L'amant

Plot synopsis:
One cannot speak of "the plot" of the film in the usual sense, since it is the autobiographical story of Duras. As such, the story is driven by the remembrances of the events in her life, rather than a formally constructed story. The story illuminates one and one-half years in the life of the adolescent Duras (Jane March), as they are recalled by the seventy-year-old writer.The film is also about life in South Vietnam, under French colonial rule. But it is also an example of this life turned upside down, as the girl is white and poor, while the man is Chinese and rich.The film opens in the present day (circa 1980) with Jeanne Moreau's voice-over as the elderly Duras reading the opening paragraphs of the novel. This is immediately followed by a flashback to an afternoon in 1929, on the Mekong River shore. On that particular day, the fifteen and one-half year old girl was returning to Saigon, as was the twenty-eight-year-old rich "Chinaman" (Tony Leung Ka Fai). They arrive at the Mekong ferry crossing, she in a public bus, and he in his black Morris Leon-Bollet limousine. The girl wears an old sleeveless silk dress, gold-spangled high-heels, and a man's pink fedora decorated with a black ribbon. She wears her hair in pigtails and her lips are painted with a brilliant red lipstick: this is a striking resemblance to the photographs of the young Duras, who wanted to be a woman before her time. The young man, impeccably dressed in a white cotton suit, emerges from his limousine and approaches the girl.At this point, we view the preceding night, at the girl's familial house in Sa Dec. We are introduced to the poisonous atmosphere which permeates it, and meet her older brother, the family tyrant (Arnaud Giovaninetti), her weak younger brother (Melvil Poupaud), and her listless mother (Frederique Meininger).We return to the ferry, where the Chinaman offers the girl a lift to Saigon. She accepts his offer of a ride to town, and in so doing, embarks on a lengthy, forbidden love affair.Each of the following days, the Chinaman arrives in his black limousine at the girl's lycée, where she attends class, and drives her to the boarding house, where she eats and sleeps. Soon, one afternoon, he picks her up at the boarding house and they drive instead to his garconnière in Cholon, the Chinese quarter of Saigon. The garconnière is a bachelor apartment provided for him by his father. It is there that the pair have their first sexual encounter.During the ensuing eighteen months, the couple meet countless times in the garconnière. In the course of the film, we are shown three such encounters, each for different reasons.The situation the lovers find themselves in is truly romantic and tragic. In the colonial society, it is totally out of the question for her, a white girl, to marry a Chinese man. The Chinese tradition forbids him to marry just anybody, especially a white girl. His wife will be chosen by his father (Xiem Mang), for social/financial reasons. Besides, following their first sexual encounter, he says that since she is no longer a virgin, he can no longer accept her as his wife. This is all right with her, she answers, since he is Chinese and, "[...], I don't particularly like the Chinese much." Therefore, they know that their love affair is doomed from the beginning, but they pursue it nevertheless to its cruel and inevitable conclusion.Eventually, the girl wants to show her "prize" to her family, and satisfy the family's curiosity.She arranges a dinner in town for her family to meet her lover. The result is an unmitigated disaster. The mother and the two brothers gorge themselves on food, get drunk, and never speak to the Chinaman, except for her older brother, who insults him and tries to provoke a fight. Following the dinner, the group goes dancing. The young brother and the girl dance together, alluding to the peculiar, somewhat incestuous relationship which exists between them, and awaken the jealousy of the Chinaman. This later leads to a violent scene between the girl and the Chinaman, back at the garconnière.Since the Chinaman is generous, the family pretends not to think about the relationship which likely exists between him and the girl. Deep inside, however, the mother is revolted by her daughter's relationship with the Chinaman, and she has several violent scenes with the girl, exacerbated by her oldest son's vicious interference.The Chinaman marries the young (sixteen years old), rich Chinese girl who his father chose for him, in a beautifully elaborate Chinese ceremony. The wedding proceeds in very festive mood, in sharp contrast to the Chinaman's demeanor, and the girl watches, impassive.A few days after the wedding, the girl leaves for France. She leans on the rail, dressed in the same clothes she wore on the first ferry ride. As her boat departs, she sees for the last time the long, black auto on the pier, and feels his gaze upon her.Many years later, the Chinaman comes to Paris with his wife. He calls her on the telephone and, as she says, "[...] told her that it was as before, that he still loved her, he could never stop loving her, that he'd love her until death." So ends this beautiful and tragic love story. In a "Hollywood" movie, the lovers could have eloped and lived "happy ever after," but this is real life, with its somehow inescapable rules.

Tags: cult

Review:
The story of L'Amant potrays a most complex and provocative relationship between a young French girl (Jane March) and a Chinaman (Tony Leung).
Based on the semi-autobiographical novel of Marguerite Duras, who was born in French colonial Vietnam, this film chronicles the sexual awakening of a young French girl who falls passionately in love with a Chinese scion of a rich trading family who have his marriage already arranged.
Whereas other movies featuring a young girl and an older lover are mostly playful, ironic or simply intent on breaking a taboo, this movie brings an ode to the senses themselves in a much more subtle way.Difficult as this may be, Annaud brings us as close as we can get to the atmosphere of love in a colonial and exotic setting.
In fact, the "colony" herself is a major character in the movie; the colony with her mighty Mekong River, her smells and colors, her strange sounds and her enigmatic people.On a more metaphoric level, the Colony represents a temporary space, a place where Western people only pass through, a space that cannot be owned forever, a place of love and hate, just like the lovers' relationship.
And in the end, the lovers have to go their own way, just like the colonialists have to leave the colony they love.The movie is poetically slow, and at times becomes an almost ritual repetition of a single act.
Just look beneath the surface: even though both characters are trapped in cultural barriers and subsequently repress so many emotions (especially the girl), they escape into the blissfully unreal world of the rented room where emotions run deep albeit confused.You will not find the usual American 'formula film' composed of glitz, action, intrigue, syrupy sweetness and a predictable ending.
From the outset the scenery directs the action taking the viewer into a world of a young girl and a Chinese man that embark on a doomed love affair in 1929 Colonial Vietnam.
The sex scenes were very natural, and not 'dirty'.The were many similar love stories that come along, (for example -The Notebook, Harry & June) but non of them can be compared to The Lover.
Oohoowow, this is one of the best love story i have the priviledge to watch and one of the best movie ever produced.It is erotic, passionate, sensuous, sensitive,  stunning, zesty, reflective, cinematographic, haunting and a very tragic love story.The movie is based on the semi-autobiography of one of the most famous French author, Marguerite Duras who passed away in 1996.I certainly disagree with several critics who did not hesitate to label the motion picture as "nothing more than a soft-porn."  This is pretty obvious to me that the critics are unaware of or have ignored the story behind the story and the message the author and the film director are trying to convey.Just because this movie contains scenes that are erotic with nudity, and passionate, it does not mean that the film is pornographic.
Moreover, critics have ignored the historical background of life in French-ruled Vietnam and the general French attitude towards the Vietnamese and the Chinese in the 1920s and 1930s.To paraphrase another fan of this movie, who reasoned that, if this film is a porn, it would not has been nominated for an Oscar and won an award from the mainstream French Cinema.
I would add: it would be totally ignored bythem.One of my favourite erotic scenes in the movie was when the girl gradually and teasingly, pursed her lips on the glass window of the limousine for her lover.Another favourite of mine is: the scene in the limo, showing Jane and Tony slowly and hesitatingly held hands together without looking at each other.The camera works that captured these two moments were extremely well done.
And the girl started up as if to go and kill herself in her turn, throw herself in her turn into the sea, and afterwards, she wept because she thought of the man from Cholon and suddenly she wasn't sure she hadn't loved him with a love she hadn't seen because it had lost itself in the affair like water in (the) sand and she rediscovered it only now, through this moment of music......"By the way, the Chopin music did played in the movie.
A meticulously groomed Chinese man in a three piece white suit is staring at her, telegraphing that if this isn't, for him, love at first sight, it is at least his obsession for the next two hours of film time.
Since much of the rest of hte movie is devoted to full body nudity and graphic scenes of sexual intercourse, her youth, both as an actress and as a character, was an issue when the film was first released.
Cultural prejudice, the age disparity, class difference, racial divide, dysfunctional family, a pre-arranged marriage, a young girl in a man's fedora, all stand in the way of the most of elusive of humane pursuits - love.
Our censors will inevitable relish at any 'sexually explicit', controversial love story that is left of mainstream (coffee-table pornography, in our righteous film critic's parlance) and, for different reasons altogether, at a serious, probing, insightful and provocative political picture.
When the young girl, her sexuality fully awakened, approaches her lover's car and purses her lips on the window.The precise, top-notch editing serves the picture well, always adding to the story's narrative drive or allowing for a moment of contemplation.
Seemingly a perfect set-up for a guilty-free sexual liaison gets complicated when the Chinese bon vivant falls in love with the young girl and meets the torments of unrequited love.'The Lover' is a cinematic gem of rare color and unforgettable spark; the love story of singular beauty and distinct resonance..
This movie is a beautiful recreation of near '30's Colonial Vietnam (i don't know how accurate, but i was convinced), the "look" of the movie can be summed up with that one scene near the start where the camera pans up on the girl and shes describing her wardrobe; her cabaret shoes, dress and unique mans hat (that no other woman, Vietnamese or otherwise is wearing at the time), you get an impression of subtle defiance from her that only expands and endures as the movie courses on.
The cinematography of 'living' in this movie really draws you in, be it when they're washing out the house, dancing in the restaurant or (my favorite scene) when the car overheats and the young brother gets out with a watering pail to get some water from the gutter, it just made me smile, all these scenes are elevated by the camera work and positioning of the characters.
Anyways the dialogue is amazing, like when the girl says "my brother smokes too much" to which the Chinaman replies "too too much" (i just thought that was so naturally clever) or when she first makes love to the Chinaman and describes him (part of him) as "the golden novelty," this is a prime example of how this movie, unlike so many others, elevates the eroticism within it to something more than 'porn with a plot' as many other erotic movies seem to be, the focus of this movie is the story, it just happens to be erotic (not that i'm complaining), and if all that wasn't enough to get you renting (or buying) underlying and driving the plot is the brilliant and engaging retrospective narrative by an older Duras (Author of "The Lover").
A great movie after all trying to show as clear as possible the impossible multiracial love relation in old French Indochina at that time, although a wealthy Chinese guy and a financially poor white very young girl are involved.
The story absolutely reeks and oozes erotic sexuality, both in the book as well as the movie --- yet there is actually no real sex scene, as to have done so would have made this into child pornography and filming of it into a felony.
The movie begins as we follow a young and beautiful French high school girl in 1929 French colonial Viet Nam when she begins her journey on an uncomfortably packed native bus to begin her school year in Saigon.
We watch them walk the last of the way through Cholon which she describes Cholon vividly as "smelling of Jasmine, minced meats, charcoal and soup, busy with the commotion of the mid day meal." In that room what follows is probably some of the most erotic scenes ever to be shown in a movie such as this and we almost aren't prepared for it, It isn't just what we see happening between them that holds our interest, but that room itself with sunlight piercing through the narrow slats of the room's window shutters, casting enough light on old used furniture, that bed and the writhing bodies of the lovers lying upon it to creating an unforgettable almost surreal dream-like state.
She is not to hear of her Chinese lover again for many years later as we see her now an old woman at the movie's end sitting alone working at her desk in a dingy office in Paris with snow falling in the gloom of early evening outside her window.
I always wanted to meet a woman like The Young Girl of this movie.
The Young Girl lives in the neighborhood, suffering the stranglehold of restrictions, ready for destroy anything conventional, first of all her innocence.Marguerite Duras & Jean-Jacques Annaud created the most magnetic female hero for me, who acts it if she's hell-bent for passion, but keeps secretly her feelings.After all, I think the story is not about her, but how society can deform human relations....
In other movies, she has portrayed the character - Jane March was lost so of course it appears that she's not a good actress.In regards to the sex...Of course, some people only remembered the sex in this film.
Jane and the actor connected in every scene (not just their sex scenes).The Lover isn't a great movie.
In Jean-Jacques Annaud's flaccid soft-porn melodrama a young French girl is sexually awakened by a polite but torrid affair with a Chinese gentleman in colonial Southeast Asia.
Jane March & Tony Leung(both very talented) completely captured the love expression toward one another that Marguerite Duras was trying to proyect in the film.
For a prudish American viewer the simple idea of a young girl being in love with a grown up man might be too much by itself, which can be well compared to the lame US adaption of "Lolita." This is not even speaking of the erotic scenes, which as well make the movie what it is: very sensual erotic.One of the earlier comments here stated the girl was portrayed too cold and too experienced.
However, when Tony Leung Ka (The Chinaman) appeared on the screen and started making SPARKS with Jane March, I realized that this was a very deep and beautiful love story that really went way beyond the bedroom mattress.
It does to me, sort of.The Lover ( english translation ) is a story about a Chinaman and a young French girl that seem to fall in love.
When a film presents itself as realistic, I am one of those people who wants believability.The young girl, presumably a virgin, in this film seemed a little too self-assured (even experienced) when it came to lovemaking (or even sensually kissing car windows that separate her from her not-as-yet(!) lover) to me.She also seemed way too emotionally cold for someone so young unless she'd been taking lessons from her A-hole brother.In short, this "young girl's" behavior was that of an experienced and cynical older woman.It's interesting that according to the voting breakdown for this film on this d-base that women seemed to like it more than men.
The director of L'AMANT or THE LOVER as it's known in Britain was directed Jean Jacques Annaud who would later go on to make ENEMY AT THE GATES a pretty good war film that suffers from having a sex scene that seems out of place .
Of course sexual mores were different in those days and the idea of inter racial sex may be rather blase nowadays but this taboo is even more diluted by the casting of English actress Jane March who looks anything but French / White European , in fact she looks like she's of Asian extraction herself !
It shows how a Chinese man in his thirties falls in love with a 15-year-old girl.
Every little scene and moment is beautiful."The Lover" is a special movie, because its love is above the prejudice of appearance, race and wealth.
True to the heart of a young girl falling in love with an older man.
The Lover from beginning to end, was a sex film.There was no story to really speak of.Jane March,though nice to look at for sure,was cast because she is completely uninhibited.The movie has Gratuitous sex at seemingly every turn.Now ,if its a sex movie you want,the Lover will fill in admirably.If you want a storyline, don't be fooled by the seemingly endless reviews that claim it to be a beautiful movie masterpiece.Rating : 1.
Marguerite Duras' autobiographical recount of a forbidden amour fou in 1929 French Indochina, between a fifteen-and-a-half-year-old French girl (March) and a Chinese man (Leung) twice her age.
1992 is such a banner year for Tony Ka Fai Leung, currently has three leading performances in my year's top 10 list, his portrayal here establishes a disarming mien as "the lover", a man whose job is to love, nothing else, incapable of changing his or his lover's fate.Accompanied by Jeanne Moreau's resonant voice-over, reciting Duras' segments of texts throughout, mainly we are channeled into the girl's perspective of the affair, her precocious nature and non-conformist behaviour, all through, in spite of her poverty-ridden background, she is the one monopolises the higher standing in this romance, ascribed to the self-imposed superiority of a colonist, even during their first sexual intercourse, she makes the first move.
Such a formidable role proves to be a double-edged sword for the débutante Jane March, whose comely but aloof pretence matches the character fittingly, but also would curb her future career as an erotic desire.Frédérique Meininger, who plays the girl's mother, in her very limited screen-time, manages to unfold a great range of emotional spectra from jadedness to chagrin, agony, then utter disillusion.
The first time I heard about The Lover I was in high school and it was one of those films that a few classmates of mine would always bring up as the "dirtiest" movie they had ever seen.
A number of other images also qualify as "perfect shots": the matinée-idol entrance of Tony Leung, who plays the title character, or the way the tears in March's eyes catch the light at just the right angle.With mixed results, the movie goes to great lengths to prove it's about something more than beautiful people having lots of languorous afternoon sex.
The Lover takes this 15-year-old girl to his bed but insists that he must marry a virgin; the girl's family is appalled by the thought of her having sex with a Chinese man, but eventually turns a blind eye to the relationship because it helps their financial difficulty.
Shot in French Colonial Vietnam, a young French girl (Jane March) fall in love with a local man.
I liked this movie and it bordered on being considered, in my opinion, "clean erotica." Jane's character falls in love with a wealthy Asian in Vietnam.
I think that folks will like this movie if they have an open mind and consider that the morality of the story is based upon the morals of the characters of the time.
Yes. Nearly more than half of the reviews picture this movie as a soft porn movie, and it is.Virtually no plot except a china man picking up a little girl like a prostitute.I am sure there were lot of thought provoking questions when we see Miss Jane March Nude.
I don't know why people ask if the sex scenes are real or not because this is not the point here, it is the love story that's interesting, not the problem of the actors having intercourse or not.
The scenes between the girl and her Chinese lover are beautifully filmed, and the accompanying music triggers a dream like quality.
I think the most sensual parts of the movie are when the Chinaman first sees the young girl on the ferry and is watching her from the automobile and then leaves the car and approaches her.
Jane March did a great job as an unexperienced in the love department young girl.
By that reckoning, we sense that we know the real purpose behind the making of this film.Based on a book by Margaurite Duras, the movie tells the story of a French student (Jane March) in Indochina in the 1920s who falls in lust with a rich Chinese aristocrat (Tony Leung) twenty years her senior.
French director Jean-Jacque Annaud does brilliantly with films about animals ("The Bear") and cavemen ("Quest for Fire"), but falls flat with this erotic movie called, "The Lover," which is about a teenage white girl (Jane March) having a forbidden affair with a wealthy Chinese man (Tony Leung)in 1929 French Indochina.
This movie is one reason I had such a great love life during those years.
I thought it was an alright movie but I didn't quite like the fact, Jane March as the young girl wasn't that bothered to have sex with the Chinaman.
First I want to make it clear that even though this is a love story between a 30-something man and a 15-year-old school girl, the actress who plays the school girl was actually 18 during filming.
It is not an erotic movie, more a tragic love story of two people who can never really be together.