Am I Missing Something?

I am only giving this movie a 1 for the great cast, though I can't imagine what any of them were thinking. This movie was horrible

There are moments in this movie where the great movie it could've been peek out... They're fleeting, here, but they're worth savoring, and they happen often enough to make it worth your while.

.Like the great film, it's made with a great deal of visible affection both in front of and behind the camera.

Can this failed, disjointed plot be saved? Is it is worth saving? I think so, but I am probably in the minority. I suggest that the pivotal relationship between Antoine Lavau (Depardieu) and Cecile (Deneuvre) be resuscitated. There's enough integrity in the film's early going to inspire a re-working of two protagonists. I think the trick is to avoid at all costs stereotyping, cynicism, canned emotions, and manipulative plot turns.First, Antoine is singular (original) and he must stay in character. He is not some freak of nature who needs a Hollywood re-cast. There are shy and introverted men who, often in their twenties, will experience a break-up, maybe from their first real love. A male of this mode, may weather the storm, but gradually his conviction grows that the initial lover was both rarer than what he imagined and possibly even irreplaceable. He may soon become convinced that he blew his one true chance at love. So his affective love gradually shifts back in her direction, displacing thoughts of a new relationship. He may resurrect her photos, be more cognizant of her life, adopt her preferences, and more rarely, prefer to live in more physical proximity to her.To one degree or another, such a man is under the influence of a romantic ideal. He needs to experience a sense of love, so he returns to the woman who compelled his passion. He realizes that while remarriage is a mere dream, her palpable presence gives pique to his life. He also understands that any obtrusion into her life would run counter to this new realization. It's not that she's an angel, but rather that love put on hold or bracketed never really stops.In "Changing Times," (a trite title) Antoine initially appears to be this identical romantic lover. He's very singular and the not in the least unconvincing. His face is compelling, as is the complexity of his thoughts, the certainty of his emotions. He elicits interest--there is something of us in him, something in him we can learn from, something perhaps instructive in his loneliness. We sense that if he is to actually meet with this woman of his, it will have to be by accident. I mean like why after thirty years of steady love would he suddenly thrust himself on a married woman? As to Cecile, she too belongs here as the kind of woman who might inspire such memory and lasting love. Although in many ways typically middle class, she projects an independence, a world-weary sophistication, and a realistic sense of her position in life. She hosts a radio show, exercise authority over others, and is self-directed. She is no dreamer, no romantic; she grasps what a cad her younger husband is and deals with him as it suits her. When she meets Antoine she unhesitatingly sets her boundaries, defuses his interest, and projects him as a detail in a busy life.The movie's premise works. But the unfolding fails. It's as if these grown-ups morph into adolescents. Antoine slithers out of character as if he's suddenly aware of maleness, and is amazed by it. He doesn't exactly stalk Cecile but his actions and words suggest that continuum. Now his mix of shy and bold seem like a sneaky maneuver, and he can't seem to get enough of himself. In a tete-a tete with Cecile's hunky husband, he admits to having many affairs, but of being only impersonally present in them. And as he takes on a more aggressive approach to this man's wife, his singular anonymous lover image is certainly tarnished. And thus it is that he resorts to direct confrontation, high drama, and on shy, naive guises to effectuate his tricks which serve both to ingratiate himself with Cecile and to insinuate himself into her life. And with the help of convenient plot accidents, his assumption of access to his ex-lover, is achieved in a manner hardly different than that of any other drippy dude.If his role is abandoned by Techine, so too is Cecile's autonomy. She becomes the personification of access. (There is no comedy here, not initially and not now.) When interrupted by a hapless Antoine during a radio broadcast, her rage is over the top--which in turn sets her up for an equally over the top contriteness. Which shatters her independence. And seems to rob her of her volition. Thus she becomes for Antoine a sex therapy operative--one that requires no desire, will, or suggestion on his part. And, of course, after his mud accident, Cecile is then cast as a kind of madonna nurse, and is returned to familial motherhood.So, thanks to Techine's cop out direction, and imagination breakdown, two original and interesting characters who promises much in the way of subtle drama, and character development, are sacrificed. The unknown becomes the known. Antoine becomes everyman, and Cecile is reduced to a mother and a mistress.

Is it possible that a passion - strictu sensu - lasts over 31 years? This movie tries to demonstrate that is possible... Antoine Lavau (interpreted by Gérard Depardieu) concomitant with his job of supervising the beginning of a great enterprise in an ancient french possession (Argel or Marocco?) searches desperately "to fix a mistake" done in his past: the fear of to be repudiated in his avowal of love for Cécile (Catherine Deneuve), in despite of both we're involved in a whirligig passion in a remote summer of '70s (by the way, to her, the first love...). Antoine, now a rich entrepreneur of (construction) line of business meet again Cécile married with a doctor (Natan) born in that place who absolutely doesn't look Cécile as a goddess, like Antoine does. This becomes patent when, in a scene where both talk and Natan confesses that he has several lovers ("of all kind, all nationalities") and he is bored with his marriage... By her hand, Cécile does not love him anymore as before, because he reveals himself as a "heman" or because he treats his own son (Sami) in a careless way, ignoring completely his emotional feelings. In face of this situation, Cécile created a shell around her and this shell is a mixture of feminism and hardness in her relationship, mainly with men. That's obvious when she meets Antoine in a hotel room, after had repudiated him more than once... An accident put them together - same that in a provisory manner - occasion in which they will try to correct, no matter how lately, the "mistake" of the past. The interpretations: Gérard Depardieu is not so well as in the other roles, but he transmit us some tenderness while Catherine Deneuve "ravissante" (charming) in her 60 years give us an interpretation firm and faithful to psicologic shadows of her character. In a scale of 1 to 10, I vote : 8.

Andre Techine's film LES TEMPS QUI CHANGENT (CHANGING TIMES) has been marketed as a romantic comedy that brings Gerard Depardieu and Catherine Deneuve together again. He plays an architect who travels to Tangier for an assignment. It so happens that Deneuve, who plays the woman with whom he had an affair with 30 years prior, lives there with her husband and hosts a radio show. When they meet, she's not exactly happy to cross paths -- if anything, this is something that progressively upsets her. Adding to this, the appearance of subplots that are occurring around Deneuve's life: her son, Sami (Malik Zidi) shows up with his Moroccan wife Nadia (Lubna Azabal). She has a sister, Aicha (also Lubna Azabal) who wants nothing to do with her. Sami is also carrying on, unbeknown to Nadia, with a young Moroccan man. And Deneuve's husband has proclaimed he believes in variety instead of monogamy.Here is where CHANGING TIMES fails: too many subplots detract from the main idea of the romance that would carry itself throughout the movie. None of these stories have anything to do with Deneuve and Depardieu other than provide filler, and a forced third act, where Depardieu gets caught in a construction accident (foreshadowed in the beginning; the movie is mainly an extended flashback leading to this crucial moment) is only an excuse to get Deneuve to step down from her temple of frigidity and become a human being. Now, if Depardieu had not acted in such a way that would seem increasingly creepy instead of endearing there would be a reason to expect some form of romantic resolution to this. Deneuve's ultimate resolve, once it comes, is so completely out of character (like the short wig she is wearing at the end) that it denies everything that has up to then been an okay drama and robs the movie of its credibility.CHANGING TIMES is something of a misguided, misdirected mess that has some good moments and an intriguing premise but would have fared better had it not been sold as a romantic comedy. It's worth seeing if for its two leads, but other than that, it's rather forgettable.

Nominated for the Golden Bear Award at the Berlin Film Festival, André Techine's Changing Times reunites French superstars Catherine Deneuve and Gerard Depardieu for the seventh time. Set in Tangiers, Morocco in the fifties, the film tackles large topics: temporary pleasure versus enduring commitment, the status of women in Morocco, bisexuality, and the economic gap between wealthy European nations and the third world, but none are fully developed. Along the way, we see refugees waiting by the sea hoping for voyage to Europe, Arabs slaughtering sheep in the desert, and women afraid to be seen in public with men. The film has a fragmentary quality and, in spite of some lyrical moments, is mainly a star vehicle that cannot decide whether it wants to be a comedy, a tragedy, or political commentary. The film begins as a landslide buries Antoine Lavau (Gerard Depardieu), a supervisor inspecting a construction site, and the film proceeds with flashbacks to Antoine's arrival in Tangiers and his subsequent life in Morocco. Lavau has come to Tangiers to expedite the building of an audiovisual center in the Tax Free Zone of Tangiers. Perhaps sexpedite might be more to the point as he has basically come to rekindle a romance with Cecile (Deneueve), his first love with whom he is still obsessed, even though he has not tried to contact her during the last thirty years out of fear of rejection. Cecile is a radio announcer on a late night music and talk show. Antoine sends her flowers anonymously and spends his nights listening to her voice on the radio. In a scene played for laughs, he even watches a video about voodoo so he can render her powerless to resist his advances. When the two finally meet, it is only after Antoine runs into a glass wall breaking his nose.Cecile has changed greatly since coming to North Africa and has neither fond memories of Antoine nor any wish to rekindle their romance. She is remarried to Natan (Gilbert Melki), a Jewish doctor and they have one son, Sami (Malik Zidi), a bisexual, who has been living in Paris with his Moroccan girl friend Nadia (Lubna Azubal) and her son Said (Idir Elomri). He is in Tangier visiting his family for the holidays and renewing acquaintances with his Moroccan lover Bilal (Idir Rachati) who lives in a country estate well protected by a pack of none too friendly dogs. Nadia, who suffers from emotional problems and takes tranquilizers, wants to visit her twin sister Aicha while in Tangiers whom she hasn't seen in six years but Aicha refuses to see her, telling Nadia that it would complicate her life. These episodes have some tender moments but we do not learn enough about either sister or for that matter Sami or Bilal to have any emotional investment in their lives.As Cecile's relationship with Natan becomes more and more strained, she begins to open up a little bit to Antoine and starts to show some affection, but this is interrupted by Antoine's accident at the site, leading to a contrived and predictable resolution of the plot. Although Changing Times contains some fine performances by two outstanding professionals, little emotion is conveyed and I did not find the relationship to be truly convincing. The times they are-a changin' and if this film is any indication of the direction of André Techine's work, it is not for the better. Perhaps someone should have considered putting a voodoo spell on the scriptwriter. As it is, there is much good intention but little magic.