BallWubba Wow! What a bizarre film! Unfortunately the few funny moments there were were quite overshadowed by it's completely weird and random vibe throughout.

ThedevilChoose When a movie has you begging for it to end not even half way through it's pure crap. We've all seen this movie and this characters millions of times, nothing new in it. Don't waste your time.

Salubfoto It's an amazing and heartbreaking story.

Bluebell Alcock Ok... Let's be honest. It cannot be the best movie but is quite enjoyable. The movie has the potential to develop a great plot for future movies

lasttimeisaw French author Emmanuel Carrère's sole venture into feature filmmaking by far, LA MOUSTACHE is adapted from his own novel published in 1986, a head-scratching story about a middle-aged French man Marc (Lindon), whose life starts to collapse after he shaved his trademark moustache on a whim, and everyone around starts to behave that they have never seen him in moustache, including his wife Agnès (Devos).So, under this presumption, there could be two possible explanations: either Agnès is right, so Marc must have some serious psychological issues should be treated with kid gloves; or, Agnès is lying, when having dinner at their friends', Agnès is accused as an incorrigible liar by her ex- boyfriend Serge (Amalric), which might insinuate that an underhand conspiracy theory is in the pipeline. Cinematically, it is rather an intriguing premise, however, in hindsight, as the film turns out to be an experiment completely open to each individual's own interpretation, Carrère knowingly oscillates between these two scenarios lest the plot would veer to either direction with no turning back.Take the example of the photo albums Marc finds, it is a trip to Bali years ago and obviously he is sporting a moustache in every picture, but, instead of pushing forward his proofs to Agnès or his friends, he chooses to withhold it until the album goes missing, if that's a slip of mind, later we clearly see his moustache in both the head-shots in his wallets and his passport, why not show them to contest his belief, or just visit his parents, who should know the truth, but no, because, it would channel the story into a dead-end, either Agnès is right or she is playing a bigger game to dupe him, either way, it would lose the mystical allure.So, out of wits to keep the suspense rolling, Carrère employs a brisk geographical shift to Hong Kong, where Marc aimlessly and tediously moseys on ferry rides, an economical transportation in a metropolitan city (which might be used to save a fair amount of cost in shooting whilst the crew could enjoy their vacation), so as to buy some time to let his moustache grow back, then, bang! Surreal events materialise again, and viewers have no sooner recovered from the bamboozling revelation than the film reaches its succinct finish line, admittedly, it is an in-your-face anticlimax.Masked as an existential fable, LA MOUSTACHE intrigues at first, but pretty soon loses its sway and resorts to absurd-ism and metaphysics, which could be an alternative to lift the bar, like Denis Villeneuve did in ENEMY (2013), but in this case, it only betrays the filmmaker's incompetence to concoct up anything could possibly give a plausible justification, a cheap cop-out always tastes bitter and gets under one's skin.

markfranh This should have been a much better movie that it was as so many others here have essentially written.The DVD came with a director/screenwriter/author interview (i.e. one and the same person, Emmanuelle Carrere) which my wife and I watched after the movie in an effort to understand what he was trying to achieve and which we had obviously missed. In it, Carrere implies (it was in French so I can only give you the gist of it) that he expected the viewer to wonder if it was that Marc was going crazy, whether it was his wife Agnes who was going crazy, whether it was a grand conspiracy, or whether Marc had somehow slipped into a parallel universe (or universes plural) when he shaves off his moustache. If that was his intention, then he failed miserably in the film.Let's take the points one at a time.Was Marc insane? Well, if he wanted us to believe that, then he NEVER should have shown us the moustache! And yet, in act 1, scene 1, 2 seconds into the film, he shows us the moustache! Ergo, it exists. Ergo, Marc is not nuts. If we were perhaps supposed to believe that the early moustache scene was just a figment of Marc's imagination, then fine, but then why on earth show us Marc looking at photos of him sporting his moustache a few minutes later and showing US the photos at the same time. The moustache existed. End of theory. The problem is not that Marc is insane.Sadly, this could have been achieved so easily with the proper direction. DON'T SHOW US THE MOUSTACHE!!! EVER. If we never see it, then we will have doubts about Marc's sanity. In the opening scene, hide his face. Perhaps under a cover of thick shaving foam so we aren't sure what's beneath. Perhaps we only hear his voice calling out from the bathroom as he has gone into shave before going out with his wife. But don't show us his face! When he looks at the photos of himself sporting a moustache then WE shouldn't see the photos. Only Marc sees them and we should be left wondering what he is seeing in his confused mind.Is Agnes insane? I never saw this as a possibility so why suggest it? It made no sense to believe this. After all, I counted at least 6 other people presented in the film who also didn't believe that Marc had ever had a moustache. So why would we believe Agnes was insane when so many others deny the moustache as well? If that was one of his intentions, then he failed totally here.Was it a grand conspiracy? Well, at least it was a possibility for a few minutes but even that doesn't hold water. How could the child Lara pull it off? How could the conspirators have control over the cafe owner? Most of all, how could they arrange for phone numbers to no longer work or for addresses to disappear? Grand conspiracy? If we were supposed to believe that as a possibility, then some of the conspirators had to have at least let their masks partially drop early on with some sort of statement that had double meanings to suggest that there was at least something going on. Perhaps the cafe owner could have said something like, "there's something different about you but I can't put my finger on it ...". Something vague to leave open a possibility. But there was nothing. So much for grand conspiracies.What does that leave? That Marc is in some sort of science fiction world where he has slipped into a parallel universe by shaving off his moustache and that he keeps moving into universes with more and more differences as the minutes pass. What else could it have been? Nothing remained. That's what I believed throughout and there was no possibility of anything else.Unfortunately, I felt even the ending was all too predictable but I won't go into the flaws with it as it would give away too much. I could envision a variation that would have been far more interesting but I don't dare include it in a spoilerless review.Sadly, I'm sure this was all done very well in the novel (not that I've read it). We never see the moustache in the novel of course. We only have his word for it (Marc or the narrator) that it exists. We will always have doubts. The other possibilities might also have been better presented. I'll never know as I can't be bothered tracking down the novel.I have long believed that an author of a novel should NEVER be allowed to direct his own work or even be the sole screenwriter when a movie is suggested. Too often, it ends up being a disaster and that is what has happened here. Writers just too often do not see the problem with what they have written when they try to make it visual and that is exactly what has happened with this film.What worked (I assume) in the novel, does NOT work on the screen but Carrere was so tied up in what he wrote years earlier that he doesn't see the flaws of putting his written work onto the screen. An independent director might have seen the problems of allowing us to see the moustache and done it entirely differently so that doubts remained about what was going. Sorry to say, we'll never know.By the way, can somebody please tell me what the point of the multiple ferry crossings was? Was it symbolic of something? That perhaps was the most baffling sequence in the film and something that made no sense to either my wife or myself. Was it symbolic of something? If so, it escaped us.

Markou Abdelaaziz This is a strange story of mental illness (at least that's how I chose to interpret it). A man, Marc, gradually loses his grip on reality after shaving his mustache that was always there as part of his look as a man (or at least he thinks it was). The movie is seen through Marc's perspective which makes it difficult to discern reality from his bouts of schizophrenic hallucinations. At some points the movie reminds me of Lost Highway in the manner with which it represented the split of the protagonist (or rather a metamorphosis) into two different characters. In La Moustache the split happens at the level of the "life" of the protagonist, his world is constantly subjected to transformations, while he more or less stays the same. However in LH we can discern the "true" part of the protagonist from his "imagined" part. That distinction is impossible in La Moustache ; we don't know where his madness starts and where it ends. He is a total mess, and it is upon this ambiguity that everything we see is built.All in all, this movie was a really nice surprise that I highly enjoyed and that I recommend for fans of Lynch, Cronenberg and psychological thrillers/dramas.

jotix100 Marc and Agnes are lovers who have been together for a while. They are comfortable with one another, and yet, there seems to be an undercurrent of frustration in the way they interact with each other. As the story begins, they are preparing to go out to a dinner with friends. Agnes has forgotten something. Marc seen in the bathroom, where he decides to shave his mustache. His new look is ignored by Agnes, as well as the couple they visit. Marc's new look is ignored by all, giving him a rare sense of reality. He even gets pictures taken years before where he clearly shows the mustache in question. Marc is clearly puzzled by a turn of events that make him doubt about things he has taken for granted. He begins to question himself, his relationship, his world, fleeing from it all. Marc takes refuge in the anonymous atmosphere of Hong Kong where he spends a day riding the ferries across Victoria's Harbor in search for answers. He finds some kind of peace in a humble pension in Lantau's island that has memories of a happier time for him, as well as Agnes.Directed by Emmanuel Carrere, based on his own novel, who adapted it for the cinema with Jerome Beaujour. The film poses a lot of interesting questions which are not easily answered in the film, which will throw off some viewers for the many questions raised but not answered. Like most intellectual French filmmakers, Mr. Carrere wants the audience reach its own conclusions. There are clues along the way that might be interpreted in different fashion by different viewers. What the director gets is an absorbing film in the tradition of Michael Haneke's "Cache" and other films that require involvement. Be prepared to do some thinking.Vincent Lindon's work is the main reason for watching "La moustache". He was at his best in this fantastic account of a man's quest to find out the truth about himself and his relationship with Agnes. The actor does a credible job with his Marc, making us care about this man. Emmanuelle Devos gives a good performance as Agnes, who also plays a complex role in the story. The two stars show good chemistry in their take of their characters. Patrick Blossier's excellent cinematography works wonders in the film, as well as Philip Glass' 'Concert for Violin' enhances the mood created by Mr. Carrere.