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"
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"