Product: 8 Women (2002)
Rating: 4.0
Les Femmes Franaises
When it comes to French women on film, the only sure bet is that they aren't what they appear on the surface. And it's not just in controversial genre-benders like recently acclaimed French flicks Amelie or the sadomasochistic tour-de-force, The Piano Teacher. Sure, they can sizzle with sheer physical oomph on-screen. But unlike their more physically endowed, brasher and brighter Hollywood counterparts, the French diva is more well-rounded in terms of repertoire and emotional sophistication. And it pays off cinematically.In 8 Women (8 Femmes), the reigning divas of French cinema converge on a genre-bending murder mystery musical, and ham it up with convincing panache and verve amid hyper-glam `50s costumes and sets. There's a cracking plot, but the film is more a tongue-in-chic tribute to la femme francaise in all her varied plummage.Franois Ozon's campy murder mystery romp is less an ensemble performance than a simultaneous showcase for top divas (down to the lighting, painstakingly arranged so as to favour ALL of the leads equally on screen). It has all the archetypal caricatures out on display: The seductive femme fatale in blazing scarlet. The demur housemaid with a gift for service. The elegant mistress of the house. The dutiful catholic schoolgirl and her free-spirited sunny younger sister. The spinster aunt. The kindly crone grandma. Yet delightfully, each of these silver screen sirens hides a secret so powerful it threatens to disrupt the delicate balance of power in the household, while the notional patriarch, Marcel, is noticeable only by his absence. As the murder victim, his sole relevance is as the object of a internecine and feminine intrigue over his wealth and affections.The artifice of 8 Women may be self-conscious, but it's still a sheer delight watching the most eminent French actresses of the age ham it up on screen. It's their aplomb, cool intelligence and sheer force of character on screen that prevents high camp from collapsing into farce. As if to demonstrate her dramatic versatility, Isabelle Huppert, who won high acclaim for her charged performance in the title role as the Piano Teacher, once again steals the show - this time as the uptight spinster sister-in-law, sending up the stern, stone-faced roles she tends to take on. She remains completely convincing once her character undergoes a dramatic makeover near the end of the film. It's a real pity that each character's individual musical monologues (in which much of their inner landscape is revealed through song and dance) have not been translated.So what is it about la femme franaise that shines onscreen? It's not exactly the looks - few of these celebrated divas (with perhaps the exception of pouty Emmanuelle Béart who plays the buxome housemaid) are classically attractive dames in the Hollywood sense. Yet they bring to the screen that rarest of pleasures: mystique -- the fascinating countenance and intriguing smile beneath which a thousand secrets are concealed.