Review of Swimming Pool

Introduction

Hmmm, French cinema. Many readers will know of my first introduction to this genre. I studied A Level French and as part of that, we had to study French cinema. Doesn`t sound so bad does it? Watching films in class beats real work surely? However, we had to study Truffaut, and his vision of the world is not exactly right for 16-18 year olds. My view is that it`s hard to appreciate the Cycle Doinel at that age. Since then I have picked up a couple of Truffaut DVDs for my collection, Le dernier métro and Fahrenheit 451, and have found myself able to appreciate the films rather more.

Swimming Pool is modern French cinema (despite being filmed for the majority of the time in English). It comes from François Ozon (writer and director of around 20 films), and stars Charlotte Rampling and Ludivine Sagnier, with an appearance from Charles Dance too. The story is outlined up above for you. This DVD is the original, uncut version (an R-Rated version was released in the US with various cuts).

Video

A 1.85:1 anamorphic transfer greets us here, and it looks excellent. Given that it`s not an all action blockbuster, you might not expect such a clean and crisp transfer, but once again a smaller budget film comes up trumps. Print damage is largely absent and the colour palette is very nice.

As you might expect from the title, there are quite a few shots of the actual pool, and even when it`s full of old leaves and dead insects, it still looks inviting enough for a swim thanks to Yorick Le Saux`s cinematography.

Audio

A choice of DD2.0 stereo and DD5.1 soundtracks. These are both English soundtracks, but they do contain subtitled French dialogue in places. This is almost an entirely dialogue driven piece, and when listening to the DD5.1 soundtrack there are only occasional snatches of score which make it to the rear channels, along with the odd atmospheric sound.

The score is very good, and is used very sparingly, leading to long periods of silence. As well as the original material, there`s also a little bit of Tchaikovsky too.

Features

A small selection of extras begins with interviews with the 2 female leads. They last for about 10 minutes in total, and both briefly discuss their work on the film, their characters and working with François Ozon.

There`s also a few minutes of footage from Cannes, just the director and stars arriving at the film, nothing of any real interest.

Last up we have the usual galleries of photos and artwork, followed by the trailers and a promotional film which basically shows you the entire film by missing out 90 minutes of it.

Conclusion

Hmmmm.

This is another of "those" films with "those" endings. You know, the ones which try and make you question what you just spent the last 90 minutes watching, and perhaps the ones which make you glad you`ve got this on DVD so that you can go back and watch again and see if you can spot something that will indicate why the ending turns out like that.

The film moves along with the speed of a tortoise on nitrazepam, but you need to pay attention to the slow parts in case something important occurs before you get to the less sedate parts of the film. This slow pace does start you thinking "surely there`s going to be a big twist soon?" Maybe Ozon`s use of nudity is to try and stop you nodding off until the twist, or maybe it`s something more subtle and symbolic than that. Whatever it is, when you reach the end of the film, you should at least be thinking about what you`ve just witnessed.

Various viewers have variously speculated about the ending and what it means, and you can spend hours and hours reading interpretations and explanations. But in the end you should make your own mind up. I`ve got my interpretation and I`m sticking to it.

The DVD itself is a fine effort with good picture and sound. The extras aren`t that great, and other versions of the disc exist around the world with more extras (with the French R2 probably being the best), but there have been some complaints about picture quality (no such concerns with this disc).

At the end of the day, it must be worth at least a rental, but be warned that you might need to watch it more than once or you might just swear in disgust at what you`ve just watched.