Purely Joyful Movie!

everything you have heard about this movie is true.

When a movie has you begging for it to end not even half way through it's pure crap. We've all seen this movie and this characters millions of times, nothing new in it. Don't waste your time.

It is interesting even when nothing much happens, which is for most of its 3-hour running time. Read full review

I'm not going to talk about the actors. Everyone here has already done that and the problem I have with this film doesn't involve the acting at all. It is very well done. However, it is sad and depressing. Not many people will want to watch Marie struggle to accept the fact that her husband is 'gone' and that she is now alone. Her husband has been gone for 3 months and she talks about him as if he never disappeared. The husband's mother, who is in a nursing home, makes a comment to Marie telling her that she's probably crazy and boring too. Maybe that is why her son disappeared-because he was bored with his life & his wife. Why anyone would make such a comment to someone suffering is beyond me. But for some reason, there it is, this pathetic scene hinting that Marie might be insane. She isn't. She's grief stricken and unable to accept the fact that her husband may be dead, perhaps by suicide. If this all sounds dismal, be prepared. This is NOT an uplifting film at all. I enjoyed "Swimming Pool" much better and wouldn't want to sit through this again. Try something else.

The Psychologist Elizabeth Kubler-Ross highlights five stages of the typical mourning process: denial and isolation, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance. It is clear to see that Marie does not follow this process. And although she clearly expresses denial, her denial is not shrouded in isolation. This is first shown in the dinner party scene as she discusses Jean flippantly and in the present tense, Ozon using a study of Marie's friends' reactions to show that something is not right. This runs contrary to the writings of both Freud and Kubler-Ross, who observe the social withdrawal of those in self-denial, as if the only way to maintain the mourner's alternative reality is to cut him or her from all outside factors which have the potential of ruining the fantasy. This scene is difficult to watch due to Marie's matter-of-fact delivery with no hint of melancholy, and the friends' inability to confront Marie or force the issue of Jean's death.Marie's grief seems to be marked as atypical by her willingness to face these outside factors, which comes across as almost stubborn rather than genuinely self-deluding. Under normal circumstances, such a high level of social interaction would appear to lead to a greater sense of reality for the bereaved. However, Marie is armed with several defence mechanisms which she uses when directly confronted with her true situation. In the first instance, when confronted by Amanda after the dinner party and after a lecture, Marie uses changes in language to switch the tone of the conversation. It seems that she can feel more comfortable and isolated when speaking in English, and perhaps she was able to use the same technique before Jean's disappearance to exert her own individuality within her marriage. This use of language draws certain comparisons to isolationist behaviour seen in psychological studies of grief and bereavement, for example Colin Murray Parkes' elusion to "the widow who spoke in a whisper for fear of making reality too real".Later in the film, as Marie's defences begin to get breached, she resorts to both anger and insults in order to keep her personal reality from being destroyed.. she transcends her calm veneer for the first time when confronted about Jean by Vincent, and when confronted by her mother-in-law she resorts to petty insults. This series of reactions seems to come to a head when she returns to Lit-et-Mix to face the final reality of her husband's death. Having seemingly run out of ways to deny her situation, Marie breaks into laughter. This can be read either as a confirmation of Marie's descent into madness or as a prelude to her final moment of acceptance as played out on the beach in the final scene.Despite these deviations from established psychological writings, Marie's behaviour does in part correspond to some of Freud's theories as set out in "Mourning and Melancholia", in particular when he describes mourning as the process of "reality-testing"6. Marie's actions can be seen as a way for her to examine her new emotions and social surroundings since the loss of Jean. In fact, the film could be seen as a study in the way in which Marie explores several alternative realities: the awkwardness of her fledgling relationship with Vincent displays her hesitation in leaving her personal reality of a monogamous life with Jean, as if she is performing experiments on herself, constantly testing the limits of the world she has conjured around herself. This is expressed visually by Ozon in studying Marie's physicality, the way in which she interacts physically with her surroundings. The most explicit "reality-testing" scene occurs when Marie is lying on her bed and is caressed by six hands, those of Jean, Vincent and herself: It can be seen almost as the transition sequence between two of her realities. Ozon also frequently uses reflections of Marie's face in order to convey the idea of her physicality, literally highlighting the reflective nature of her self-discovery: in order to truly recover from the loss of her husband she must re-identify herself, perhaps also coming to terms with her own mortality, the subject of which is most explicitly conveyed in her conversation with Vincent about Virginia Woolf. It is also hinted at during her conversation with her mother-in-law: the two of them trading insults over who will be the first to end up in a psychiatric home, while Ozon makes studies of the mother-in-law's aging features. The scene in which Marie passes out when seeing a cemetery could be seen as a reaction to Jean's death, but could equally be interpreted as her reaction to her own mortality.However, despite these references to the psychology of loss and bereavement, Ozon's film cannot simply be read in this way. The film is as much about life as it is about death. In a way, the presumed death of Jean runs merely as a sub-plot in the story of Marie's self-discovery. The essence of the film is clearly based around Charlotte Rampling's central performance, which remains ambiguous but powerful throughout, reflecting complex ideas about attachment and loss, and leaving behind several unanswered questions over the reasons for her actions as well as what results from them. Ultimately, Ozon's film is intended to remain open-ended, as displayed in the final scene where Marie runs towards a mystery man, perhaps reflecting the ambiguous nature of life and death in a secular society in which death is no longer associated with notions of an afterlife or ritualistic coping mechanisms intrinsic in Christian interpretations of mortality.

Unlike the vast majority of the rest of talented French director Francois Ozon's films, Under the Sand features hardly a shocking moment. In fact, the most shocking thing about this movie is the level of restraint present towards the end when Ozon has a clear shot at giving his audience something to go home with, but doesn't capitalise on it. On the whole, Under the Sand is simply a sombre tale of love, fused with tragedy and the implications of loss. The film follows Marie Drillon (Charlotte Rampling), a woman who loses her husband while on holiday. As he has been lost in the sea, Marie has no body to prove that her husband is indeed dead, and so continues her life pretending that he's still around. The film then follows a psychological thriller structure, as we watch our protagonist disintegrate as a result of her loss. Under the Sand is more than just another thriller, however, as Francois Ozon directs it, and his energy and invention always ensure that the film remains interesting.It's amazing just how relaxed this film is, as just shortly before seeing it I was lucky enough to catch Ozon's "Water Drops on Burning Rocks", and said film is a completely different kettle of fish to this one. There's next to no startling imagery, no impromptu dance sequences and on the whole it just seems like Ozon wanted to make a straight art film. Not that I have a problem with that. The film stars Charlotte Rampling, who would go on to collaborate with Ozon on the bewitching Swimming Pool and is an excellent actress on the whole. Ozon always ensures he gets the best out of her as well, and in this film, as in Swimming Pool, you always get the impression that the bond between actress and director is a happy one and one that both parties are satisfied with. The film's substance draws from it's themes of loss, but the most haunting element of the movie is the idea that love is ever lasting. In today's day and age it seems that it's socially acceptable to cheat on your lover, but this film ardently disagrees with that view. While I don't rate this as one of Ozon's best films, it's definitely a good one and I don't hesitate to recommend it.

François Ozon is quite well known in the world of cinema since his movies "Swimming Pool" and to a lesser extend "8 femmes". But he has made a lot more movies than these two and "Sous le Sable" or "Under the Sand" in English was the last one before these two.It tells the story of a middle aged female college professor and her husband who go on a vacation to their summer house in the southwest of France. When they are on the beach, her husband goes for a swim in the sea, but she decides to stay a bit longer on the beach. She falls asleep and when she wakes up later that day, there is still no sign of her husband. She goes back to their house, but he isn't there either and after the police has searched the beaches and the sea, but couldn't find a trace of him, she returns home alone. Has he left her, was it suicide or did he drown? Because she has no answers and no body to mourn over, she starts acting like if nothing has happened, making it impossible for herself to make the best of the rest of her life that she has left...If you are familiar with the average French movie, than you know that most of the time they talk, talk and talk. Just like they don't seem to be able to have a moment of silence in a Hollywood movie, the French always seem to feel the need to make endless dialogs. However, this movie breaks with that tradition and for me personally that's where its main power can be found. The characters don't tell what is going on in their mind, but their facial expressions say so much more than a thousand words. And there are a lot of feelings to express, but it all feels very genuine and real. This isn't a mellow drama (type TV-movie), but a powerful and touching movie.It's also not the kind of movie that you watch with only one eye open. You've got to stay focused if you want to understand and appreciate the movie. Because of the lack of dialog, the images tell the tale and are therefor very important for this film. But not only the images are important. The story and the acting are at least as important and both are certainly much better than average. The powerful and yet sober story and acting give this movie its quality. Especially Charlotte Rampling's performance was impressive, but Jacques Nolot and Bruno Cremer did a very good job as well. Add to all of this an interesting ending and you know you've got a special movie. That's why I give it an 8/10.