Stometer Save your money for something good and enjoyable

Animenter There are women in the film, but none has anything you could call a personality.

BelSports This is a coming of age storyline that you've seen in one form or another for decades. It takes a truly unique voice to make yet another one worth watching.

Kien Navarro Exactly the movie you think it is, but not the movie you want it to be.

runamokprods The story of a man (a very good performance by Charles Berling) over a 30 year period, starting at the beginning of the 20th century. It explores what matters to him -- the women in his life, his morality, and later his porcelain factory.It poses some important questions; how does one balance morality, passion and being an artist? And when is the pursuit of perfection a vice or a virtue?There are flaws; some interesting plot lines are simply dropped, and other less interesting ones get more time than they need. Isabelle Huppert, while always good is surprisingly a bit one-note, and Emmanuelle Beart can't really pull off being an old lady.But this ultimately felt like more than the sum of its parts. By the end I felt moved and thoughtful, and it's 3 hour length, while deliberate, was never boring.Critics were very divided - some coldly dismissed it as dull and seemed angry at Assayas for betraying his earlier hipper, more energetic films (I'm just impressed by his range), while others, like me, were really taken in by the Dickensian sweep.

lhhung_himself Without any sugar coating - this is a just a very poor and poorly made film in spite of the high production values and fine cast. The 3 hours seem like an eternity. Yet, with all that time, the main characters and their motivations are not well developed, and too many minor characters were introduced without allowing us time to learn much more than their names. Also, especially at the beginning of the movie, the jerky camera-work was overused and used poorly making me dizzy more than anything else. It ruined an otherwise nice ballroom scene.Let me add that I *do* like slow paced films without linear plot that take their time to meander with interesting characters that come and go and nice eye-candy cinematography. Maybe with some better editing, a tighter screenplay and some better camera-work this would have worked. As it was, I kept wanting the protagonist to die so that the film would finally end.

eliepoliti I just saw this picture and it gave me the impression of Assayas trying to give us a symbolic message on globalization, French versus American markets, and at the end he delivers a movie about the film industry itself.As they say, do it for the French market!Cinematography is at its best, rhythm of images goes perfectly along character´s feelings at the moment.Beautiful ball sequence and very good explanation on ceramic and china industry at beginning of 20th century, breath taking swiss sceneries.I WW sequence is also very well done.Emmanuelle Beart and Isabelle Huppert are splendorous,La Huppert appears less but is much more intense.Also got the impression that novel had much more to offer than the 3 hours film version, but this is film, anyway, and script is script.Beginning and ending with a death scene, love is the only worthy thing in life.

a.morell For the first time Assayas has left the contemporary Paris settings of his films and tried his hands on a period picture, set in a small village in the South, a china factory in Limoges, the Swiss Alps and on the battlefields of WW1. The film is a brave attempt to revive Luchino Visconti`s lavish epics but unfortunately lacks the Italian`s breath. The story could have easily been told in 90 minutes (instead of 180!), and even if some scenes and locations look gorgeous (especially the ballroom-scene!) and Assayas` (and cameraman Eric Gautier`s) usual trademark, the nervous camerawork, goes down well with a period picture, all that isn`t enough to hold our attention for such a long time. Nothing in this films can really surprise us, not even the beauty of Emmanuelle Beart or the acting quality of Isabelle Huppert, and as the film potters along one hopes Assayas will rapidly go contemporary again. Not really bad but definitely ways apart from the quality of his earlier films.