Scanialara You won't be disappointed!

Wordiezett So much average

Dynamixor The performances transcend the film's tropes, grounding it in characters that feel more complete than this subgenre often produces.

Voxitype Good films always raise compelling questions, whether the format is fiction or documentary fact.

jotix100 Louis and Mousse are junkies. At the start of this tale, they are visited by a supplier, who brings them six grams of heroine that proves fatal.The heroin is lethal and Louis overdoses. Mousse, oblivious of his death, is found in bed by his mother, a rich lady who is renting the apartment, not suspecting her son is dead. Mousse is taken to a hospital to be detoxed, and in addition to that problem, it is found she is pregnant.At the funeral, Mousee, who has been released by then, goes back to the house, where her presence is not wanted. Paul, a brother of the dead young man, is the only one that shows any compassion toward Mousse. The mother of Louis has a serious talk with the girl. She confronts her on the pregnancy, something that Mousse assures her it belongs to Louis. The mother feels it is better if she aborts because of the dangers of passing the addiction to the baby, something that Mousse disregards, having a different idea of how to handle her imminent future.Mousse goes into a hideaway in a secluded part near a beach. Paul, on his way to Spain, stops at the house to spend a few days with Mousse. Paul, who is gay, finds a nice young man, Serge, who works in the area. The house where Mousse is staying belongs to a man who was her lover when she was sixteen years old. Now she takes her time to meditate on her future while living with limited funds and dependent on the methadone she must take in order to stay off heroine.Paul sees in Mousse a kindred spirit. He tries to get her to go out, something she has not done, preferring to stay home, away from people. Paul finally convinces her to go to the beach with him. There she is not shy in showing her pregnancy to anyone who looks. Even though Mousse knows what Paul is like, she regards him as an extension of her dead lover. One day, at an outdoor cafe, Mousse meets a man who has an interesting proposal for her. How about letting him take her to his room overlooking the water and make love to her. The incident goes badly when Mousse decides to sit with the man while he caresses her, but no actual intercourse.Like some of his previous films, director Francois Ozon sets most of "Hideway" on a beach. This film is not quite as intense as "Under the Sand", "See the Sea", or even "Swimming Pool", but it has lovely reflective moments in which Mousse must deal with her present reality. Having decided to have the child, she feels that little baby will be part of what she had with Louis, whom she sadly misses. The hideaway of the title refers probably to the reflection Mousse is experiencing, away from her chaotic life with Louis in Paris. The serenity of the location, plus her rapport with Paul, contribute to her mental well being. The only thing that does not ring true is the fact that Mousse is released from the hospital in no time, when in reality she needed to stay if she was to be cured of her drug addiction.Isabelle Carre makes a wonderful Mousse. She was pregnant at the time the film was made. Ms. Carre is the best thing in the film. Louis-Ronan Choisy is quite effective as Paul. The actor was making his film debut in this film and he is also credited with the incidental music heard in the picture. Melville Poupaud is seen briefly as Louis. Marie Riviere shows up briefly.

dbdumonteil The junkie atmosphere versus the bourgeois milieu the first sequences conjure up could lead the director into numbing Chabrol territory,but finally Ozon's innate narration sense keeps the film simple and direct.Chabrol's fans will probably notice the similarities between the beginnings of "Le Refuge " and "La Rupture" (1970):in both movies ,the young man of means runs away with a girl who comes from a much modest family ,then there's a bad trip;and the way the "mother-in-law" treats the girl recalls that of Michel Bouquet in the 1970 effort.When lil' brother comes to visit Mousse,we may fear a rehash of Irish's "I married a dead man" (filmed as "no man of her own" "J'ai Epouse Une Ombre" and "Mrs Winterbourne" ) but fortunately it is not : lil' brother is gay (the gay -or the lesbian- we find in every movie Ozon has made)and moreover ,he 's some kind of black sheep of the family (one sentence the mom said at the beginning is revealing "it's not him who should have died!" ;we only understand it halfway through the movie).That said ,and although the ending makes sense ,there's a tendency in the director's recent work to rest on his laurels .One sees little in "Le Refuge" of the taste for danger he displayed in earlier works such as "Sitcom" "Gouttes D'Eau Sur Pierres Brûlantes" or "Les Amants Criminels"

oOgiandujaOo_and_Eddy_Merckx It's quite difficult to summarise what Le Refuge is about, there is a plot, it's linear, and quite simple, but there's nothing really generic in content, and it's not particularly dramatic either. Couldn't really call it anything other than an "emotion painting", beautifully shot, and well performed. The characters in the film are rather unlikeable, Mousse (Isabelle Carré) is a charismatic kidult heroin addict with a sharp tongue and propensity to sexual jealousy, unflappable Paul who somehow gets entangled with Mousse, has no sympathy with his brother's pained life and subsequent death. The background of high affluence that these two come from seems to be a seething psychological vipers nest from a wet dream of Freud.The story regards Mousse who manages to survive her lover when they both tuck into a bad batch of heroin. She is pregnant and now on methadone, taking refuge at the coast in an acquaintance's deserted property. The extremely handsome and gay Paul (the brother of her lover) turns up, but is full of sangfroid to the gills and becomes an object of unattainable lust for Mousse.One might say that the film is an unhaloed look at pregnancy. Mousse is fine with drinking alcohol and methadone for two, the film also looks at the erotic potential of the pregnant woman, as Mousse is propositioned by various men, and throughout she is quite unsentimental, as if she were a paid surrogate. I think that the camera-eye is not altogether disapproving, there is perhaps a feeling that in modern times preparations for a baby are preparations as if for the visit of a little emperor, with all the concomitant Freudian backlash.It feels a little dirty sometimes that there are questions that only the viewer of the film knows the answer to, as opposed to the characters. The characters are left to wonder why, for example, did Louis die and Mousse survive? I think as well that there are things left to the viewer's imagination, for example the story of Louis and Paul's parents, which begs a whole film in itself; there's a kind of pendulosity to the suggestions there that really make the film feel like a masterpiece.Visually I think there are some nice touches, this is the first time Ozon has filmed in digital, and he and the DP were playing around here. There's a psychological resonance when Mousse is at the beach on a bright summer day and a scene is played out with grafittoed breakwaters in the background that scream hazard as the water smashes into them. There's also a lovely shot at the beginning where a coruscating river reflects off a glass-fronted building.It's ultimately an extremely winsome tale of fallible characters. I think the fallibility is extremely well portrayed, these characters are fallible just like pretty much everyone who'll be watching the film. So I give the film a lot of points for humanity, as well as, by the way, for not having an ounce of fat at 88 minutes.For more excellent acting from Isabelle Carré in a "bad woman" role, you could do worse than watch Anna M. A note as well that this film could as seen a return to the aesthetics of Ozon's 52 minute thriller Regarde la mer, also about a disquieting movie starring a mother figure who frequents the French beaches.

film_ophile While I don't agree w/ Chris Knipp's view that this boiled down to a vague glossy ad....I am thankful that he used words like lyrical and elegance , which caused me to see the movie tonight as part of the Boston MFA's annual French Film Festival. I am a big fan of Ozon. I don't know what it is about him, but I feel very simpatico with his sense of humor,and his gazings and subtle observations about humanity. There is this allowance for space in his serious films, space for the characters to feel and grow, and space for the audience to partake in this. I do not find that space flat or boring; rather, it has me fully engaged as a viewer. In this film I was surprised and very taken in by the mesmerizing spiritual nature of Louis-Ronan Choisy . I have not seen him before and he was quite wonderful to watch.He was so perfectly cast for this role. I have been quite taken in by Isabelle Carre before, but I think it was a shame that her character in this film was not able to play to the ethereal and quite 'saintly'persona she has exuded in other roles.I was hoping to get at least a glimpse of the (in-reality) pregnant Carre with that beatific presence that she can emanate.All in all, the relationship between the two of them, and the scene with her being verbally harangued by the guilt ridden woman on the beach, were enough to make me recommend this film. I found it not perfect;too many things unanswered character and plot wise, but still quite lovely, and it left me with a feeling, a mood, that I am still carrying.