French films have always provided genteel tips for seduction and lovemaking, and pointers for meeting partners as well as elegantly disposing of them without messy scenes and crushed feelings. From the evidence amassed at this year's festival, French men and women are in dire need of a new lexicon. In They Call It Spring , a kinetic, Marivaux-style roundelay that bristles with seen and unseen cruelties and bruised egos, three Parisian women flee their partners for a spell. The voracious sexual selfishness on display here is stunningly far from the freedom of sexual exploration famously trumpeted in early Godard and Truffaut films. They are, however, just as incapable of relating to their lovers and relatives as the characters in They Call It Spring .
Relationships are no clearer outside the City of Light.
When Charlotte Rampling's husband vanishes at the beach in the satisfyingly creepy Under the Sand , she refuses to accept his apparent death. He's unusually pessimistic this time around, positing that the work-ing class is trapped by heroin, unemployment, and, worst of all, dreams that have no chance of coming true. All rights reserved.