Wonderful character development!

Lack of good storyline.

a film so unique, intoxicating and bizarre that it not only demands another viewing, but is also forgivable as a satirical comedy where the jokes eventually take the back seat.

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

This little gem was Olga Kurylenko's (Quantum of Solace, Hit-man, Paris, je t'aime) first film. That is the only thing that attracted me to it. She has a beauty that just draws you in no matter what she stars in.She has to do a lot of acting in this film, as it is short on dialog. She injures herself in an industrial accident and ends up in a situation with a strange man in a strange job, and sharing a room with a sailor who works nights. The only interaction with the sailor is through what he leaves in the room, but the relationship with her boss takes on an erotic turn.Despite the absolutely awesome display of femininity by Kurylenko in the musical and visual feast, there just wasn't enough story to carry this all the way.

The sexy Ukrainian Bond-babe (from Quantum of Solace) Olga Kurylenko's first film was L'Annulaire (2005) . Iris (Kurylenko) have an accident and cut off her ring finger. Then she moves to a port town (filmed in Hamburg), and lodging in a hotel by the seafront. She gets a job as an assistant and receptionist for a man who preserve peoples specials items into specimen. The guy and the place is weird, and he comes up with some requirements to her, that makes the job and employer even weirder. It's originally a Japanese novel by Yoko Ogawa, and there is some strange Japanese atmosphere over this story. The movie is packed with the nude Iris, and I guess that alone will please a lot of male viewers. I think the story was going a bit empty after a while, but I'm a male viewer - so I stayed tune with the beautiful Iris until the final.

There were a lot of things I enjoyed about this movie. The cover, the synopsis and the concept were really the high points. The lead actress was quite good as well (not bad to look at too). I mean the cinematography was good I guess, but nothing to out the ordinary. I mean you can't rely on gritty filters and a softened colour palate to carry a movie. The concept for this movie really intrigued me and I had begged my friends to rent it a couple times by the cover(instead of "Poisidon" and "When a Stranger Calls"). Just it seemed to me that it was trying too hard to be something and wasn't focusing enough on characters actual motivations and any connection with the real world. "Who is this girl?" is what I'm sure would have been the question if I had convinced anyone I know to watch it with me.Don't bother. Heard its hard to find so should be a problem for most people.

I saw this film at the 2005 Toronto International Film Festival.L'Annulaire is the second feature film from director Diane Bertrand, who also wrote the screenplay for this adaptation of Yoko Ogawa's novel.The film follows Iris (Olga Kurylenko), who moves to a port town after cutting off the tip of her ring finger in an industrial accident. She quickly finds lodging in a hotel down by the harbour, but is forced to share a room with a sailor who works at night and sleeps while she is out in the day. While searching for work, by chance she comes across an old girls' school that now houses a man (Marc Barbe) who preserves and stores personal artifacts that people bring to him.Taking a job as the man's office assistant, she soon becomes involved in a sort of relationship with him, while at the same time being intrigued by the sailor (Stipe Erceg), whom she only knows through the things left in their shared room.The movie, filmed in Hamburg and just outside Paris, is beautifully shot. Bertrand favours many tight shots of the characters, giving a more intimate feel to many of the moments in the film. Noah Cowan, the co-director of the festival, described the film as combining the contemplative feel of Asian cinema with the sexual energy of European cinema. Thus, the film is very spare in its dialogue, leaving only the words that are spoken and the looks between characters as the framework on which to interpret the story.The preservation of personal artifacts in the film causes one to wonder about the nature of memories, loss, and the desire or need to move on, extending even to Iris' own life. This helps to draw the viewer into what is a very quiet and meditative film.I found the actress playing Iris was quite good, especially given that it was her first film and that she had to communicate so much non-verbally. A few of the scenes between her and the preservationist were charged with a lot of sensual energy, even in something as simple as him putting a pair of shoes on her feet.Notes from the Q&A with director Diane Bertrand: - L'Annulaire is very open-ended, and Bertrand herself admitted the film doesn't give any answers; the audience can imagine what it wants.She tried to be faithful to the novel, but it is very short. Bertrand added the sub-plot with the sailor.When asked why she adapted this novel, Bertrand said when she first read the book, she couldn't stop, and had all these images in her head, which was unusual since the atmosphere in the book is not European. But even upon re-reading the novel she still had the same feelings. She felt aspirations to explore the desire, love, and mysteries of the story.Olga Kurylenko is from the Ukraine, and this was her first film, thus making it difficult to obtain financing. Thus, there was lots of time for her to work on her character; Bertrand asked her to watch lots of films and read a lot of books. Kurylenko felt a bond to the character.The director of photography is also a photographer, which accounts for the look of the film.Bertrand wanted to film something slow like a painting, to make the audience feel as though they are watching moving images.Minor spoilers below:Bertrand had less direction for Marc Barbe, but she did ask him to not play his scenes with Kurylenko like he wanted to seduce her, even though the character seems to know exactly what she needs. Iris is supposed to feel that he sees inside her as soon as they meet. Barbe agreed that the character does not need to explain himself.In the novel, the shoes which play an important role in the story are black, not red, however Bertrand has a bit of an obsession with the colour red.Bertrand feels the story really starts with the scene where the preservationist puts the shoes on Iris' feet. It is Ogawa's theme that Iris has a feeling of being possessed by the shoes. But when Barbe's character tells Iris that she can't take the shoes off, she gives him a quick look that says "ok, so you want to play this game" and decides to do it, preferring to live something rather than nothing.