Colibel
Terrible acting, screenplay and direction.
Steineded
How sad is this?
Sameer Callahan
It really made me laugh, but for some moments I was tearing up because I could relate so much.
Martin Bradley
On the surface Maurice Pialat's "A Nos Amours" is about a promiscuous young girl and the film deals with both the dynamics of her sex life and her home life. You may say not much happens conventionally; the girl sleeps around and her life is observed episodically but you might also say the film is about the dynamics of acting. As the girl, Suzanne, 16 year old Sandrine Bonnaire, making her film debut, is virtually never off the screen and in her extraordinarily naturalistic performance it's almost impossible to know where Bonnaire ends and her character begins.Pialat himself plays the father with a world-weariness that makes you wonder how much of himself he had poured into the part or why he hadn't chosen another actor for the role. As Suzanne's mother and brother Evelyne Ker and Dominique Besnehard are equally brilliant and make for a very realistic and dysfunctional family. It is, of course, very 'French', full of amour fou and Gallic passion and is certainly not the kind of film a British or American director might have made and for a film full of characters you are unlikely to empathize with or like it nevertheless holds you in a vice-like grip. It is also one of Pialat's finest achievements.
lastliberal
France dubbed this the best film of 1983, and named the love Sandrine Bonnaire, in her first credited role, as it's most promising actress for that year. It is easy to see why as she was a joy to watch as she flitted from bed to bed trying to find happiness. I am sure there are many who will shirk at the thought of admiring the 15-year-old's body.Those not in the loop on French films will not appreciate the style and grace of her life as she deals with a family that fights all the time, and can only find an outlet for emotions in the arms of willing lovers. But, she avoids the one who loves her Luc (Cyr Boitard), treating him like dirt when he says he loves her.Excellent film with great performances by Maurice Pialat as the father and Evelyne Ker as the mother, as well as a knockout job by Bonnaire.
writers_reign
Sandrine Bonnaire has matured into one of the finest French actresses of her generation - and incidentally directed a fine documentary about her handicapped sister, Sabine - yet this is only early promise fulfilled as this movie illustrates. Just sixteen when it was shot Bonnaire exudes the confidence of someone twice her age and easily dominates the film against fine support including Oliver Reed lookalike director Pialat himself as the father, absent during the central section of the movie, who is clearly responsible for Bonnaire's drifting from man to man. Dysfunctional families are seldom the basis for 'entertaining' stories be they on stage or screen but this is highly watchable and can support multiple viewings.
Bob Taylor
Let me get it off my chest now: I'm very disappointed in the lack of notice given Pialat's films. Why am I only the fifth person to review À nos amours, and not the 500th? This is the sixth feature by Pialat, and it is a masterpiece. The travails of Suzanne and her family have universal implications; if you think only of her relations with her brother Robert--violent at times, yet often tender and half-incestuous--that's enough material for a film in itself. Some people are bothered by the promiscuous nature of Suzanne's love life, how she just doesn't behave like a regular teenage girl should. I have met a girl like her.About two-thirds of the way through, we are confronted with a scene of astonishing virtuosity: the party at the family home, into which erupts the absent father, played by Pialat himself. The script the actors had been given gave no notice of this plot turn; it is fascinating to watch eight actors dealing with this incredible event--no one blows the scene, no matter how dumbfounded they must have been. For about ten minutes, we get pure acting, or reacting, however you want to put it. This is the kind of film event that makes movies worthwhile.Bonnaire is tremendous, it's one of the greatest debuts in film history. Pialat as the father is great, all the more remarkable in that he had never acted before. The dimple scene is wonderful. Dominique Besnehard has to bring off an unsympathetic role as the brother, and he performs very well.
