To paraphrase David Letterman on Madonna: I have a theory about Mr. Ozon - he wants to SHOCK us.
Ozon gives us a nice set-up - domesticated housewife meets her suddenly (re)emerged anarchist-vagabond shadow on a remote isle - and allows his own inner rampaging adolescent to trash the whole business.
Rather than simply follow out the ominous dance initiated between these two characters, Ozon decides to step in every few minutes and punch the viewer in the face: the plate-licking scene, the bit with the tooth-brush (I think its a measure of Ozon's juvenality just how quickly it winds up in our heroine's mouth), the sex scene in the conveniently located Forest of Men. No doubt this is to jar the viewer out of his/her "bourgeois complacency". However, I think the presence of this aggression more truthfully reflects Mr. Ozon's discomfort with his own un-exorcized spirit of domesticity. As with most pseudo-rebels (or posturing enfants-terribles) art becomes a game of projecting into others, and then attacking, what we can't tolerate in ourselves. Thus the inability of Mr. Ozon to let the story play itself out and the quite apparent intrusiveness of the scenes I mentioned. And if this lack of continuity (or eruption of absurdity) is to be justified as a play of surrealism - PLEEEASE! As every director from Clair to Bunuel to Lynch to the Coen bros. who has worked with this palatte has known, such a world must maintain its own inner consistency (whether this is done through lighting, gesture/stylized movement, dialog, what have you). Ozon does not even make such an attempt, therefore his "imaginative leaps" appear merely arbitrary GESTURES of artistic abandon rather than the real deal. Clearly Ozon has some growing up to do before he can sail with those who truly chart a course on unknown seas (rather than play pirate in their own bathtubs). 4 out of 10.
Ozon gives us a nice set-up - domesticated housewife meets her suddenly (re)emerged anarchist-vagabond shadow on a remote isle - and allows his own inner rampaging adolescent to trash the whole business.
Rather than simply follow out the ominous dance initiated between these two characters, Ozon decides to step in every few minutes and punch the viewer in the face: the plate-licking scene, the bit with the tooth-brush (I think its a measure of Ozon's juvenality just how quickly it winds up in our heroine's mouth), the sex scene in the conveniently located Forest of Men. No doubt this is to jar the viewer out of his/her "bourgeois complacency". However, I think the presence of this aggression more truthfully reflects Mr. Ozon's discomfort with his own un-exorcized spirit of domesticity. As with most pseudo-rebels (or posturing enfants-terribles) art becomes a game of projecting into others, and then attacking, what we can't tolerate in ourselves. Thus the inability of Mr. Ozon to let the story play itself out and the quite apparent intrusiveness of the scenes I mentioned. And if this lack of continuity (or eruption of absurdity) is to be justified as a play of surrealism - PLEEEASE! As every director from Clair to Bunuel to Lynch to the Coen bros. who has worked with this palatte has known, such a world must maintain its own inner consistency (whether this is done through lighting, gesture/stylized movement, dialog, what have you). Ozon does not even make such an attempt, therefore his "imaginative leaps" appear merely arbitrary GESTURES of artistic abandon rather than the real deal. Clearly Ozon has some growing up to do before he can sail with those who truly chart a course on unknown seas (rather than play pirate in their own bathtubs). 4 out of 10.