That was an excellent one.

Powerful

Best movie ever!

A waste of 90 minutes of my life

After the 25th anniversary of Romy Schneider's death, I decided to see this film once again after a number of years. CESAR E ROSALIE is Romy Schneider's third movie she made with her favorite director during her French career, the one who, unlike some others, knew her as a brilliant actress and as a gentle person, Claude Sautet. And what were my impressions after the latest view: I was enchanted. I liked this film and, strangely, in spite of the light content it offers, it's rather a profound film.From the very beginning, there are three aspects that draw one's attention: unforgettable performances, very down to earth story and unique musical score. Let me analyze these three factors in more details: Romy Schneider gives a profound performance of a woman torn between men and her personal freedom, her personal independence. She represents a simple woman with whom mostly female audience may identify. Her feelings are changeable but her life heads to be straightforward. She fails many times but isn't it something most of us experience? Romy does a terrific job in the role, reaches the ultimate ability to feel the role to the very core. She once again proves how great actress she was, how flexible, how dynamic, how talented! I also liked Yves Montand as Cesar, a furious, jealous, nervous, sometimes loving authoritative man. His fury ends with calmness, his jealousy with forgiveness, his enemies with friends. Mr Montand portrays his character in a dynamic way and truly becomes the second great star of the movie.The entire content is really very simple, yet not too simple not to be sophisticated enough. It is a complicated story of life, sometimes even confusing one but truly well executed. All is there for a strict purpose: humor in the story is to amuse at the most right moment so that it cannot disturb the point (consider, for instance the moment Cesar shows Rosalie his new shoes); drama is to tell us how attached to every single life it is (consider emotional insights galore), forgiveness to remind us that the world cannot exist without pardoning. As for simple life story, mind you a lot of scenes shot in a car - isn't that a symbol of journey, a sort of "voyage" that life is...? The highly unpredictable ending makes a perfect sense only when you analyze the whole story integrally, as life built upon joys and sorrows, quarrels and reconciliations. So in this aspect of showing simple people, Claude Sautet does a great job in this film, really innovative and extremely involving.The music surprised me, even enthralled me. These were such memorable unique tunes that so much fitted to the entire story, to every single scene. The music absolutely reveals the confusion we find in life as well as the explanation that enlightens all previous doubts. Every single piece fits to the scene, one particular scene and in another one, it wouldn't fit at all. That goes in pairs with a number of memorable words that are said by the characters. I was under the spell of Rosalie when she said to Cesar "everything or nothing." Consider also how Cesar explains the purpose of his arrival on the beach one summer day when the sun shone onto heads more intensely.Nice film, original one, a work that did not only remind me once again how great Romy Schneider was but the movie which made me interested in Claude Sautet. Although I have not seen many of his films, I'll look for them now and only thanks to this charming movie, CESAR E ROSALIE. Hope it'll be the same with you when you decide to see it and I give you my heartfelt advice, do watch it. It's not a 100 minute waste of time.

Cesar and Rosalie is the 43-rd film of Romy Schneider and shows her of her matured and very serious theatrical side. Unfortunately, this film is a realistic film. Unfortunately, because the reality is not so great normal-wiser also and seldom gives it a successful happy end. Romy the Rosalie plays is together with Cesar, however she does not feel completely happily in her life situation and suddenly after five years her old dear David appears again, so she knows no more what for her the best is. First she goes to David and than she comes again to Cesar. Cesar himself threatens David but that causes the escape from Rosalie. She burns out with David and leaves Cesar alone. So Cesar tries to make a compromise. David can live with them in the same house! But that is not normal and so Rosalie escape both of them and goes away for one year. Now Cesar and David becomes good friends and live together. After one year Rosalie decides to come back. For me was that a strangely end because it leaves open a lot, but I think that was wanted.

A quiet and flawed little early Seventies "classic" by Sautet about a love triangle. Why "quiet," despite the violence and threat of destruction emanating from Yves Montand's character (César), the very successful and impulsive scrap metal dealer? Because David, his cartoonist/illustrator rival (Sami Frey), is so calm, and because Rosalie (a too-perfect Romy Schneider) is so reserved. And "flawed" -- because the story and the characters ultimately go nowhere. Why "classic" (in quotation marks, however)? Because of the excellent casting, the sure touch, and the polished look. This should be seen in conjunction with Sautet's more complex 1974 "Vincent, François, Paul... et les autres," also featuring Yves Montand in the central male role.As the film begins, César and Rosalie are living together. David reappears after a stay in America. It turns out David has always loved Rosalie, but he let her marry somebody else (an artist from whom she's for some time been divorced). When David reappears at a wedding, Rosalie quietly goes off and spends time with him. César meets David at a café and politely but very firmly tells him to back off. David ignores this, and César wrecks his studio. Rosalie takes David to César's offices, gives him the combination to the safe so he can steal a million francs in compensation for the studio damage -- and runs away to live with him and work in a café in another town. People are able to act with gross impulsivity in this movie -- and still remain pals with the victims of their acts. César tracks the pair down and plays his trump card: he's bought the big seaside house where Rosalie was so happy as a child. She now goes off to live there with HIM. But later César goes to David again, with a polite proposal. . .In actual screen time, the male-to-male relationship is more fully represented -- and hence develops more -- than the rapports between Rosalie and either of the two men. It goes from confrontation, to truce, to friendship, to intense camaraderie. The 'ménage è trois' doesn't work for Rosalie, and she goes off by herself. As philosophical voice-overs (by Michel Piccoli) come and go, you expect something desperate and violent to happen. Perhaps César will off David; or both men will die violently at sea or on the road? But instead, in the complete absence of Rosalie, César and David remain bachelors and become each other's best friends and most constant companions. Maybe they should get married to each other? But the trouble is, they aren't gay, and this was before gay marriage anyway.Frey is perfectly handsome and charming in the hirsute style of the Seventies; Schneider is perfectly elegant and beautiful in the cold style of Yves Saint Laurent; Montand is as great a combination of charming and macho and emotional and "cool" as anybody in the movies has ever been. You understand why the other two both love him. He's a little older, but thank God for that. He's tall and slim and he has all his hair and he's got that grin and that twinkle in the eyes, and when he brandishes a big cigar, it looks dashing and you forget that it stinks. But there's a flaw in the piece, which is Rosalie. She has been tremendously admired by viewers and the director himself, who spoke of Romy Schneider as representing "all women" (though he was originally going to cast Deneuve). But Schneider really hasn't much to do other than be pleasant and look lovely and move around from scene to scene. (In view of the way her part is written, the icy Deneuve might have been more convincing -- and more haunting.) Rosalie expresses herself by running off; or by being absent when she's with César and can't get David out of her mind. David is appealing in an enigmatic kind of way. Like Rosalie, he bends cooperatively at times, but holds back a part of himself always. All the passion is César's. This is like "Jules et Jim" with a lovely mannequin where Jeanne Moreau's character was (unfortunately "all women" apparently is not a single, real, live woman). A positive addition, typical of Sautet's 'oeuvre,' is that the two men's professional work is a strong element in the story.The writer-director team is to be congratulated on not opting for a violent resolution. But they have found no resolution, and their surprise finale is only a repetition. Despite the charisma of the three principals, a movie that repeats and goes nowhere, no matter how appealing, can't be called a masterpiece. César et Rosalie is an idea that is toyed with as a kitten toys with a ball of wool, and then abandoned, left in a harmless tangle. If these people weren't so attractive, they'd seem aimless and desperate.

Two opposite men of character quarrel the love of a woman, who doe not manage to choose among both. A harmless intrigue, transcent by Claude Sautet's stage setting, which brews humor and emotion, the dialogues chiselled by Jean-Loup Dabadie and a magnificent trio of actors.