... Ozon lets us see his characters directly; and then through the mind of Charlotte Rampling's (as author) character. Two strands apply - the direct-to-Ozon's mind, and the indirect, via Rampling. And there the fun begins. We glimpse a gawky, immature, teeth-in-bands teenager (blonde) towards the end of the movie - Morton (the publisher's) daughter. But who has this blonde (Ludivine Sagnier) - who has she been? And how did she get to be in the house/novel/movie at all? Well now, let me see ... we learn at the beginning that Morton's daughter might well drop-in on the writer - as she is only borrowing Morton's house in the Luberon area of Provence. We 'accept' an idea of the incumbent blonde in all probability as that spoken of daughter. But she seems like a 15-year-old going on 35!!! She has an amazing amount of baggage for such a seemingly young girl. And she gets into such torrid, bizarre, and ghastly gargantuan fixes - all seem too improbable. The mix-and-match mode - as strand crosses strand, weaving a rich texture of reality versus illusion, fiction versus fact, and dream versus daylight - the enjoyment being in the management (in each viewer's mind) of the strands, understanding when the author's fiction is being played-out across the screen; and when we are back again inside the movie-director's mind (as opposed to one of his character's i.e the novelist). The local people encountered in the Luberon quickly become assimilated into Rampling's novel - their more outmodish acts being inventions of the novelist's mind (but being re-played inside an Ozon movie). And characters we might think are kith and kin of the 'real' people we encounter, are in fact nothing but kin to the fine imaginings of the typing hand. Ludivine Sagnier being the case in point - and she a cruel joke against Morton's dismissive inattentions towards our writerly heroine. The gawky, tooth-banded teenager has, in all likelihood, been in Provence all along - and in the projection of the novelist's mind - fashioned into a femme-fatale that makes the LuDIVINE we see on our screens, (and as the central protagonist of the Rampling novel, were it at hand to be read)!
Review of Swimming Pool
