficult to see since they were small and there were a number of times that they were white lettering on a white background and almost impossible to read.

The transfer to DVD didn't seem to be especially great since most scenes were very dark or with very dark portions and then extremely bright portions. It seemed very contrasty and I suspect the original film didn't have this much contrast. It's my guess that they made the DVD transfer off an English language reprint of the film with subtitles embedded in the image and not off the best available French masters. I also suspect they used the same transfer for both DVD and VHS versions of the film. I found it difficult to see what was going on since a lot was extremely dark and I could only see silhouettes of people's hair or heads while at the same time trying to read small, poor-quality English subtitles.

I find it hard to comment extensively on the content of the movie since I was so bothered by the poor quality of the DVD and I couldn't pay the best attention to the story.

I would guess that many non-French-speaking audiences wouldn't be especially interested in this film because there are many characters to keep track of and they all seem most interested in bickering with other characters about romantic or sexual escapades. It all began to make some sense by the end of the movie--when I finally could put together some context for the characters. But by the end of the movie I was already too tired of petty bickering to care very much what happened to these people (and straining at the poor subtitles and transfer didn't make the movie very enjoyable either).

Love After Death and Vincent Perez

[arichmondfwc · 8/10 · 28 March 2005]

They all loved him. Jean Louis Trintignat is the focus of their love. He is dead. Love is not. The shape, light and nature of one's love for another changes from character to character. I was riveted by that puzzle that love usually implies. And Vincent Perez? Where is he? I kept waiting for him to appear in all its unbearable beauty. The film was almost over and no sign of Perez. But, I was rapidly falling in love with a young woman I had never seen before on the screen. She is not just a superb actress but a monumental beauty. Hold on a minute. I think I've seen her before. God almighty! It's Vincent Perez! Among the many delightful, thoughtful surprises of this, unusual, french import is Vincent Perez as a girl. If you let the film happen and you don't fight it. You are going to have a wonderful experience.

over emotional pish posh

[PIST-OFF · 2/10 · 22 November 2005]

dozens and dozens of movies similar to this seem to come out of France year after year, lumberingly slow films based on the intensity of emotion without bothering to give a reason to emote with the characters in the first place. i wanted to like this movie. i watched it once baffled. watched it twice when i had some bearing on which characters were which, then watched it a third time after reading other's reviews of it to see if something was simply going over my head. In all i wasted six hours of my life on this film that makes a tedious effort at showing how powerful the emotions and soap opera shenanigans of everyday life can be, i suppose. the soundtrack for the film is worth more than the film itself. I've seen some good french cinema that managed to put some movement some effort at entertainment, this one yawned and rolled over. I suppose part of it is a bias on my behalf as I generally not entertained by (nor am i shocked or offended by) transvestitism or gay love scenes. It simply isn't my cup of tea (or glass of beer as the case maybe) About the only thing i did like about the film was something possibly suggested at that lurked underneath the plot. The idea that funerals for loved ones often serve as exercises for ego competition has struck me at the few funerals i've attended. An attitude where people compete for the position of king and queen of distraught that suggests a vanity unbecoming of true grief. A film like this could have explored that instead of using cheap tactics and pseudo-offensive ploys to gain notoriety.

2 out of 10

The funeral of a charismatic painter brings together friends and lovers

[netwallah · 9/10 · 2 February 2006]

A minor but charismatic painter dies, and his friends and lovers and family go by train to Limoges for his funeral. There is a lot of bitterness and regret and desire: sometimes sudden and apparently irresistible, and it's given a very warm and lovely treatment here. The beauty of the men and their desire for each other is attractive (one does not have to be gay, though it helps to be sympathetic). However, the whole complicated story seems to me to be soaked through with the glum assumption that everything, everything is expendable, and the only good to be achieved is in brief moments of passion, and passion inevitably fades. There is no point in holding on to anyone. Is this apotheosis of fickleness strictly a gay theme? Certainly not, but it is central here. Apparently critics have talked of something being reborn in the story, but I could see only sadness. Happy endings may often be contrived, but sometimes I suspect the ineluctable dissolution ending can be just as contrived. Perhaps I just don't get it, but all this short-term loving, this coming close only to be set drifting outward into darkness seems unnecessarily painful, and I resent being told that's the way it is.

I've seen some worse films but...

[andrzejwoyda · 4/10 · 16 October 2003]

The film was very disappointing. The story of a mediocre painter, his family and friends seemed to be very promising at the beginning, but neither the actors nor the plot itself absorbed me. No emotions, no interesting characters, no good music. Don't waste your time!

Full steam ahead

[flakfizer · 29 June 2000]

Twice as ambitious as an Altman ensemble yet half as accessible, this lurid drama from the French director of Queen Margot begins at full-speed-ahead and hardly slows down thereafter.

The film follows a disjointed, motley crew as they travel by train to the funeral of a condescending painter they all once loved. Director Chereau has enough faith in his ideas to incite scenes of tortuous incoherence, most in the first 20 minutes, but when the dust settles the film develops into a character-driven masterpiece in which every scene is the big one.

The ensemble is superb, especially Jean-Louis Trintignant as both the painter and his brother, and the Americanized-in-vain Vincent Perez, back in his homeland where he belongs as a sharp-tongued transsexual.

Simply ridiculous

[liderc · 1/10 · 27 May 2001]

Having previously seen "La reine Margot", I suspected something as good as that from a film by the same director and with some of the same actors. But what I did get was one of the worst films I ever saw. The same-gender attracted men in the movie fell into nearly every stereotype possible (most notoriously the effeminate behaviour, that one boy even looked like a girl!), and to see the main actor from "la reine margot" in woman's clothes was simply disgusting for me (also because I don't like transvesite movies and the connection the movie made beetween transexual/effeminate behaviour and same-gender attraction anyway). The story was some ultra-tearful boring melodrama, but not because something that bad happened, but simply because the effeminate men had to make such a tearful fuss. How pathetic. The music was also bad. This movie is an insult to every sane viewer, in my opinion.

Un film a ne pas rater

[Paul-120 · 10/10 · 23 October 1998]

A movie that was badly promoted and that confirms, however, the recovery of French cinema. The characters in Ceux qui m'aiment... could be any of us, the plot is as real as our daily train rides. The best of us and the worst of us exposed in a particular situation. Love, hate, anger, our darkest side. A knowledge of French is, unluckily, indispensable to enjoy this movie, the power of certain dialogues cannot be translated. And yet, this movie will disrupt your quiet life for a few weeks, its power remains in its realism. A funeral, a bunch of family and friends and a great cast. Don't miss it.

P.S. The music is superb.

Fast Train

[barbi159 · 8/10 · 27 June 2005]

Let me say first of all that I'm not a train freak - but for train freaks, the shots on board the train were well done, there was a good sense of movement all through. Even after the funeral - and no trains, this was sustained.

I was amused at Jean-Baptiste's desire for everyone who loved him to go by train, but his coffin to be transported by car - and did have to ask if those who came to the funeral by car did it from lack of love for the dear departed or from geographical necessity? I enjoyed this film more than I expected to; it was well paced, the characters were compelling, if not exactly your average circle of family and friends.

The standard of acting was generally very good - I particularly enjoyed Vincent Perez's performance.

If it reminded me of anything, the use of a widely varied soundtrack put me in mind of some of Fassbinder's better work.

I feel this film justifies watching more than once, if only to sort out who's who and where they fit together, but, from first viewing, plenty of life, despite being based round a death.

The Greatest Gay Film Ever Made

[cllrdr · 3 March 2001]

I saw it three times in a theater, and on DVD far too many times to count. I can't recall a film that has touched me so deeply. Maybe it's the way it encapsulated every funeral I've been to over the past ten years (and believe me, there have been a lot of them.) Maybe it's the way it reflected gay life as I've known it -- which is not one in which the imitation-straight couple rules (as in that pathetic HRC March on Washington), but rather consists of a complex network of friends and lovers. Just as Chereau's "L'Homme Blesse" captured coming out as I experienced it, so does this film deal with middle-age, loss, and regret. Part of what makes it so exceptional is that Chereau refuses to privilege straights in the narrative. For once THEY are the ones who have to explain themselves. Gayness is a given. It's hard to speak of "big scenes" in a film that gives you one after another. But the one in which the mourners watch the coffin go by in a car as Jeff Buckley's "The Last Goodbye" plays on the soundtrack has got to be one of the finest of modern cinema. And the finale, where Francois (Pascal Greggory) says goodbye to everyone without saying a word breaks my heart every time.

Well... I loved it!

[Oreste · 9/10 · 6 December 1999]

Some loved it, some hated it. I heard strong comments on both sides. "Can't understand anything, too complicated" I must agree that it is complicated, but worth it. At some times, it is hard to recognize the characters and their background (there are many characters and the intrigue unveils itself very slowly), but the movie deals with strong emotions. Mainly, it shows everybody's need to feel recognized by those they love and the competition they go through to get more love and attention.

I say "Rent it, and in French if you can!"

Magnificent opening sequences. Then what?

[michaeljosephk · 9/10 · 22 July 2001]

No recent film starts better than this one; it out-Altmans Altman with its stunning fragmented introduction of a large cast in a confused situation as they hurriedly board the train taking them away to the funeral in the provinces. It's even helped for an Anglo-Saxon audience in that we don't know who the hell any of these French actors are. (But aren't they terrific?) The first 45 mins or thereabouts are a breathtaking hand-held roller-coaster ride more exhilarating than... well, than more or less anything you can think of. Unfortunately the train journey ends, and we settle down into another hour of vie de chateau banalities, in one of those big old houses no-one can afford to light properly. All of the usual plots raise their tired old heads: gay and straight infidelities, dotty old women and sinister old men, ravishing rent boys with HIV, abortion, drugs, inheritances, you name it and who cares? To cap it all when the missing guest finally arrives, as he was bound to - guess what? He's transgendered. Please!!! As a film director Chereau is every bit as astounding as he used to be working on stage. Please though, Patrice - try working with a script next time. (I know, there's been a next time already, and 'Intimacy' is just about opening in London, vastly famous already for 10 seconds or something of non-simulated heterosexual oral sex. I can wait.)

Citizen Train

[writers_reign · 3 November 2004]

Hard to avoid the Wellesian overtones here which begins with a death and goes on to explore the impact of the dead man not so much on the upper-case World as in Kane but on his own lower-case world as a fairly respectable number of those whose lives he touched travel to and assemble at his childhood home in Limoges. Amazingly one of the comments I've just read suggested that next time around the director employ a scriptwriter. This comment displays an ignorance verging on the colossal given that Daniele Thompson, who co-wrote the script from her own Original idea, is one of the outstanding screenwriters in French cinema having started with a classic 'Le Grand Vadrouille' at the age of 24 and progressing through such well-received titles as Le Follies de Grandeur, La Reine Margot until she began - with La Buche - to direct her own screenplays. Be that as it may the script is right up there with the best as are the performances not least the ever luminescent Valeria Bruni-Tedeschi whose performance alone is reason enough to see this. Okay, there are strong elements of homosexuality because it's inevitable that homosexuals are very much a presence in the modern world. As a heterosexual I wouldn't have a great deal if any at all interest in out-and-out homosexual films, literature or plays but neither did the homosexual content here bother/disturb me because it was shown in context within a highly complex, swiss-movement be-jewelled story. One that bears repeated viewings.

In Retrospect

[jromanbaker · 10/10 · 31 May 2020]

1998 is a world away from 2020 and probably seems so to some of the actors in the film. Seeing it again in this deadly year my mind of course turns to death, and the sight of the endless graves in Limoges's cemetery with its thousands of deaths makes me think of France today. Accompanied as the cemetery is in a heart breaking scene to Mahler's Adagio from the Tenth Symphony only accentuates this. This alone makes this a film for today. Patrice Chereau if he was still alive might disagree but the arrival of this film opened the doors for the best French Gay films that we have now. Of course this is not a scenario that deals uniquely with homosexuality, but homosexuality is given an equal place to heterosexuality. Chereau sees clearly that emotional trauma and pain is similar to both ( homophobes reflect on that point!! ) and that love opens up and closes for both. I will give no spoilers as those who read elsewhere can find the details of the characters. I totally disagree that the film is in any way over the top, and that attitude diminishes the film's extraordinary perception; that people may gather together, emotionally and physically, but that they soon part and once again the Limoges cemetery remains symbolic of the basic loss of others. As for the acting, I cannot praise it highly enough. A lot of Chereau's ' family ' of actors are there, and if I have to choose one for excellence it is that of Pascal Greggory. It is not an easy film to watch and it is draining, but in a positive way. It is filled with the illusion of love, and the need for that illusion. and to live we must fight and at the same time know that despite our need for love and life that we are finite. I will personally see this great film from a sadly missed great director many more times and if that desert island of solitude awaits me I will take it with me.

No good music at all

[bl-2 · 8/10 · 28 December 1998]

I liked that movie, if "like" is the right word for it. I would have liked it even better, if the music hadn't got on my nerves in quite an unspeakable way.

Sheesh, what a mess!

[trpdean · 13 December 2004]

I perfectly understand the comment of the person who wrote that they needed a script. They do need better defined characters, an interesting story, a more intriguing atmosphere, more realistic scenes with recognizable reactions to human events, and perhaps something else that will make a viewer want to keep watching.

The characters in this movie are so grotesque that I kept expecting one to begin to eat another. First, the fact that people are in some kind of emotional pain does not thereby cause one to find them sympathetic - particularly when there is little attempt whatever to relieve each other's troubles. That is fine, so long as the characters are made nevertheless interesting - through their actions, their dialogue, something.

These eight or so principal characters seem to cry, rage, fight, yell, grab one another, insult one another, kiss each other, scream, slap, hug, kick -- non-stop without any dramatic build-up or suspense. It's just relentless displays of extreme emotion -

whether it's of someone truly sobbing after finding that the water in the bath is cold (yes,undoubtedly some metaphor, but so poorly done);

whether it's because someone else saw the deceased more recently than they;

whether it's because someone they fancy doesn't want to be buggered on a train;

-- or just for no reason at all.

This is awful stuff - a portrait of self-absorbed decadence without anything interesting to say - and to boot, it's excruciatingly slow because terribly muddled for a long time.

I don't at all mind working to figure out a movie - but there must be something intriguing to motivate the work. Thus, for example in Place Vendome, we don't know what is going on but it's well worth finding out. Not here - not with these characters who serve simply to embarrass those around them.

This is an ugly movie - not because the ugly side of people is realistically shown, but because characters who never become real are created -- to personify ugliness of character.

I had high hopes - and am very disappointed.

"Is it legal to transport a coffin in a private car?"

[The_late_Buddy_Ryan · 8/10 · 19 January 2015]

Jean-Baptiste Emmerich, "a minor master of the mid-twentieth century," seems confident that his friends and admirers won't mind an overnight trip to Limoges—site of Europe's largest cemetery, we're told—to see him get a proper sendoff. Director Chéreau and screenwriter Danièle Thompson seem to feel that the inconvenience of a fidgety camera, murky lighting and an often baffling screenplay, especially in the opening scenes, won't detract from the pleasures of this excursion. Thompson doesn't believe in expository dialogue, so the only backstory we get is a brief recorded interview with the deceased and a few scraps of gossip exchanged by the travelers ("she raped him once in a hotel in Madrid in 1952"). Many of the characters, as noted, are brusque and unpleasant; two of them are strung-out junkies. This film reminded me of an Iris Murdoch novel, where I'd have to reread the first 30 pages once I'd gotten straight who all these people were.

Having said all that, the second time through (this isn't one for the "I want the last two hours of my life back!" crowd), I found the storyline fascinating. And luckily there's some relief in the second half of the film, when Trintignant turns up as the deceased's twin brother, a kindly old gentleman who bonds with two of his more intriguing visitors—a manga-obsessed little girl and a striking pre-op tranny played by Vincent Perez. I wasn't too taken with the brittle gay couple who are (more or less) the principal characters, but all in all I'd recommend this film to anyone who's enjoyed serious French ensemble dramas like "Summer Hours" and "Va Savoir." Great pop-music soundtrack, from the Doors to Jeff Buckley to some kind of Andalusian marching band.

Very unusual, haunting, complex and darkly sexy.......

[clive-13 · 6 December 2004]

Wow, what was this about? I rented this film with no knowledge of plot, characters, actors, directors, anything. All I knew was it was filmed in France, with English subtitles, was contemporary and had a gay plot or subplot. As I write this it occurs to me that I must have liked it. I love to critique film, yet unless I am moved, emotionally or psychologically, I rarely want to write down why, or how, a film has affected me. This film affected me. ...........................SPOILERS AHEAD........................ Let's start with the basic plot line. A rather minor painter in Paris has passed away and has asked to be buried in his old home town of Limoges in the south of France. 14 of his old friends, relatives, lovers and hanger-ons board a train in Paris early in the morning for a few hours ride to the funeral. The painters body is not on the train but is being driven down in a Pugoet station wagon. They all meet up at the cemetery where a man reads a poem in English and one of the lead male characters translates into French. Men and women standing around the grave cry openly. The majority of the mourners end up at a huge French chateaux for a wake. There, over the next 12 hours or so, everyone engages in a nonstop bitch about sex, money, relationships, marriage, children, love and inheritance, not in that order, but all subjects are covered by everyone by the next morning. Now.....What was this film about? It took viewing through the first hour of this 2 hour film for me to realize that many of the men were gay or bi-sexual and had been lovers of the now dead minor painter. Now I know that Europeans, and particularly the French have always been more accepting of same gender love, but what took me so long to get a handle on what was happening in this film was the way that homosexuality was being portrayed. It was taken as almost natural that most of these guys had been a part of the painters life at one time. Not only natural, but simply "the way it was". There was no censoring "gay" as evil or a perversion. That really did not exist. They had all loved the dead man and they were all grieving for him in some manner. What about the women in this film? Other than some older female relatives and two younger women, most of the characters were men. Is it intimated that these women had been lovers of the painter? This is not clear, however, more unusual is the fact that these women have been either lovers or wives of some of the guys who are mourning for their dead lover, the painter One of the male characters, the one who drove the body down from Paris, is married and his wife and child are on the train to Limoges with everyone else. They go to the funeral and the wake. When her husband is driving the body down to Limoges the guy picks up a hitchhiker and uses him as a sounding board to verbalize his grief over the dead painter. He says something like, " I carried him around, washed his body, worshiped him" Does his wife know of his relationship with the dead guy? Did she approve? What is that all about? There is another character who falls in love with a very cute dark haired guy he meets in the railway station as everyone is boarding the train in Paris. They catch an erotic "squeeze" in the trains toilet. Suddenly you are introduced to a woman who is the older guy's wife? Lover? Old girlfriend? She is very upset. Is she upset over his relationship with the young boy, or is she angry about something else? Yet another male character is gay and he drops his hold on the older guy who loves the young boy. I assume because he wants them to happy together, but without him. To top all this off there are old aunts and, I think, fathers and other people who have something to do with the dead painter, but whose role in all this drama isn't clear. Finally there is the transsexual Viviene. She used to be Frederic, and sill has Fred's equipment, but with boobs as well. Did Frederic have a relationship with the dead painter to? I don't know. Viviene's role in this film is also unclear, yet she seems deliciously happy that no one at the funeral and wake has figured out that she used to Fred. So you see this film is extraordinarily complex. I said it affected me and I was not quibbling about that. I will watch this film again (not tonight!). It stupified me. The negative about this film, from an American point of view, is, of course, the beautiful French language that I don't understand. I know the intricacy and double meaning that the French can put into dialog, and I'm sure the translation into English subtitles butchered some, if not a lot, of the meaning of the interplay between characters. Also, the subtitles themselves were small and in white, not yellow, as they should have been making it very difficult to read and understand. Other reviews have mentioned the darkness of the film. I found that not distracting at all. Many of the sequences in the chateaux are dark to fit the sometimes bizarre and somber storyline. Others were emotionally head on perfect. The crowded, speeding train with claustrophobic atmosphere, carrying all the former lovers and friends, hurtling south across the French country side so they may have a last goodbye. The cemetery, huge, with 180,000 dead souls in the bright sunlight. All filled up to the brim with symbolism and portent. This film is a strange one. Wonderful acting, really top notch all around. The camera work is unique and very stylish. The camera floats along at times, sometimes delivering very long, hypnotic track shots. Sometimes the camera is in a helicopter or plane and the sweeping shots of the city of Limoges and the cemetery are very arresting. Most of the scenes in the rest of the film were shot with a hand held camera and cameras. This gave the film an aura of gritty realism and was not the least distracting.

I'd have to say the film is strangely Robert "Altmanish" in texture and characterization. In fact, this film would have been more powerful with a deeper insight into all the characters involvement with the dead painter. Altman would have shot enough for another hour, or longer. It would have been just a little easier to understand all the intense emotions and motivations. But, This was not an Altman film. It was a very unique and off beat art film that I will watch again to see what I missed. Don't buy it, rent it, it makes you think. Isn't that what good drama on film is supposed to do? I liked it and recommend it to anyone who loves different and interesting cinema.

Hey I like it!

[Senta-A-Sellers-1 · 10 July 2004]

I thought this movie was great. Yes it is quite different from Queen Margot, but it certainly has its own merits. Music is used beautifully in the film to underscore a character's emotional state. The rather morbid subject of the film is handled with great sensitivity. This movie is a rather intense experience and as far as the emotional continuity of the film's characters goes it is a bit messy. A common experience, I find at least, when watching French "art" films. Perhaps a mere cultural difference. I would certainly recommend the film, and doesn't that Pascal Greggory look just like Bruce Willis? The movie is beautifully shot as well, Patrice is the man.

one epiphany too many

[mwa · 12 April 1999]

One epiphany too many in this film, which had me and nearly every other filmgoer checking their watches repeatedly. No one was surprised by the graphic homosexual sex, nor the transvestite, nor the other pseudo-revelations we were forced to endure. Having recently seen THE CELEBRATION, I found Ceux...'s script boring and predictable, which forced its makers to resort to a cheezy soundtrack which made over-obvious comments on the THEMES and INNER STATES of the far-too-numerous-to-be-fully-developed characters, and, worse, to enervatingly jarring cinematography. The Danish pic carried out its more ambitious project with more flair and less pyrotechniques, and achieved pathos and fuller characterization. If this film hails the rebirth of le cinema francais, then don't be surprised if the land of degaulle is not in the forefront of european cinema in the vingt-et-unieme. Interestingly, could the big-family-reunion cycle in Europe be connected to the integraion of the continent, and deeply-held fears about the internal struggles/issues which remain unresolved? Can european cousins really get along?

Utterly boring melodrama with zero character development

[blackriverfalls · 26 August 2003]

With the exception of Wim Wenders first ever movie (which I forget the title of), this is the most boring film I have ever seen in my life. There is no real plot other than that a group of characters, most ex lovers of the deceased, travel to attend a funeral. The interaction between the characters is so banal as to make even TV soap operas look professional. The only thing that stopped me walking out was my assumption that something was actually going to happen eventually. Ok, big spoiler coming up: nothing happens!

The portrayal of the transgender Vivienne was generally weak and reaks of a feeble misguided attempt to educate the audience, at the same time making the character seem particularly self obsessed.