(French with English subtitles)

If I get to age gracefully - Please! - let it be with Charlotte Rampling. She is so amazingly sexy as Marie Drillon in "Under the Sand," it’s hard to believe she is well into her fifties. It almost doesn’t matter that she plays a woman who quietly drifts into insanity. The movie’s director and co-writer, Francois Ozon, takes you every step of the way in Marie’s downward spiral from the time Marie finds her husband, Jean (Bruno Cremer) , missing from their outing on a desolate beach, until the shocking moment of reckoning.

"Under the Sand" starts off with a quiet drive to the country house. The Drillons have little to say to each other. The have an understanding that comes from over twenty years of marriage. They trade small signs of affection - a touch here - a stroke there. Each knows what has to be done to ready the house for their holiday. They’ve done it hundreds of times. A walk in the woods puts Jean in touch with nature. There’s the liveliness of an ant colony and the dead wood of a fallen tree - a symbol perhaps of the approaching end of his life, or maybe a lifeless marriage.

A day trip to an isolated beach seems uneventful. Marie naps. Jean goes for a swim. She wakes up and her husband is gone. She panics and the authorities begin a painstaking search for a body. Did he commit suicide? - die an accidental death? - or simply abandon Marie? "Under the Sand" is not a thriller. The disappearance of Jean is not as important as the examination of a woman who defines herself through her lifelong connection to one man. Jean has has been Marie’s erotic and emotional sustenance. She cannot imagine her life without him. Marie continues her daily routines as if Jean had never disappeared. She talks to her friends as if he were still around, and begins to see him at home. Even when Marie begins a casual affair, months after Jean’s disappearance, she sees him. She has shared everything in her life with him, so it seems fitting that she continue even in the throes of passion with another man. Is Jean a ghost or a figment of her imagination? Director Ozon lets us see the world through Marie’s eyes with no distinction between memory and reality. Marie puts the rest of the world on hold. She refuses to cope with the bitterness of her mother-in-law or her impending economic disaster. Jean’s assets are frozen until she acknowledges his death and she can’t acknowledge his death as long as she is emotionally dependent on keeping him alive whether in memory, fantasy, or her own vivid sense of reality. Charlotte Rampling’s Marie is like a fine piece of crystal, beautiful but fragile. Her friends treat her delicately but if Marie is mishandled, she could make her crack at any moment.

"Under the Sand" is an amazingly mature work that one might expect from someone with a lifetime of experience under his/her belt but Francois Ozon is only thirty three and seems to possess a wisdom well beyond his years. The movie is a thought provoking piece on grief and the bits and pieces that define a person’s life.

Copyright 2001

"L’Avventura" (1959) (Italian with Eng. titles) - Dir. Michelangelo Antonioni: A young woman disappears from an island venture forcing her friends to examine the emptiness of their lives while hopelessly searching for her. Described by some as a journey in despair, the director uses moody black and white landscapes to portray the emotions of his characters. Antonioni is an acquired taste at best but sometimes but this one broke through to a mass audience. This is best appreciated with a second viewing.

"Dona Flor and Her Two Husbands" (1978) (Brazilian with Eng. titles) - Sonia Braga became an international star in this comedy about a woman who can’t decide between her new lover and or the ghost of her libidinous dead husband. This was remade as "Kiss Me Goodbye" (1964) with Sally Field, James Caan, and Jeff Bridges but something got lost in the transition.

"The Damned" (1969) - Dir. Luchino Visconti - Rampling is a member of a German industrialist family during the rise of Nazism. The high point of the movie ends with the slaughter of the Brown Shirts. This study in decadence plays like Grand Opera and was originally X. With a great Dirk Bogard, Helmut Griem, Helmut Berger, and Ingrid Thulin.

"Zardoz" (1974) - Dir. John Boorman: Rampling is a leader on the council of immortals who rule from a distance over a lawless breed of primitives who fear a flying head called Zardoz. This fantasy/sci-fi movie has been called everything from ridiculous to visionary. A very hirsute Sean Connery is a primitive who stows away on the flying head. The immortals welcome his presence with amusement until he becomes a threat to their existence. Others see him as the answer to their boring lives. Connery develops a thing for Rampling. Part adventure, part satire, often funny, and totally entertaining.

"The Knack, and How to Get It" (1965) - Director Richard Lester displays the same kinetic skills used in the Beatles’ "A Hard Days’ Night" the year before. Rampling has a bit part along with Jacqueline Bisset in this tale with Michael Crawford ("The Phantom of the Opera" - the musical play) as a guy who longs to have the same knack for getting girls as his buddy.

"Georgy Girl" (1966) - Lynn Redgrave has the title role about a plump girl who just wants a little love with James Mason as the rich guy who wants to give her some, even if he is married. Rampling is Georgy’s rambunctious roommate who becomes more foe than friend.