Bitter Moon

Plot synopsis:
Nigel Dobson (Hugh Grant) and his wife Fiona (Kristn Scott Thomas) are a perfectly respectable British couple with nuances of gentlemanly life. They are on a cruise during their honeymoon heading for India. They meet an extremely sensual young woman of French origin called Mimi (Emmanuelle Seigner), extremeley flamboyant and Paris-cosmopolitan, and by means of her they come to meet American wanna-be author Oscar (Peter Coyote), a disabled man in a wheelchair. Oscar starts telling their love story to Nigel and Fiona. The latter finds it gruesome and unsettling, and doesn't want to know how it ends, but Nigel will become completely obsessed with the love-hate story of Mimi and Oscar.Oscar finds in Mimi, a student dancer, a willing partner for his almost hardcore sexual games, ever pushing their boundaries together. She is completely enraptured by him, and bows to his every whim. However, without any furthr reason that his caprice, he gets bored out of his wits about her. He is rude and wicked to her, and tells her that he'd rather she left him for good. Mimi packs her things, and is about to leave him forever. She has opened the door to the condo where they have been living together, but re-enters the flat again. She wants to stay no matter what.Life will be hell for Mimi from that moment on. He becomes really abusive towards her, and she puts up with everything. Their sexual antics become sadistic, full of anger and twisted mentality. I agree with some other reviewers into saying that Mimi becames a mere shadow of her former self. She has stayed with him, but life becomes a nightmare. She mus quit all her life and interests in order to pursue her obsesive love for him.She has to do things she doesn't really want to because if not, Oscar will sent her packing for good, and she knows this time there won't be a second chance. Finally, she becomes pregnant, and that's a door for her to lead a normal couple life with Oscar. They agree to leave France together and keep the child. However, Oscar's behaviour is selfish and rotten once more. He pretends to follow-suit her, but when they are both on the plane to Martinique, he leaves the plane with some dumb excuse. Mimi is completely distraught, and the audience will come to know what she did afterwards. She had an abbortion performed by some doctor who butchered her, and had to surpass a terrible infection on her own. The surgery and its consequences have left her uncapable of getting pregnant again, and that comes to a shock to her as well.Meanwhile, Oscar returns to his happy life: he goes to parties, gets drunk, and has sexual relations with all sorts of women. He doesn't seem to write much. Once, he is so drunk that he suffers a car accident which will leave him crippled for life. Mimi returns to Paris because, after all, her traumatic experiences have not made her to forget him. She won't forgive him, but the audience will come to know how much she loves him in spite of it all. She has become frustrated, angry, and wants revenge for everything Oscar has made he go through despite her love. She takes care of him, but in a twisted and cruel way. She doesn't allow him to talk to any of her former lovers, or go out of home without her. One of the prevert things she did is to hold a long conversation leavin Oscar in the full-of-water bath. While she's talking gayly, the water gets colder and colder, so Oscar has to leave the bathroom crawling like a worm. Mimi sees this with a half-smile onto her lips, and keeps on chatting as though without a care in the world. On another occassion, she gives him a present: a gun with a single bullet so that he can commit suicide.Coming back to the crouse, Fiona gets utterly fed-up of Nigel. She is afraid that he wants to have sex with Mimi, because she's constantly flirting with and giving hints to him. She tells him that she can do anything better than him, so she starts flirting with Dado (Luca Vellani) during Oscar's story sessions.Nigel looks for Fiona, and to his surprise, she finds her in bed after having made love with Mimi. Oscar had watched them while having sex. Both women are sleeping in a hug, and he shoots Mimi. Fiona is woken up because to the noise, and Nigel and Fiona leave the cabin together, deeply traumatized because of everything they have witnessed.

Tags: comedy, cruelty, murder, sadist, flashback, revenge, storytelling

Review:
Some of it might be hard to stomach but that is the nature of truly great filmmaking.A beautifully crafted movie, almost lyrical at times, Bitter moon is set in contemporary Paris but is told in a series of long complex flashbacks superbly narrated by Oscar (a terrific Peter Coyote) to Nigel (Hugh Grant as the usual British prat), both passengers on a  cruise ship to India.
The lack of attention to her performance in this movie is no doubt due to the notoriety in the puritanical American press of her husband.As a whole, Bitter Moon may not be Polanski's best film but some periods of the movie represent his very best work.
With echoes of his earlier film 'Knife in the Water', Bitter Moon is a story of lust, revenge, betrayal, dependency and most of all; love, wrapped tightly around a coil of taboos and sexual perversions.
it's a masterpiece.everything blends perfectly in this film: 1990's paris, the colours of the film (etalonage), the excellent vangelis's music score, the evolution of a love story, the roles played by the 2 couples...emmanuelle seigner is great playing the role of a nymph and a sorcerer, peter coyote is magnificent playing the part of a regular guy who gets insane, hugh grant becomes a perfect boring middle-class british bourgeois and kristin scott thomas her discreet wife looking for action.one of the best amour-fou stories, along with louis malle's "damage".
Why it didn't get greater exposure at the time or since baffles me, particularly as two of the principle characters have since become "famous" , Hugh Grant and Kristan Scott Thomas.Most men will empathise with the morality or lack of in this confused relationship between an older man obsessed with his sexual object in the form of the stunning French actress, and her adoration for him.
It is a story narrated and told by Oscar, played by Peter Coyote, who is wheelchair-bound, to Nigel, played by Hugh Grant, a man he meets on the cruise.
The film also touches strongly the theme of hipocrisie (probably wrong spelled, this word.) once more in the character of Hugh Grant who, despite showing all the time disgut and repugnace for the story he is being told, is always secretly desiring and wanting something equivalent to happen to him (this hipocratic attitude may be the result of growing up in a world and a society where this kind of sexual liberties and practices are repressed and in here once more we are taken to atrong moral issues which take us to rethink the whole thing...).Apart from this questions this film makes me also think about the relationships between men and women...
This film proves once more Roman Polansky as one of the greatest directors of our times, since he shows he is totally in control of every detail of direction (I enjoyed the increase of the speed together with the increase of intensity of the relationship among the couple).
While in the trip, the American cripple and frustrated writer Oscar (Peter Coyote) gets close to Nigel, and invites him to listen to his unconventional love and hate story with his French wife Mimi (Emmanuelle Seigner).
Meanwhile, Nigel feels a great attraction for the sexy and gorgeous Mimi, in a story with tragic consequences.'Bitter Moon' has been released in Brazil on DVD this week, and yesterday I watched it for the fifth or sixth time, since it is one of my favorites movies ever.
I really believe that 'Bitter Moon', Peter Coyote and Emmanuelle Seigner have been not nominated to the Oscar because of the problems of Roman Polanski with the American Justice.
Obsessive sex gives way, at least between the two lovers of Bitter Moon, to a hatred as savage as cold-blooded murder or all-out war.These extremities of love and hate work themselves out in a game of power and manipulation, and it remains the only vehicle by which these two can merge with one another so as to lose both their independence and the rest of their inhibitions and illusions.
Director Polanski brilliantly brings us this unforgettable, jet-black and haunting story of love and desire, and the threat of pushing them to obsessive limits- you can almost hear the bells of doom ring as the setting of the ship shifts to beautiful Paris and Coyote's voice-over...Definitely controversial and unsettling, but it's one of those occasions that you just can't resist (like Grant's character does) following characters that aren't necessarily instantly likable.
Oscar has basically ruined her life (watch and you will see how in gruesome detail), depriving her of any future normal relationship due to his extremes For this reason, she becomes just as cruel (if not more so) than him – in a perverse effort to become like the man she loves.
But "Bitter Moon", touching upon similar topics, simply kicks those four off to non-existence being superior on all levels: the story, the drama, the punch line, the actors' play, the camera-work and the decorations (maybe on a par with "Eyes Wide Shut" in this department), the music (the choice of melodies for the different sets just hits the mark - it is as good as the choice of the music for Rockstar's "Vice City", if you know what I mean), etc.
All shaped and formed in the city of love,Paris.You're flung to and from Paris on to a cruise on open dark waters.The shift and the graphic story send your sealegs a drift.Hugh Grant ,in his shy studdering act of a prude sexually frustrated Englishman drawn into temptation by the french vamp,is adorable compared to the other characters in the film.Curiosity killed the cat!This movie is at times very erotic and then it slides down to real perversity's.It captures you and doesn't leave you unmarked..
Last tango in Paris is excessive, Cronenberg is excessive, even some other Polanski movies are excessive and thought-provoking and -yes!- exciting; but this one has no storyline, no character development, no excitement and terrible acting: you can surely find better ways to waste your time..
A shabby film which opens with a curious situation, the carrot, which keeps you watching though a seemingly endless  succession of flashbacks narrated with horribly sophomoric prose, "Bitter Moon" proves many things...such as Seigner can't dance and Polanski still hasn't mastered the art of keeping his characters in character.
If we are excited, we are to be excited at the film-making skills of a certain Roman Polanski and how he unfolds this narrative, and not at what these people go through in order to become the people we see on screen.In the broader sense of things, Bitter Moon is a really straight forward tale of two people meeting one other; getting to know one another and advancing things further and further to the point that they become sick of the sight of one other.
It feels as if Polanksi, through the characters of Nigel (Grant) and Fiona (Scott Thomas) whom have been happily married for so long, is trying to say that you should be thankful for what you've got and going bigger and better because your impulses demand you do, isn't always necessary.Power play seems to be a primary ingredient in Bitter Moon; in what is an interesting concoction of romance, tragedy, noir and some scenes of both sheer horror and terror.
Over time, Nigel will become more and more intrigued by what it is Oscar has to say about a certain carefree dancer on the boat named Mimi (Seigner), who is linked to Oscar in more ways than is first apparent.But it isn't just this acquaintance as a relationship that Bitter Moon touches on, it breaks away from its primary strand of two people going through a love-fuelled grinder of friendship and fondness by providing us with enough material revolving around Nigel and Fiona's marriage which is threatened by the presence of Oscar and Mimi.
But rather than demonise these interests, fetishes or notions; Bitter Moon gets across a state of wrong-doing, a sense that the repercussions of these activities when used despairingly can bring about ill-fated results, confusion and can form cracks within the relationship.If the audience are placed within the body of Nigel as this relatively clean-cut and seemingly perfectly innocent individual, then it is for the purpose of hearing Oscar's story unfold.
It seems it would turn out to be a movie with a somber, downbeat tone, but not under Polanski's direction; he manages to inject lots of sarcasm and black humour into the film, especially in the character of Oskar (a magnificent performance by Peter Coyote).
For all those who think that this dark psychological drama from Roman Polanski is just kinky sex and full of S&M, it isn't - and simply isn't a film for you, or at least for what you want.There are a few reviews around where such people wanted those elements and when they didn't like the baggage and the 130 minutes running time, they gave it one star.
With Peter Coyote's American writer, following and referring to other 'Americans in Paris' F Scott Fitzgerald and such, becoming the film's narrator and lead character, it really is the rose-tinted view of Parisian life and women that's fuelled popular culture and literature for decades.In this case, it's Polanski's actual wife (Emmanuelle Seigner) who plays the young and nubile dancer, Mimi, that takes on the older Oscar (Coyote).
The seduction and (non-graphic) sex scenes are actually very sensual and erotic, enticing us into a world of bliss, allowing Polanski to share with us his own fantasies (perhaps) as well as putting this relationship on a high plateau, from which it ultimately disintegrates - this being the thrust of the movie.To give credence and body to all this, a now wheelchair-bound Oscar confides in reserved posh Brit Hugh Grant, in a sort of bitter wife-swap scenario, that's both warped and distasteful.
What a sensitive work by roman Polanski.I must say this is a movie for all couples engaged in a strong relationship and somehow neglects the fact called dying love.All through the movie we realized that actually there is nothing wrong with the lovely french women and the paradise lover man living on allowances in Paris but it is that they have reached heights of their relationship in no time and after that there nothing to do except to live with it in the process of degradation or move on.We see some of the most stunning performances by all actors in the movie and Hugh grant playing the sophisticated mask of modern times also does well!!!!.
This film shows exactly what don't like in Hollywood ;the real nature of sexual relationships ,that's the reason why a superb film like this never will won an Oscar.It shows the extreme passion that everybody can feel about somebody ;your life could be like one of the characters of the film , you only has to meet somebody really special , and ,If you think you never would do the things the characters of this film made ,you will instantly change your opinion , why?, because when you are absolutely in love with somebody , you would anything for that person that make you feel so good...That is the human nature.
The central premise of the film is interesting, with crippled, burnt-out American Peter Coyote relating the damaging relationship he had with Mimi (Emmanuelle Seigner) to stuck up Brit Nigel (Bumbling old Hugh Grant).
Weather the money just ran out, or the cast and crew got bored is unknown (that's what it looks like), it makes Bitter Moon an average little thriller from the man who was once king of the psychological thriller, you might want to spend some time with the film, but you won't leave with anything new.
Roman Polanksi's Bitter Moon is fascinating to watch but difficult to digest, leading one to wonder what exactly the great director is getting at with this twisted, tragic love story.
Cinematically, this is one of Polanski's very best films with subtle, powerful direction, astonishingly believable performances by all four actors and a story that is less about sex than it is about what love can be and often becomes..
This film deals with the topic of love at first sight, which then later deals with sexual exploration and eventually into perversion and degradation.The film is told in flashback narrative by Oscar Benton(Peter Coyote), an American living in Paris, who falls in love with a French woman called Mimi(Emmanuelle Seigner).
Oscars tells this strange story of bondage, sadomasochism and voyeurism to Nigel Dobson(Hugh Grant) who is on a Cruise holiday with his wife Fiona(Kristen Scott Thomas).Nigel is gradually drawn into sexual intrigue by Oscar and he wants to secretly make love with Mimi at any given opportunity.
There's something wholesome that is ripped apart in the story here, and it's at its core a tale of passionate love and desire that becomes like a mind-game.Polanski's flashback narrative works well, and despite some corny bits early on in Oscar's (Peter Cotoye) tale of Mimi (Emmanuele Signer), this is contrasted with scenes that sizzle with great sexuality, the likes of which only so-much seen in 90s cinema.
And then you have Oscar (Peter Coyote), a disabled gargoyle of man who proceeds to tell Nigel (Grant) the story of his doomed romance with Mimi (Emmanuelle Seigner).
The characters that inhabit 'Bitter Moon' certainly are in the grip of it, in one way or another.There is the central pair to our drama Oscar and Mimi (played respectively by Peter Coyote and Emmanuelle Seigner), a pair of wandering souls who find love with each other.
Nigel is at first revulsed by the tale but then totally hooked, especially with the promise of having for his own Mimi at the end of the tale, all with the total acceptance of Oscar.Bitter Moon is at times a sumptuous tale, revealing the beautiful lives of Oscar and Mimi, but it pulls you back with a start as what looks like a simple love story gets turned on its head and the cracks start to form.The film works best when flashbacks are showing.
Hugh Grant plays the awkward, typical English guy and we see the story unfold through his eyes.If you get a friend to watch it with you for the first time, they'll probably be a little disappointed with the slow pace at the beginning, but it gets better - MUCH better.Some say this is Polanski's worst film!
OK, this woman is sexy; why not?She's young,skinny,pretty,and a good dancer.That's about the size of it.This self-indulgent,transparently Polanski-couple duo,are a farce compared to "Lolita",or something a lot better written.Yes,BETTER WRITTEN.I suspected,at once,"Hey,this guy always wanted to write,but the movie is soft-core porno.It's MELODRAMA,like "Lifetime Channel for women",only it's lifetime channel for MEN.The only people this would appeal to,are men.Women would get bored,as I did,and say,"there are no real people in this movie,but the English couple.If that.There are nothing but vaginas,penises,and that's about it.And,other sexual openings.There are no real relationships,or real people,just sex."This movie was not popular,because it is a ludicrous melodrama imagined by an older man,of what the ideal nymphette,totally sexual,and nothing else,would be,in Paris,with plenty of money.It's a man's sexual melodrama,,escapist porno written by Polanski to amuse his jaded senses.That's it!!Only good part,the Indian with the little girl,who says,"children are the best therapy."Only smart thing in the whole movie.It was the only HUMAN thing.Everything else was complete fantasy,by a hack middle-aged writer,longing for the "ultimate young,girl,sex goddess who adored him."The problem is,this man is so threatened by women his own age,he avoids them,and goes for a young,almost girl,innocent,who looks up to him,cause she knows no one else.They have nothing else in common,but sex.They love each other?Not according to his behavior in the rest of the movie,how it all came out.Neither one of them LOVED each other;how did they prove it,finally?They proved the opposite.The English couple probably loved each other,even if they did not have a fantastic,wild,sexual oydessy.Got news for you,that lasts maybe a year,or 6 months,and then total-sex gets stale.Even with Marilyn Monroe!!Ask her ex-husbands.Yes,no wonder the critics disliked this,and audiences stayed away in droves.It's not even REAL in any way,it's playboy bunnies Ahoy!!And,the narration is out of some rabid porno-novel,which gets very tired.Fast.Sorry,if I want to get off,I know what to see,or read,or listen to,that will do it better than this;I was hoping for a real,well written,meaningful movie,in some way,and I just got the Playboy video-melodrama of the month.Not much more.I'm very disappointed in Polanski.Shoulda known better,he married Sharon Tate,eh??
Pretty soon Oscar (Peter Coyote) starts telling Nigel (Hugh Grant) stories about his wife's and his' sexual relationship...
Of course I can understand that in order to attract an audience the story had to be softened, otherwise some people risk being totally horrified and walking sick out of the theater (and no, I am not referring to the detailed sexual perversions, but to the ordeal the man puts his woman through when he wants to create living hell for her).Furthermore, that semi-happy ending with the 2 characters hugging each other ruined everything and has nothing to do with the original plot.Just so we're clear, I don't think this is a bad movie, on the contrary, it brings a whole new perspective on how thin the line between love, obsession and hatred really is.
While 'Bitter Moon' shows great promise for the first part of the film, it eventually runs out of steam.The story involves a polite English couple, Nigel & Fiona, on board a cruise ship, who encounter the crippled Oscar & his beautiful wife, Mimi.
Roman Polanski's Bitter Moon is an outrageous, mesmerising 1992 film starring Hugh Grant, Kristin Scott Thomas, Emmanuelle Seigner (Mrs Polanski) and Peter Coyote.
Polanski shows again how complex and complicated are human beings.Wonderfully performance of the whole cast, especially Peter Coyote and Emmanuelle Seigner, who play a couple, which deep love turned into crazy obsession.