Les amants du Nil (2002) User Reviews

Romantic and surreal but not much else

[borgolarici · 5/10 · 20 January 2022]

A strange, little surreal love story that oscillates between poetry and fairy tale.

As fascinating and sweet as I found the premise of the story, the movie itself didn't particularly involve me because it seemed a bit ... silly. Especially in the ending, completely different from the poetic beginning.

Recommended for die hard lovers of love stories.

A wonderful inspiring tale of a woman's passion which leads to madness

[Marion88 · 13 October 2005]

Set in Tunisia and Egypt during the second world war, this movie is beautiful and disturbing. If you liked the English Patient you will love Les Amants du Nil for sure. Anne Frendo (beautiful Emma de Caunes) is bored and in need of love. She lives isolated in her rich father's colonial mansion. War brings her what she's longing for: a man, romance... except the man she falls in love with is dead... A paratrooper killed in action she finds on the beach. She steals an unfinished love letter on the body and starts fantasizing that the dead soldier was actually writing to her... The extreme passion which catches her drives her close to insanity. Her aunt who is a healthy sound woman (lively Bernadette Laffont) decides to take her on a trip to Egypt... They stay in a wonderful palace hotel by the Nile river, all seems fine except for the phantom of Anne's imaginary lover who seems to have followed them... A wonderful tale about fantasies, imagination, passion, madness and love. Beautifully shot in the style of Casablanca (look for a cameo appearance of Murray Head as an English officer) and the forties films, it is obviously inspired by psychoanalysis...

Is this a movie?

[trickykid71 · 1/10 · 14 October 2002]

It's horrible, boring and without any sense. The actors are awful, the story is trite ... I'm just trying to forget it ... and I ask how is it possible that a movie like this could have a distribution? Absolutely NOT recommended.

Beautiful disturbing and clever

[visualfactory · 10/10 · 6 April 2003]

Gripping tale of love between a superb french girl - sexy as hell - and a ghostlike figure during WWII in Egypt. She finds a love letter on a soldier's dead body and starts fantasizing. Visually superb. Murray Head stars. French arthouse at its best.

Love before time

[zhang_jane12 · 9/10 · 19 February 2005]

I love this film for it's so romantic, love and death all in the dreams. But even the gap between the two is so wide-in a different space and time, they really have loved. The movie remind me of "somewhere in time", also very romantic. The actress is stunning. I like to conclude it all in one word: "I don't know you, but I love you." sometime we cann't tell whether we are livin in a dream or not, and sometime we can but wouldn't because we will lose it in that way. This love story can be interpreted as a girl's fantasy, but still beautiful. If you believe in it ,you can feel it. And once you have it, it will always belong to you. LOVE DOES EXIST, EVEN ONLY IN YOUR DREAMS.