Sexyloutak
Absolutely the worst movie.
Mischa Redfern
I didn’t really have many expectations going into the movie (good or bad), but I actually really enjoyed it. I really liked the characters and the banter between them.
Sabah Hensley
This is a dark and sometimes deeply uncomfortable drama
jotix100
Poor Francoise Sagan, her novels sold million copies all over the world, yet her work never translated successfully to the screen. With only one, or two exceptions, her novels were almost always about young women involved with older, and richer men. There are diversions in the form of younger men that serve as a distraction, but ultimately, all the books ended badly. Unhappy conclusions were a must for any of Ms. Sagan's novels."La chamade", or "Heartbeat", a 1968 adaptation of her novel of the same title, in the hands of director Alain Cavalier is only a film which showcased the beauty of Catherine Deneuve in all her cinematic glory. It is a film that has little content. It does not involve us the way it should have because the characters that are not real.We are asked to believe that the stunning Lucille who is Charles' mistress decides to leave him for Antoine, a struggling writer, that cannot give her the luxury which she is accustomed. Charles, on the other hand, while understanding the attraction, would have probably let her enjoy herself on the side, as long as she came back to him. Lucille makes the mistake of leaving one lover for another to horrible results.Catherine Deneuve is an icy kind of actress. She is one of the most beautiful faces of the French cinema, but as far as projecting any emotions, she always came up short in that department. It must have been hard for directors to cast anyone opposite her because of the coolness she always brought to her roles. Michel Picoli, a great actor has the unfortunate task of playing her older lover, Charles, something that does not happen because there was no chemistry between him and his co-star. Irene Tunk, who was Mrs. Alain Cavalier, a former Miss France, is also a sight for sore eyes, but alas, she has nothing to do in the film. Roger Van Hool, the Belgian actor appears as Antoine.The copy we saw recently had an amazing quality and it looks as pristine today, as when it was first released. The cinematography of Pierre Lhomme is one of the best things in the film.
eldino33
Mark Twain once said that anyone who picked a cat up by the tail learns never to pick a cat up by the tail again. In this film, no one picks the cat up by the tail, therefore no one seems to learn much. It is painful to see an actress of Deneuve's quality going from scene to scene without intensity. Most the time she is either walking, walking, walking or drinking, drinking, drinking. To me, she is simply unconvincing as lover in this film. Except for the first few scenes, one feels one is looking through a photo album haplessly put together. There seems to be very little passion in Lucille falling out of love for Charles, into love for Antione, and out of love for Antione. Consider this: Perhaps the film is a victim of the times. The intellectualism of the Beatniks of the 1950s and the rebellion of the hippies of the early 1960s was morphing into the leisure suits of the 1970s. And the logic of the film seems askew. Can an expensively kept partner of a very wealthy member of the upper class find love and happiness with a poor immature writer living in a one-room apartment in the projects? It all seems too unlikely. All film fans have to suspend a certain amount of disbelief, but you'd have to live on another planet to accept the plot of this film. I can't recommend this movie.
dbdumonteil
...Françoise Sagan!It takes a genius of a director to successfully adapt one of her airport novels.It happened once with "bonjour tristesse" ,because of M.Preminger and his interprets Deborah Kerr,Jean Seberg and David Niven.It never happened again .It is cinema with the feeling and sincerity of cellophane .The terrible human problem which tortures the heroine is: can money buy happiness? Shall I live with a young reporter or shall I stay with a still handsome greybeard ? Shall I have to work and give up my idleness?You've got the picture?Catherine Deneuve achieves a minor tour de force by turning this futile superficial boring young girl into an endearing character.That does not make "la chamade " a good film for all that.As far as the French bourgeoisie depictions are concerned,you'll always be better off with Claude Chabrol 's works,particularly "la femme infidèle" (1968)Alain Cavalier began quite well with two political movies "l'insoumis"(1964) and "le combat dans l'île"(1961),then got lost before redeeming himself in the eighties with "un étrange voyage" (1980) and chiefly his wonderful "Thérèse"(1986) which will probably remain his masterpiece.
Rod Evan
Courtesy of MGM Movie Channel I was at last allowed to see one of the best popular films of 1968 in France. 'La Chamade'. This is a disgracefully neglected film which manages in a not too dissimilar way to Antonioni's 'Blow Up' to show the compulsion and emptiness of living with too much leisure and wealth.Deneuve is at her most beautiful and along with 'Belle de Jour' this must be one of her more complex roles of the period. The extraordinary thing about the film is that the characters roam the bars and go to parties and chic restaurants and musical evenings seemingly oblivious to the political trauma that was happening in 1968.If memory serves me right Sagan wrote 'La Chamade' before the events of May '68 and for all I know the film may have been completed before the month of May, but in hindsight the facts that we now know cast a long shadow over the lives of these beautiful people consumed by their own selfish desires. A small masterpiece.
