Monday, December 6, 2010

Too Goddamn Beautiful

La Piscine/Swimming Pool (1969) - Deray
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It's sunny French Riviera. Jean-Paul (Alain Delon) and Marie (Romy Schneider) are staying in a beautiful summer villa with a fancy swimming pool. They are stunning looking couple. In fact, everything in this movie is fucking beautiful. They have sex, fool around, everything is hunky dory until their friend Harry shows up with his 18 year old daughter, Penelope (Jane Birkin). Tension rises. The couple's fragile relationship is being tested. It's Harry's off hand remarks over dinner or snack near the pool that carries venom for both Jean-Paul and Marie. You see, Marie was Harry's mistress once.

Romy Schneider is radiant in this, much more compelling than lanky, flat chested Jane Birkin's non character whom she is supposed to be jealous of.

There are no real dangerous games or seductions playing out in Swimming Pool. Even though it resembles Delon's better known Plein soleil a little, with his darker side coming out, it's not really a simple morality play. The film is a little too simple on the character's psychology and its pacing is slow but the leads are so damn pretty.

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