It’s an especially fun movie from a director and cast who are clearly having a good time allowing themselves to let loose.

Strong acting helps the film overcome an uncertain premise and create characters that hold our attention absolutely.

There's a more than satisfactory amount of boom-boom in the movie's trim running time.

Through painfully honest and emotional moments, the movie becomes irresistibly relatable

-SPOILERS------------ I am a fan of 60's-70's french cinema but not necessarily of the more modern,so to be honest i watched this because of Bellucci.She is very young here,extremely beautiful and on top of this supposedly this movie is where they met with Cassel,so it gives it some extra importance.The movie begins with a very nice style reminiscent of DePalma.Then suddenly we are thrown to flashback,and the back and forth goes on which gets tiring.I don't mind one flash back,but do it and get it over with man!!!Anyway,the movie is still interesting to me until a point when the first and definite hole in the plot,that allows for the rest of the story,never lets me enjoy the rest.I can allow for little holes here and there,but not to base an entire plot on hot air.This is the story of a man who is literally searching for an old flame.This is the main plot.I will go along,when the story at some point will convince me that there are really mysterious things going on,but in this story there's nothing really mysterious.Bellucci-Cassel are a couple ,then Bellucci urgently has to leave for some job in Italy(not the farthest place on earth from Paris)and she leaves him a message,which for reasons later explained he doesn't get.OK,so what?Don't these people have phones?Supposedly she was away for 2months(not a century exactly) and wouldn't she call her boyfriend in Paris to see how he's doing? Of course not.Instead,even after she gets back she forgets all about him.And thats fine,but later in the movie she tells her friend that it was her greatest love and was ready to commit for the first time in her life.Yet she failed to give him a call for 2months and then never tried to get back with him.And what about Cassel's character?He was supposedly unable to locate her in Italy,really hard to find someone in Italy,its probably like Siberia,especially an actress who is probably listed even in the arts papers.And after 2months when she would be back,really hard to find her and ask for an explanation. One thinks she wanted to avoid him,but no,we find out they simply couldn't meet.So hard to meet in Paris. OK,i don't need to go further,because this is the incident where the entire movie is based. What is even worse,Bellucci is not really the star of this movie but this other girl Bohringer is.

Naivety can be touching or naivety can be exasperating. Here it simply ebbs and flows between dully and dumbly exasperating.I almost watch it till the end but I could stand it no longer at 93 minutes out of 111. Not that it became worse but it didn't improve, it went on mechanically unreeling its protracted plot and I was no longer expecting it to have something looking like an end. Or worse if possible: I was fearing some kind of an über-melodramatically-tragic ending (please don't tell me, I don't give a damn). Grumf! it's not often that I'm so bored that I dare be impolite enough to leave before the end.Simply put: the director is really really bad, hence performances are always bordering pathetic. The plot structure is... (well I'm not sure somebody understood plot structure on this production) loose thus lousy. We first come to learn the setup through a series of flashbacks which only dilute the exposition over more than 30 minutes (you're speaking of an ordeal!) when nothing moves forward. So we know everything through Max's POV, which is nothing compare to what happens when the director switches (by mistake I guess) to another POV where we know exactly what happens. And the director still thinks he's clever, unveiling new bits and parts of his beloved flashbacks that fill in the blanks. I heard of a director dubbed the master of suspense; please meet the master of procrastination.At least there's one good thing in this overblown mess: art direction and location scouting in Paris are great.(note to self: never buy a DVD for 3 bucks again)

So here's a bit of background on how I came to see this movie. As you probably know, this is the original French film, that was then remade (quelle surprise) by Hollywood as Wicker Park. Well I avoided that movie like the plague when it was first released, simply because, a) I knew it had absolutely nothing to do with Wicker Park, and living in Chicago, I didn't see why they called it that - it was filmed in fricking Canada for a start! - b) I have a very hard time bothering with pointless remakes, done purely because Hollywood thinks we're too bone idle to read a few subtitles (I am dreading the remake of Infernal Affairs by the way) and c) I can't stand Josh Hartnett, 'nuff said there. However, I came across WP on TV the other day, probably about half an hour in, and I have to say initially, it made no sense at all, until about half an hour from the end, when it started coming together. By the end, I was really surprised to find myself really into it, and then the ending just seemed so good - a perfect combination of story, passion and ending with possibly one of the greatest musical choices I've ever seen (heard??).Since then I've heard a lot about the L'Appartement vs. Wicker Park argument and looking at WP, I still say it has bugger all to do with Chicago, but there seemed something about it that I liked, so when it was on again, I watched it again - unfortunately, still missing the first chunk (I've still yet to see it!), and I still thought it was pretty good. Heck, even Josh Hartnett seemed good! But I was curious about L'Appartement and wanted to see what all the fuss was about. So I waited and waited to catch l'Appartement somewhere somehow. Netflix let me down, so I ended up getting a copy from some website in Ireland. And I've just watched it. It's really kind of weird, but a good weird. A classic French film. Great acting, Romane Bohringer is an absolute gem - sorry, but she acts Monica Bellucci off the screen in every scene. Vincent Cassel was a weird choice for the lead but by the end he works. And I've seen Jean-Philippe Ecoffey in a lot of movies and I just love him - the scene where Alice dumps him in the restaurant and he just looks like someone's told him his puppy's been run over was excruciating! But, I can honestly say, having seen WP and pretty much expecting that to have been a scene for scene copy (as about 75% of the rest of the movie had been - maybe in a different order, but come on, the scene with the coffee in the glasses?? Word for word!!), you can imagine my surprise when I watched the ending of L'Appartement!! I can literally say I was blown away - hmm, a bit like poor old Lucien was through the cafe window really! So, be prepared, if you've seen Wicker Park and you fancy taking a look at the original like I did, do not make the mistake of expecting an identical movie, because you'll either be disappointed, or exhilarated at a piece of French movie history - a prime example of how you can watch a movie, think you're going to watch a pithy happy ending, and get whiplash from the total spin in the opposite direction right at the end. Definitely catch this movie. Oh and while you're at, maybe not too near the same time, but down the road, take a look at Wicker Park, it'll surprise you too.

L Appartement sways me like the wind. In fact, it sweeps me off my feet like le tourbillon; a passionate whirlwind. Since I first watched this film in 2000, I had always treasured it. It is the first French film I've envisioned as having genuinely captured my full adoration. Perhaps I can't speak of this film objectively nor want to review it as i would other films, as it holds a certain nostalgic bearing for me- scenes which stir up many memories in me. The film is not perfect, but it holds a special meaning for me. I had always claimed to admire French films but this one whilst being clever and intelligent with the fragmented plot and device twists, was the film that made me really concede that only the French could paint beauty, even in film, so propitiously. To anyone else the film might be opulently pretentious in its vanity, lauding a surfeit of winsome stylistics, and perhaps bound by the malady of having too many plot complications. But for me, the lure of that excessive indulgence and obsession was what moved me. I was captivated by the film's raw beauty- cinematography, Parisian splendour, the mise en scene, and of course the gorgeous cast of Vince Cassel and Monica Bellucci- the epitome of elegant perfection. I am moved by the film's beauty and am not ashamed to admit my infatuation with it, and even in its pretentious obsession with this superficial vanity, I still feel that it is done in too immaculate a manner. c'est doux un vent d'amour, it sweeps me off my feet every time.