Great visuals, story delivers no surprises

Absolutely the worst movie.

Easily the biggest piece of Right wing non sense propaganda I ever saw.

I think this is a new genre that they're all sort of working their way through it and haven't got all the kinks worked out yet but it's a genre that works for me.

« black swan » and this movie are twins because they take the same Tchaikovsky ballet with the same supernatural treatment : personality split. I don't buy serendipity and as always, the first try is the more interesting : here, we have the opportunity to go to Budapest. Next, we don't have gratuitous trendy sex but a classic candid romance instead. If Jen and Natalie are as much candid and good ballerina, there is more dark poetry here than later. Sure the movie is much less psychotic or disturbing, it has no awards or box-office but it's not about a difference in quality: the (long) final looks also like "Godfather III" with action happening in a opera house but reveals a funny surprise as well!

Jennifer Connelly plays Claire Hamilton,a ballerina who comes to Budapest to pursue her ballet career.Claire goes to the audition and back at her hotel receives black flowers addressed to long dead ballerina Natalie Horvath.She is possessed by the ghost of a 19th century prima-ballerina who was killed in a tragic carriage accident."Etoile" shares some glaring similarities with Darren Aronofsky's recent hit "Black Swan" for example the theme of loss identity.Like "The Spider Labirynth" it was shot in Budapest.The action is slow and the film is highly contemplative and subtle.It's certainly fascinating to compare it with "Black Swan".So if you are a fan of romantic horror you can't go wrong with "Etoile".7 swans out of 10.

Thanks to a poor script and the woeful direction of Peter Del Monte, ETOILE was a flop in 1988, never released (to this day) in the U.S. despite being filmed in English with American leading actors. Suddenly it takes on new interest as a direct forerunner of the current hit BLACK SWAN.Jennifer Connelly, who gives a glazed performance especially compared with the all-stops-out tour de force of Natalie Portman, plays an American ballerina named Claire traveling to Budapest to further her career. She is possessed by the spirit of a ballerina from 1891 who danced her final performance there in "Swan Lake".A chilling early scene has Claire receiving a bouquet of black flowers with a note: "Welcome back Natalie". This refers to the 1891 ballerina named Natalie Horvath, but today gives off an eerie note with the coincidence of actress Portman's first name some 22 years later in such a similar role.Both films deal with loss of identity, but ETOILE adopts a very cornball Gothic romance style which falls flat. In fact everything about the film is flat except Connelly's torso (see her in CAREER OPPORTUNITIES made a couple of years later and you'll see what I mean). The romantic male lead Gary McCleery (whose career went nowhere) is terrible - a blank space on the screen, and an endless subplot concerning his uncle, played hammily by Charles Durning, obsessed with buying rare clocks, merely kills time.The ballet master was well-cast with Laurent Terzieff, a wonderful, creepy looking French actor, better casting than Vincent Cassel in the new film, but unfortunately Terzieff has little to do. Similarly, scarily beautiful Olimpia Carlisi is wasted as an evil black queen figure.In the '80s I watched all of Del Monte's films that were in fact imported to America -watching them in 35mm I can give a fair appraisal. SWEET PEA was merely cute, I greatly enjoyed INVITATION AU VOYAGE (which was an art-house flop here when released by Columbia's Triumph Films subsidiary), and JULIA & JULIA was a disaster, a millstone on Kathleen Turner's otherwise booming career at the time. With ETOILE Del Monte comes off as just another hack.

I have to admit that I wouldn't have seen this film were it not for the fact that Jennifer Connelly is in it. However, in spite of the fact that was the only reason I saw it; there certainly is an opportunity for a good film here...but unfortunately, it wasn't taken. The film takes on a very arty style and it's clear that director Peter Del Monte has a higher opinion of the film than he has any right to. The story reminded me somewhat of the Dario Argento classic Suspiria with regards to it's setting, although the film is not stylish enough to carry off something nearly as good. The plot focuses on Claire; a ballerina who travels to Italy in order to attend a dance school. Upon her arrival, she meets the rather strange Jason who immediately falls in love with her; the attraction being somewhat mutual. However, soon after strange things start happening and Claire gets it into her head that she is actually called Natalie! Thus leading Jason to get to the bottom of the mystery in order to save Claire.Jennifer Connolly looks nice as always, but doesn't give her best performance in this film. The material is not great and that is certainly a contributing factor, however. The film really lacks direction and it's never clear where it's going to go. This can be a great asset for a film, but it isn't in this case because the film never moves in any direction that is interesting and as such we end up with a meandering mess. The fact that the pace of the film is very slow does not help in the excitement stakes and I'm sure I'm not the only one who was bored well before the film's conclusion. Peter Del Monte inserts all kinds of symbols and points into the film, and while some of them do hit home; most of them don't. I can't say I'm much of a fan of Ballet, but I do appreciate the grandeur of it. The director seems to as well but while the ending borders on being memorable; the Ballet scenes generally aren't used particularly well. I really couldn't care less how the film would turn out and unsurprisingly the film ends on a confusing note. Overall, since this film is very hard to find, I somehow doubt it will find an audience; and only the real hardcore Jennifer Connolly fans should go to the trouble.