Les bien-aimés

Plot synopsis:
Sethe is a former slave living on the outskirts of Cincinnati shortly after the Civil War. An angry poltergeist terrorizes Sethe and her three children, causing her two sons to run away forever. Eight years later, Sethe (Oprah Winfrey) lives alone with her daughter, Denver (Kimberly Elise). Paul D. (Danny Glover), an old friend from Sweet Home, the plantation Sethe had escaped from years earlier, finds Sethe's home, where he drives off the angry spirit. Afterwards, Paul D. proposes that he should stay and Sethe responds favorably. Shortly after Paul D. moves in, a clean, mentally handicapped young woman (Thandie Newton) named Beloved stumbles into Sethe's yard and also stays with them.
Denver is initially happy to have Beloved around, but learns that she is Sethe's reincarnated daughter. Nonetheless, she chooses not to divulge Beloved's origins to Sethe. One night, Beloved, aware that Paul D. dislikes her, immobilizes him with a spell and proceeds to assault him sexually. Paul D. resolves to tell Sethe what happened, but instead tells what has happened to a co-worker, Stamp Paid (Albert Hall). Stamp Paid, who has known Sethe for many years, pulls a newspaper clipping featuring Sethe and tells her story to the illiterate Paul D.
Years ago, Sethe was raped by the nephews of Schoolteacher, the owner of Sweet Home. She complained to Mrs. Garner, Schoolteacher's sister-in-law, who confronted him. In retaliation, Schoolteacher and his nephews whip Sethe. Heavily pregnant with her fourth child, Sethe planned to escape. Her other children were sent off earlier to live with Baby Suggs, Sethe's mother-in-law, but Sethe stayed behind to look for her husband, Halle (Hill Harper) Sethe was assaulted while searching for him in the barn. The Schoolteacher's nephews held her down, raped her and forcibly took her breast milk.
When Halle failed to comply, Sethe ran off alone. She crossed paths with Amy Denver, a white girl who treated Sethe's injuries and delivered Sethe's child, whom Sethe named Denver after Amy. Sethe eventually reached Baby Suggs' home, but her initial happiness was short-lived when Schoolteacher came to claim Sethe and her children. In desperation, Sethe slits her older daughter's throat, and attempts to kill her other children. Stamp Paid manages to stop her and the disgusted Schoolteacher departs.
Paul D., horrified by the revelation and suddenly understanding the origin of the poltergeist, confronts Sethe. Sethe justifies her decision without apology, claiming that her children would be better off dead than enslaved. Paul D. departs shortly thereafter in protest. After Paul D.'s departure, Sethe realizes that Beloved is the reincarnation of her dead daughter. Feeling elated yet guilty, Sethe spoils Beloved with elaborate gifts while neglecting Denver. Beloved soon throws a destructive tantrum and her malevolent presence causes living conditions in the house to deteriorate. The women live in squalor and Sethe is unable to work. Denver becomes depressed yet, inspired by a memory of her grandmother's confidence in her, she eventually musters the courage to leave the house and seek employment.
After Denver attains employment, women from the local church visit Sethe's house at the request of her new co-worker to perform an exorcism. The women from the church comfort the family, and they are praying and singing loudly when Denver's new employer arrives to pick her up for work. Sethe sees him and, reminded of Schoolteacher's arrival, tries to attack him with an icepick, but is subdued by Denver and the women. During the commotion, Beloved disappears completely and Sethe, freed from Beloved's grip, becomes permanently bedridden.
Some months later, Paul D. encounters Denver at the marketplace. He notices she has transformed into a confident and mature young woman. When Paul D. later arrives at Sethe's house, he finds her suffering from a deep malaise. He assures Sethe that he and Denver will now take care of her. Sethe tells him that she doesn't see the point, as Beloved, her "best thing", is gone. Paul D. disagrees, telling Sethe that she herself is her own best thing.

Tags: tragedy, romantic

Review:
Fantastic, for those who love Honoré's movies.
Let's get the hard part out of the way: most Americans are going to hate this movie, so if you're an American, or if you're not an America but your taste runs toward Hollywood blockbusters, don't waste your time watching Beloved and our time reading about how much you hate it.
It's a very serious, complex, slow-moving (almost 2½ hours long, with no more than ten seconds of action), lyrical movie about messed up people who break into song at nearly every opportunity; and they're not typical American show tunes, or hip-hop, or rock in any form at all.
Even when some of the lyrics are in English, the songs sound French, and I'm sure to 80% of American ears they all sound the same.
Unless that prospect intrigues you, or you're already a Christophe Honoré fan, look elsewhere.
You won't like this movie.
You'll probably hate this movie.
You've been warned - you have no excuse now for watching it and then telling us all how much you hate it.Now for the easy part, because now I'm talking to people who either already love Christophe Honoré's movies or are open-minded and curious enough to give them a shot.
Beloved (thank God they've set that wonderful title free from Oprah's maudlin clutches) fits perfectly in line after his marvelous Chansons d'amour (Love Songs) and haunting La belle personne (The Beautiful Person).
Each movie in that trio is more complex than the last, and each one is better than almost any movie made by anybody else.
Love Songs, especially, has continued to send unexpected waves of joy rolling my way since I first watched it (I just realized) exactly three years ago today.Love Songs is special to me in part because the core relationship in it is between two men (I'm gay), and it's probably the sexiest, most beautifully realized gay relationship I've ever seen in a movie.
One of the leads in Beloved is gay, but none of the core relationships (there are several - as I said, it's more complex) in this movie is gay.
I thought that would be a turn-off, but it's not, and here's why: Chiara Mastroianni.I've seen Mastroianni before (she has a supporting role in Love Songs), and I've even seen her act with her mother (Catherine Deneuve) before, in André Téchiné's Ma saison préférée (My Favorite Season) nearly 20 years ago.
I've never seen her carry a whole movie before, as she does this one - and she's fantastic.She and the gay man connect, sort of - as much as any two people in this complicated movie connect.
Normally I'd really hate that, because I'm so sick of gay men in movies hooking up with women I could pull my hair out.
But she's so good in this movie - her Véra is such an appealing and interesting character - that I don't mind.
Getting to see how good SHE (Mastroianni) is is worth it.The rest of the cast is great too.
Deneuve gets earthier and more accessible every time I see her, which is good because I couldn't stand the Ice Princess she played for the first several decades of her long career.
Either she's opened up a lot in the last 15 years or so or directors are finally discovering how good she is playing other kinds of roles.Louis Garrel, Ludivine Sagnier (both also in Love Songs), Paul Schneider (an American actor I'd never seen before), and Czech director Milos Forman in an acting role for the first time that I've seen - all are very good.But the star of any Christophe Honoré movie, for me, is Christophe Honoré himself.
He takes conventional movie elements - comedy, drama, romance, character study, music, song and others - and weaves them together in fresh and unconventional ways that yet never seem forced or precocious.
I wouldn't try to explain anything he does because I wouldn't know how to.
All I know to do with his movies is relax, let go, and let him take me for a ride.
I was surprised to see that most people across the internet hate this movie.
I don't (and I am a recent Film grad, to qualify that).
In fact, this is one of the most perfect movies I've ever seen, and one of my top 3 favorite French films.
I was incredibly surprised by how long it was.
A musical-y epic?
But towards the second half I could actually sense how devoted Honore must've been to this movie, and why he didn't want to compromise it by condensing it.
I watched this on my laptop logistics-wise, so I didn't have the same experience as someone stuck in a chair in a too-cold theater.
The cast?
Perhaps could've been improved upon, but it's the familiar Honore cast and as such carries with it solid chemistry that was essential to the story.
It channeled the Umbrellas of Cherbourg, with its lovely palette of colors.
Yes, it has songs, and *yes* it took creative license.
My imagination is vivid, so I didn't have to tax it too much to buy the story.
I think the <25 demographic would prefer it more than the 30+.I feel that people had problems with it because they were expecting a da Vinci, but this is highly Impressionist in spirit..
Splendid Cast, But The Musical is Just Satisfactory!.
Very rarely are movies made about unrequited (one-sided) love and love lost, let alone musicals.
It's good and somewhat interesting; though it tests your patience a lot.
With the terrific star-cast it has, I expected a lot more.
It falls short of a definite and good plot, and it lacks heart.Catherine Deneuve is not even utilized properly.
Ludivine Sagnier is charming; it's amazing how much she has grown up since Ozon's 'Swimming Pool'.
And it was delightful to see Paul Schneider in this French musical.
The remaining cast just does their job, which is not much.Even though it's a musical, the songs are quite average.
The only song I actually loved is 'Ici Londres (Heaven Knows)', sung by Chiara Mastroianni and Paul Schneider..
A beautiful Honoré.
This film is remarkable.Beautifully shot, full of inventions, the film is extremely refreshing as most of Honoré's work.
The tone is pop and lighthearted, while addressing unconventional subjects, such as elder's sexuality.The casting is impeccable as always with Honoré.
If the duo Deneuve-Sagnier and the depiction of a female character of that generation had a taste of dejà-vu (Ozon?
Todd Haynes?), Honoré managed to make it feel like unexplored territory.
But that's with Vera's character that Honoré is at its best.
Mastroianni is AMAZING!!
You've never seen a woman in her late 30's depicted that way in a movie.The downturn of the film are the singing parts.
It really doesn't work and it's even painful to watch.
Other than Jacques Demy's films, one can think of Resnais's "On connait la chanson", Ozon's "8 femmes" or Ducastel & Martineau's "Jeanne et le garçon formidable" as examples of the successful mix of serious subject matters and musical.
But with Honoré, it doesn't work (with the exception of the elegant telephone scene with Duris and Preiss in "Dans Paris").
It's tempting to just recommend to skip the singing parts as the film is otherwise quite long.Other than that, the film is a must see..
my second Honore musical.
Way way way too long.
The nearly three hour run-time is longer than all the parking meters in the area of the theater, so i even risked a parking ticket to see the end of this flick!
Lots of actors from a previous Honore musical: "Love Songs" (which ran a respectable 100 minutes).
Sagnier gets the movie off the ground and then Deneuve sinks it.
There might be a decent musical in there somewhere.
Ludivine Sagnier is one of the many attractive gems of European Leading Ladies of the cinema.
She and Isabelle Huppert are my favorite French Actresses nowadays.
It's always tricky to cross generational lines and use different actors for the same character in different stages in life.
Even the most forgiving viewer might find himself at odds reconciling the tall handsome young "Jaromil" with his older version, regardless of how well and charming the part was played.
If you liked "Love Songs" then you will feel at home with the Alex Beaupain score..
The Problem With this Film.
The problem with this film is Christophe Honoré.
A 2 and ½ hour film about self-indulgent people explaining why they are unhappy at being self-indulgent.
It could have been done one hour shorter.
The half musical score is a feeble attempt to be the the Umbrellas of Cherbourg.
Trying to be French new wave cool instead of being good.
I'm convinced Christophe would have tried to make a musical out of Cloud Atlas.
I love the cast but after 2 and ½ hours I was wishing they would take an overdose and end my suffering and theirs.
Catherine Deneuve, always beautiful and her daughter in film and real life, Chiara Mastroianni, convincing as a seductress, but they were the only high points in the film for me.
I rate this film a good sleep aide...
A difficult choice: Watch this film or stick pins in your eyes?.
If the cinema had fixed up the seats to the electric mains and had run through 20,000 volts every 5 minutes I might just have enjoyed this film.
As it was, me, my wife and the 12 other unfortunates who had not read IMDb reviews before purchasing tickets suffered the worst 2 and one quarter hours of French cinema ever printed to pass through the gate of a projector.OK - it started fine and looked as if it was going to be a nice piece of retro-Parisien farce but then...they began to sing.
And at various stages through this loooooooooong film some character or other would start wandering through the streets of Paris, Reims, London, Montreal, wherever, and start with the stupid words ("Big Ben has melted and I can't tell the time") and turgid tunes.All the characters were unpleasant to various degrees and totally and utterly unbelievable.
Good news, two of them did, bad news, the others lived to keep on wandering the streets turgidly wittering on....
This review can't possibly contain plot spoilers as there was no plot.Acting was average at best.
Singing was just awful.
I didn't even know it was a musical (term used loosely here) until someone started 'singing'.The storyline was largely incoherent and when it was coherent it was criminally bad.
We, along with virtually everyone else, left the cinema before it finished so I don't know how it ended but I can guarantee that it was terrible unless the final scene was Ashton Kutcher revealing that we had all been Punk'd.
All in all it was very disappointing, if slightly unintentionally hilarious, and a poor representation of the French film industry.
The Idea was good, but the world isn't ready yet.
The idea of this film is alright: We always try to love someone who does not respond our love.
On this way we add one affair to the other without caring for the people we hurt.
I personally think you could make a good film out of all the star actors and this basic idea, but this is not a good film.
You can see here bad acting, strange characters and an overloaded story.
Especially the characters do not make any sense.
This wanted to be an Almodovar-film or Philip Kaufman's The Unbearable Lightness of Being, but it was none of it.
Too long and morose.
I rather enjoyed the first 45 minutes of "Beloved." Ludivine Sagnier, one of my favorite actresses, plays a 1960s French woman who is confused by love.
I was still with the story as the years passed and Sagnier matures into Catherine Deneuve, in a nifty bit of casting.
However as the story shifts to that of daughter Vera, it all becomes a bit too morose for me.
Vera for some reason becomes obsessed with a man who cannot love her back.
It simply appears the young woman is eager to destroy her life.There are very strong echoes here of the Truffaut film "The Story of Adele H." Truffaut, however, was well aware he was filming the story of a woman's descent into madness and hell.
In "Beloved," director Christophe Honoré takes a similar story but shoots it in a very different light.
He seems to think there is something so very romantic about desperately loving someone who cannot possibly love you back.Honoré throws in everything but the kitchen sink here, covering topics from Aids to 9/11.
But, at around 2 hours and 20 minutes, it's all too much for such a morose topic.
I probably should have turned it off after those first 45 minutes..
nostalgia for the Babyboom-generation.
The well-made "Les bien-aimes" (= French for "the well loved-ones") shows a pretty extended plot.
Stretching from the 19-Sixties up to 2007, it focuses on the lifetime so far of the baby-boom-generation.
It contains all ingredients for recognizing a Babyboomer's life.
Acted out by a number of France's best actors and actresses, Catherine Deneuve prominently among them.In spite of its serious tuning, this film nowhere and never puts any weight on your mind.
Which is characteristic for the French cinema.
Another French characteristic: it leaves you with a good aftertaste..
I made the mistake of thinking the Sundance channel was showing the excruciating Oprah Winfrey "Beloved" one night and missed this movie as a result.
All I can say is: I simply love Christophe Honore movies (: Is it that he has a gay sensibility?
Is it that I love Alex Beaupain's songs?
"Love Songs" is one of my all-time favorite films as well, and for many of the same reasons.The actors in this movie are all simply superb.
If I single out Milos Forman it's only because I was so surprised by his acting choices.
But the trio of female stars are all wonderful, fresh and amazing.
Louis Garrel and the polish actor who plays the younger Jaromil are terrific too.
Paul Schneider is an actor I hope to see again in other things.I found the film exciting, not boring; the camera-work, the editing, the pacing, the music, the colors, even the length of the movie (2 hrs., 19 minutes) exhilarating!
This is the kind of film that you have to surrender and allow yourself to be "inside" the movie during it's running time, without reservation.This is a movie for people who love french cinema, as I do - it's my favorite country, without exception, for movies these days..
A Song Is Stillborn.
It takes a lot to get me to pay good money to see one of Cristope Honore's wet dreams and it'll take even more after this bad joke.
The selling point such as it was took the shape of a chance to see Catherine Deneuve playing opposite her real-life daughter Chiara Mastroianni, as they did a couple of years ago in A Christmas Tale.
I really should have known better, after all Honore did little for Isabel Huppert's career when he featured her in Ma Mere albeit Huppert has a penchant, unlike Deneuve, for appearing in sleaze and is such a great actress she is able to live it down.
For Deneuve it must have felt like a sentimental journey of sorts given that her breakthrough role came in The Umbrellas Of Cherbourg where one hundred per cent of the dialogue was sung.
Here it's something like seventy per cent and in forty eight years the lyrics here are just as banal as Demy provided for Umbrellas but the big difference is 1) Demy had the benefit of Michele Legrand's melodic gifts and was himself a gifted director whilst Honore is lumbered with a tone-deaf composer and couldn't direct a sex-starved sailor to a hooker in Hamburg.
A very flat, two dimensional movie (boring).
I was very surprised at how dull and lifeless this movie is.
The French movies that I have seen in the past are usually very well produced with excellent acting.
When I fall asleep in the first 20 minutes of a movie,there is usually something wrong with it(the movie).
It is as if the director was trying to tell a grand story about the human condition, but didn't know how to do it.
Dull,lifeless and boring.
This movie is not representative of the excellent French movie industry as a whole.
I especially did not like the singing.
There was no buildup to the singing, it was delivered in a very unemotional flat way.
I walked out of the movie after 35 minutes in because of the lack of dynamics involved, the actors and actresses in the movie were simply afraid to act..
I wish I could be more specific, but it's obvious that Facebook--even with its 50 new gender\orientation labels announced this week--STILL lags far behind the French cinema in imagining variations of desire and longing.
Between BELOVED and last year's sex epic BLUE IS THE WARMEST COLOR, every possible sexual proclivity and\or perversion is covered at least once.
BELOVED more aptly could be titled RED SHOES, as "hot" spike heels of that color star at the beginning and ending of this lengthy spelunking expedition through the cavernous Tunnel of Love, turning "young" Madeleine into a whore, and apparently leading her daughter Vera to dance (figuratively, at least) amid the falling ashes of 9-11 victims.
I think it was Gertrude Stein who said, "those who can, do; those who can't, sing sad songs in French." Though lovers of plaintive Parisian ballads will award BELOVED with ratings of 8, it's only fair to point out that one-third of this flick involves people wandering actual French city streets at night, wailing out sad ditties about horribly bad sex to anyone within earshot, as a stage spotlight inexplicably follows them along!