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Devolution, 12 février 2004
Auteur : Chris Knipp de Berkeley, California

[S P O I L E R S]

Either because they were too shocking, or too bad, or just too French, Jean-Claude Brisseau's previous nine films (some just done for TV) haven't made it to the US. Choses secrètes (Secret Things) is having some limited distribution here. The film seduces initially with its intelligence and its elegant look; then it betrays us with tendentiousness, tedium, and numbing excess. If you loved Luchino Visconti's The Damned or Pier Paolo Pasolini's Salò, you will have to see this. If you respected Kubrick's Eyes Wide Shut, you may want to consider Choses secrètes, which some think does its moral consideration of sex and its orgy scenes better.

Whereas Dangerous Liaisons (the Choderlos de Laclos classic as well as its various film adaptations) involves the plot of a man and a woman to demolish a powerful and wicked female, this film involves two women out to get men in general. Brisseau's Nathalie (Coralie Revel), a stripper, coaches Sandrine (Sabrina Seyvecou), a barmaid, on how they can both become powerful through exploiting their own sexual daring. They've just been fired - literally thrown out on the street - from the club where they both work for refusing to have sex with customers afterward. Nathalie persuades the naïve, penniless Sandrine to move in with her and next day outlines her plan for the two of them to conquer the Paris business world.

This is all to be done through sex, and from scene one, there's plenty of masturbation -- orgasms, real or faked, come as often as explosions in action flicks -- and plenty of nudity, but only female in each case. Nathalie's simplistic, rather old-fashioned rule is that if they can give themselves pleasure, they need never be enslaved to any man. The typically French rationality of Nathalie's exposition of her plan undercuts the obvious softcore aspects of the film - for a while, that is.

And so does Choses secrètes' splendid appearance: the beauty of the two young women is set off by handsome cinematography and a generous use of sumptuous, richly colored drapery that makes the décor a pleasure to look at. One wishes American filmmakers could generate effects of taste and elegance with such simple means. But there is more to cinema than the visuals and this movie begins to seem little more than a Vogue shoot.

Wilder and prettier: that's the two girls' selling point. On the strength of a certain provocative appeal, we're to believe, they're hired at a major financial corporation, Nathalie in personnel, Sandrine in the top administrative office. Again the film's seductive: the sudden rise may be far fetched, but you want to see what happens.

Sandrine follows Nathalie's instructions and rejects a younger executive who wants to marry her: a big mistake; but she sticks to the program. Instead of dating the sincere young man, Sandrine seduces Delacroix, the firm's married, bored fifty-year-old (but handsome and lean) manager. Delacroix falls hopelessly in love. Sandrine fakes everything. Nathalie ignores her own rules and has a secret lover who hurts her. We have to guess who he is; but it's not hard: we know that Christophe (Fabrice Deville), the aged, ill boss's son, who's heir to the corporate fortune, is a gorgeous seducer who's literally driven women to commit suicide right before his eyes - and enjoyed watching. Christophe has a preposterous back-story to explain his moral emptiness.

Things go rapidly downhill when this monster of evil begins to dominate the scene. It doesn't help that the slightly corpulent Christophe looks more like last year's model than a real person. Looks and sound effects have started to take over Choses secrètes at this point. There haven't been such scenes of elegant depravity since Visconti. But there are too many orgies with Bach and Vivaldi masses played at top volume for background. It's over the top: the film self-destructs before one's eyes. And the old-fashioned moral tale - replete with blatant titillation over the `hell' it depicts - morphs into an increasingly tedious and surreal scenario. There's an angel of annihilation, a face transfixed by death, a bird of prey pecking at a bleeding chest: we're on the wilder fringes of the French imagination. Cocteau did this sort of thing much better.

In a final scene several years later Nathalie and Sandrine, now on separate paths, have a brief final meeting. One has a wholesome life and the other has become a pampered princess: using a stretch limo to suggest the latter's wealth was a genuinely bad idea. Both women look exactly the same as ever: like this year's models. The movie has completely disintegrated. There is nothing left to care about.

But I did love the drapery in Nathalie's bedroom. It promised better things.

For an infinitely smarter and ultimately more chic French film about love games, if you don't want to go to the source, de Laclos' Dangerous Liaisons and its film versions, rent a copy of Benoît Jacquot's School of Flesh (L'École de la chair), with Isabelle Huppert at her most sublimely disdainful. Nathalie and Sandrine combined aren't fit to dust her shoes.

32 utilisateurs sur 36 ont trouvé ce commentaire utile :
A Banquet of Sexual Manipulation Gone Awry, 2 février 2004

Auteur : Fred Arm (fha@bigfoot.com) de Pt Richmond, California

The opening scene in Secret Things slams you with its voyeuristic impact suggesting that this is a soft-porn exploitation in someone's private bedroom; however, the scene turns out to be an autoerotic exhibition onstage in a bar in Paris. Nathalie (Coralie Revel) is a gorgeous exotic dancer headlining in a dank bar in Paris. She is fired after a tiff with the calloused owner together with a naïve bartender Sandrine (Sabrina Seyvecou). The two ladies vow not to be used by men again. Nathalie encourages Sandrine to loosen her sexual inhibitions to get more out of life. She instructs Sandrine how to awaken her sexuality both in the bedroom and at public places such as a tunnel in the Metro. The pair decides to room together and scheme on how they will better their lot in life by using men to climb the ladder of success and become free spirits.

After the ladies land a job at the same firm, they plot on how to advance their positions using their sensuality as a manipulative tool. Nathalie quickly maneuvers a job as personnel assistant and Sandrina is now an executive secretary. Sandrina, currently an apt pupil in sexual prowess, manages to manipulate her superiors until she finally lands a position as secretary to the main supervisor. This formerly monogamous married man, who is twice Sandrine's age, falls madly in love with her to his detriment as they secretly hump their way across the screen both on the job and at other more acceptable venues. Sandrine flagrantly uses him to advance her career, yet plans on dumping him once she conquers the young CEO, a handsome and clever womanizer.

As the affair with her boss hardens, she begins to back off and he becomes more desperate to possess her. Nathalie on the other hand has fallen hard for an unrevealed lover, who apparently has dumped her. Sandrine attempts to console Nathalie and ultimately winds up in the sack with her. Now the plot begins to deteriorate as the newfound freedom they were both relishing begins to erode. Trapped by the amorous attention of her boss, Sandrine now imposes upon him to promote Nathalie to their office where they eventually indulge in a ménage à trois. This scenario further crumbles when the three are discovered in hot embrace in the restroom by the young stud of a CEO, who is even more Machiavellian than they are.

The plot now totally disintegrates into a banquet of ruthlessness, group sex, lesbian sex, three-way sex, and masturbation. Our heroines, now suffering much more than they did before they decided upon their quest to manipulate men, go along with the bizarre program foisted upon them. The story unfolds into some off the wall twists and unexpected ironies. However, when mixed with the continual bombardment of sexual exploitation, it adds little to the theme of the story. The film appears to take away more than it provides.

The first three quarters of the film are fun and interesting as we observe the women taking charge of their lives and maneuvering through office politics. The movie eventually falls apart dropping to the level of a soft-core porn movie, without rhyme or reason until the plot regresses to something secondary to the sexploitations. The director, Jean-Claude Brisseau presents quite a banquet of sexuality, turning on both men and women audiences throughout the film, while maintaining a nice balance of story and visual indulgence. This picture, in French with English subtitles, is deftly crafted so that you easily forget that you are reading everything instead of listening to the dialogue. Nathalie is so stunning and sexual on the screen that it is by itself well worth the price of admission. It is too bad the story falls apart in the third act; nevertheless, I would still recommend it for its visual arousing energy and remarkable premise.

24 utilisateurs sur 28 ont trouvé ce commentaire utile :
Les liaisons dangereuses, 23 mai 2004

Auteur : anhedonia de Planet Earth

A film about manipulative, mean-spirited and, at times, downright nasty people - and I absolutely loved it.

It's so refreshing to see a truly adult film these days. Not to mention, a film that doesn't just say it is erotic, it goes ahead and proves it. This is not a film for prudes, for those who are easily offended. But for adults who are willing to see some frank discussion about sex and some deliciously devious sexual politics, this film provides wonderful entertainment.

"Choses secrètes" is enormously entertaining with two thoroughly captivating leads. Sabrina Seyvecou, who turns in a spellbinding performance, has a sort of Heather Grahamish innocence and sexiness to her and, along with Coralie Revel, provides some of the most titillating scenes seen in a mainstream movie in many years.

There really aren't any good/wholesome characters in this film. But that's OK. (I suppose Cadene qualifies as a nice chap, but he's a minor character.) Because the cunning of the two women is so absolutely engrossing that you're quickly drawn into their wicked world. Watching them use people for their own ends and not quite knowing who is manipulating whom is one of the many charms of this sensual and exciting film.

The film comes apart toward the end. Unravels a bit, especially when writer/director Jean-Claude Brisseau resorts to awfully heavy-handed (and needless) symbolism. There's also a superfluous orgy scene that comes out of nowhere. I wish Brisseau would have come up with an original, atypical, less conventional denouement for his story.

If you like the works of Neil LaBute - "The Shape of Things," "Your Friends and Neighbors" and "In the Company of Men" - you should appreciate and enjoy "Choses secrètes."

20 utilisateurs sur 26 ont trouvé ce commentaire utile :
Coulda/shoulda been better, 1 décembre 2004

Auteur : George Parker de Orange County, CA USA

"Secret Things" is about two beautiful young women, a stripper and a barmaid, who find themselves unemployed and decide to use their sex appeal as a tool to get on the fast track to success in the corporate world. Their scheme works well until they run up against a man who is even more cunning, ruthless, and base than they are. "Secret Things" opens with a nude autoerotic dance and appears to being going somewhere until it self-destructs in a crescendo of ponderous nonsense. The sagacious female protags become clueless dupes, the male antagonist turns into something so perverse it's almost funny, a black veiled figure with a bird appears and hangs out like some sort of specter, and the film quickly loses its credibility. "Secret Things" is chock full of sex which is obviously staged and the psychodramatics simply aren't believable. A coulda/shoulda been better example of when less would have been more. (C+)

16 utilisateurs sur 20 ont trouvé ce commentaire utile :
Great movie. Worth watching at least twice. If you can stomach it., 20 janvier 2006

Auteur : orionandsilver de Etats-Unis

One of the best movies I've seen in a while. Not for the conservative minded or squeamish, from beginning to end there is little more than sex. But that's integral to the plot. This is a movie that showcases the violence and the decay that is just under the surface of respectable society. It's about two strong characters who begin down the road to a tragedy of their own making. It questions morality, it pushes the limits, it steps over 'that thin line', and it takes us over the line with it. It is human weakness, irrationality, and most of all, obsession, on film.

The acting, both in and out of the "bedroom" was excellent. It is sometimes hard to follow, especially with the subtitles, but that only makes watching it a second time more worth it. I've never seen it on sale or for rent in a store, but if you have an online DVD rental service, then you'll have no problem getting a hold of it.

13 utilisateurs sur 15 ont trouvé ce commentaire utile :
Fun, 28 décembre 2007

Auteur : (ztanlines) de Etats-Unis

Do you like well made movies with good acting and cinematography? Do you like trashy exploitation? If you answered yes to both of these questions then this is the movie for you. Some people are frustrated that someone would dare bring a story that belongs in a lurid paperback to screen with the former qualities, calling it cheap erotica with art-house pretensions. This is not true. "Secret Things" never overplays its hand and never asks to be taken as anything but what it is. It does not achieve things that a film like "Last Tango in Paris" does, but it doesn't try to (a good thing, given that it lacks Marlon Brando...). Instead, it tells a lurid story of manipulation and social climbing that is both quiet and operatic, sexy and repulsive. There's naked bodies present and food for thought if one is interested. A very well-made movie.

7 utilisateurs sur 7 ont trouvé ce commentaire utile :
Lyrical Eroticism But Not Exactly Tongue In Cheek, 19 août 2006

Auteur : michael-1151 de Royaume-Uni

The French do lyricism and erotica well, maybe it's the accents or the actors; more likely, the language itself. Mind you, had this been Demi Moore and Julia Roberts frolicking about, I'd have laughed myself silly; as it is, the two female leads - especially Sabrina Seyvecou - successfully show how powerful a currency sex appeal is. It begins as a feminist fable - the two girls thrown together at a strip club, consorting, exhibiting and daring one another to ever greater public displays of pleasurable posturing between hands and genitals -supposedly, in the belief that, with training, Sandrine can get an office job and sleep her way to the top.

Now, had this been tongue in cheek - and I'm not saying whose tongue, in whose cheek - had M Jean-Claude Brisseau, the director, used a lighter or defter touch, the sensual side would have melted our Haagen-Dazs and there could still have been a thought-provoking moral aspect, reflecting the power of, well, the femme fatale.

As it is, the film gets lost towards the end, implying that the playboy office boss is the real manipulator and the girls are mere pawns. The joyous, impish scenes when the two women dare one another to surreptitiously remove their underwear whilst seated in the subway, are long forgotten. Thankfully, Sabrina Seyvecou's natural charms are sufficient to blot out any significant disappointment. She could conquer my office any time.

I think the Haagen-Dazs has left a stain. At least, I think it's the Haagen-Dazs...

19 utilisateurs sur 32 ont trouvé ce commentaire utile :
Those darn French.., 11 avril 2004
Auteur : shizz_27 de Etats-Unis

Sexual politics in the workplace are nothing new to the movies. It can be terrific stomping ground for social satire. But, rarely have I seen it given a worse treatment than in Jean-Claude Brisseau's good-looking but shallow SECRET THINGS.

Two French hotties, Sandrine and Nathalie, are booted from the bar where they both work for refusing to have sex with a patron and defending that decision, respectively. Soon, they're moving in together and engaging in an endless series of sexual exploits themselves to prove they aren't like everyone else. If they can screw in public and get away with it, what _don't_ they have the nerve for? Both women are unemployed, and both have healthy sexual appetites. Why not use what they have to get what they want -- in this case, climb the corporate ladder? It's a logical step, I guess. But, then Sandrine seems perfectly competent in her new job without the sex stuff. Sure, all the men want her, and without having to so much as flash a smile their direction, she's on her way to being promoted. So, why the insistence on manipulating men, too? I mean, aside from the bar incident, have they been wronged in some way? What makes these women tick?

The film doesn't quite know, and it _has_ to. Otherwise, it's just sex scenes strung together in no discernible order for no apparent reason other than to be titillating on top of intellectual. Only, it isn't either, really. It's far too talky, for one thing, and it doesn't make a great deal of sense; someone please explain to me why there's a wedding in this film. If not for the occasional display of the female form in all its glory, SECRET THINGS would be unendurable. The overheated episodes between Sandrine and Nathalie (mostly the masturbatory variety) are energetic but redundant, and there's an EYES WIDE SHUT-esque orgy scene that comes out of left field, for no apparent reason other than two minutes have gone by without a sex scene. Then again, this movie hits narrative bankruptcy long before. And the ending, if you can stay awake long enough, is absurd.

SECRET THINGS is not nearly as brazen or interesting or complex as it thinks it is. I don't have the energy to hate it, nor would I waste it if I did. The projector stopped about three times throughout an interminable hour and fifty-minute running time; I wish it had stopped more.

5 utilisateurs sur 6 ont trouvé ce commentaire utile :
Power as an aphrodisiac., 4 juin 2006

Auteur : Robert J. Maxwell (rmax304823@yahoo.com) de Deming, New Mexico

*** Ce commentaire peut contenir des spoilers ***

The anthropologist Jules Henry once wrote that "men compete for power; women compete for men." Okay, it's kind of simple minded, but this movie neatly illustrates the point Henry was trying to make. Two women, Sandrine and Nathalie, meet by accident and begin an affair. Nathalie, the older and more experienced of the two, teaches Sandrine how to seduce her way up the corporate ladder, including instructions on how to improve your fake orgasms. Treat them nice and then dump them for someone better, but do it subtly.

The first guy at this huge corporation is nothing more than target practice for Sandrine. She works through him to get at the next guy in the bigger office, a happily married winsome man with a face that has all the sympathetic appeal of road kill. Sandrine, following Nathalie's instructions, works overtime at the office and spurns all hits until one night she allows the 47-year-old boss in the bigger office to catch her in a do-it-yourself mode. The older man, Delacroix, whom I'd supposed to be dead since 1863, begins a passionate affair with the delectable young Sandrine. She teases and taunts him and makes him feel vigorous again. He can't do without her. Then after tricking him into visiting her unannounced at her home, she lets him wander in on her and Nathalie while they are making love. Only in a French movie would his first question be, "Are you in love with her"? No bothering with the fact that he's got two women humping in front of him. That is what we blue-blooded church-goers call "sang-froid." Anyway -- skipping some additional steps -- Sandrine finally makes it into the office of the boss's son, a young rich hunk, Christophe. The real boss doesn't count because he's old and moribund. (He's my age.) But now our story turns a bit and begins to get REALLY creepy.

It develops that Nathalie has having an affair with Christophe and has been spying for him too. And this Christophe is a match for the two plotting women, believe me. "Me, cruel? Am I more cruel than God or creation?" What a cold blooded cad. Or cod. Let's see. The film turns into what could have been a soft-core porn film from any country except that in France they do it to an oratorio by Handel. We have ordinary intercourse, but not much of that. Then there's the lesbian affair of course. And, let me think, oh yes, incest and orgies. Christophe winds up marrying Sandrine and as a special treat on their wedding night he has her dragged screaming down to a dungeon and gang banged by a bunch of strangers. All this to the tune of Bach's Missa Solemnis or something and the reassuring sight of softly billowing scarlet curtains. When Nathalie finally plugs Christophe (seven times) he begs her not to commit suicide because then she will follow him to hell and harass him for eternity. When Christophe dies on the staircase his body is enshrouded by white smoke and a hawk lands on his chest and begins tearing at the bullet holes around his heart. Don't ask.

Well, Nathalie doesn't kill herself. She goes to prison for seven years, marries her prison guard, and has a family with him. Sandrine, having lost her husband, inherits everything he had, meaning their vast estate and the huge corporation. She runs the business with the now-chastened Delacroix as her loyal assistant.

I'm not trying to hack the movie to pieces, although I have made fun of some of it. I found myself genuinely interested in where it was going -- in where it could POSSIBLY go next. And I was sincerely happy that both women wound up evidently satisfied with their secure circumstances. And I appreciated the way Sandrine presented herself. She's attractive without being beautiful. And she has a way of grooming herself and walking and posturing that makes the most of what the Intelligent Designer has given her, a trait more commonly found in Europeans than Americans, if I may make such an Olympian generalization. The story, and some of the scenes, are pretty erotic but they're done with style. There's little nudity and what there is of it isn't vulgar. I kind of liked the whole thing.

9 utilisateurs sur 14 ont trouvé ce commentaire utile :
Les Choses Secretes and its discontents..., 2 janvier 2008

Auteur : n1cl0las de London

First of all I think something should be clarified, namely the explicitness of this film. If you are familiar with French films, there is a relatively little amount of full frontal nudity. And the sex scenes are on par with those of many a British film. Though that being said whilst the nudity of french cinema might be there to merely add a simple level of realism or aesthetic to the film, and the sex of British cinema be there again to add realism and a bit of British bravado. Les Choses Secretes uses sex merely as a plot device, and since the plot is pretty awful, so is the sex and by extension, the film.

The film starts with a woman masturbating in front of a big crowd of people at a bar. The bar tender is a young twenty something who seems to have formidable maths skills yet is working at a sleazy bar(?). She befriends the masturbating lady and from then the two girls seem intent on playing a game of manipulating men for no apparent reason other than to assert their female dominance on them.

What has the potential of being an interesting treatise on feminism, ends up essentially being a misogynistic bore. Whilst the first two acts keep you mildly interested with suspense to see how things unfold, it is the third act which ruins the film. Too much is given too late, we are suddenly confronted with a character, and a whole other plot dimension within the last 10 minutes. We are left asking many questions and none of them are answered. This coupled with a bizarrely surprising orgy scene and a curiously operatic score, shows how confused the film is. It sits on the fine line between potentially an arty shoot and a soft core porn shoot.

It would have been a lot better if it chose to be one or the other.

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