Product: Dry Cleaning [VHS] (1999)
Rating: 4.0
Powerful Insightful Voyage Into Sexual Frontiers
Dry Cleaning was a complete surprise. I purchased the DVD after catching the film at a French film festival in NYC. The film directed by Anne Fontaine goes to places that rarely are visited and the voyage is peopled with real human emotions, foibles, adrenaline, and most importantly an honesty that finally pierces the heart. A hard-working petty-bourgeois couple who own a dry cleaning business are exposed to the "other world" of sexuality by the visit to their town of a traveling erotic brother and sister act. Miou-Miou as always is terrific, her screen presence is nuanced with naturalness. After so many years and many fine films (Going Places, Jonah Will be 25 in the Year 2000, Entre Nous) this performance confirms to this reviewer that she is one of the best actresses on the screen regardless of what language is being spoken. The real surprise here is Charles Berling who rightfully won the Cannes Film Festival Award for Best Actor that year. He is simply devastating as the honestly confused and open-minded husband to Miou-Miou's wife who is on the verge of suffocation without knowing it. Berling touches nerves that so many men are afraid to even acknowledge with such simple grace and introspection - it's an ocean of sub-text and we as the viewers are priveledged to take an emotional swim. I highly recommend this DVD for the pleasure of seeing two extraordinary performances that reach out and attempt to shake the psychic foundations of its audience.