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Cool and introspective, Otto Preminger's sleek, stylish Bonjour Tristesse is one of his most understated films. Jean Seberg stars as a spoiled teenager who acts with a high-society sophistication beyond her years, and dapper David Niven is her playboy father, going through young female playmates like socks. Flitting through the French jet set and comparing conquests, they summer on the gorgeous French Riviera, where mature fashion designer Deborah Kerr enters their lives and wins Niven's heart. Seeing an end to her lifestyle, Seberg plots an end to the relationship with equal parts conniving ruthlessness and juvenile prankishness, too self-absorbed to even consider the brutal results of her actions. Told in flashback from a sleek but shadowy black-and-white Paris, the film melts into the vivid Technicolor of memory. Seberg's voiceover narration is arch, but her impish, often petulant performance is perfect, as is Niven's flippant, womanizing bachelor father (Preminger lets their curious, flirtatious intimacy hang like an unanswered question and a nervous subtext). Kerr's middle-aged working woman seems almost puritanical compared to the irrepressible travelers, but under her rules and limits lies an honest concern for a "child" who believes herself an adult. Preminger's camera prowls through the drama just removed enough to be respectful, and intimate enough to get under the characters' skin. Like the best of his dramas, there are no heroes or villains, only complex, flawed, achingly sympathetic characters. --Sean Axmaker
Product Description
United Kingdom released, PAL/Region 2 DVD: LANGUAGES: English ( Mono ), French ( Mono ), German ( Mono ), Italian ( Mono ), Spanish ( Mono ), Arabic ( Subtitles ), Dutch ( Subtitles ), English ( Subtitles ), French ( Subtitles ), German ( Subtitles ), Greek ( Subtitles ), Hindi ( Subtitles ), Hungarian ( Subtitles ), Italian ( Subtitles ), Portuguese ( Subtitles ), Spanish ( Subtitles ), Turkish ( Subtitles ), ANAMORPHIC WIDESCREEN (2.35:1), SPECIAL FEATURES: Anamorphic Widescreen, Interactive Menu, Scene Access, SYNOPSIS: In the French Riviera, the spoiled and futile seventeen years old girl Cecile (Jean Seberg) is spending the summer vacation with her father, the widow playboy and bon-vivant Raymond (David Niven), and his girlfriend Elsa (Mylène Demongeot). Cecile has a serious Complex of Oedipus with her father, and they have a quite incestuous relationship. The successful designer and former friend of her mother Anne Larson (Deborah Kerr) arrives in their seaside house invited by Raymond to spend a couple of days with them, and the life of Cecile changes when Raymond proposes Anne to marry him. Full of jealousy, Cecile plots with Elsa to separate Anne from Raymond. ...Bonjour Tristesse
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
38 of 41 people found the following review helpful
Format:DVD
From the monotone, monochrome opening of "Bonjour Tristesse" we immediately learn that Cecile is a young woman ill at ease in the world. In spite of her wealthy, apparently carefree lifestyle, where the champagne flows freely and the male admirers are equally as rich and effervescent - nothing is able to touch Cecile's heart. She is, as the black and white imagery suggests, locked in a world of sadness, surrounded by her "wall of memories". The film then shifts into technicolour, as Cecile (Jean Seberg)recounts how, only a year earlier, as a
seventeen year old, her life was happy and filled with possibility. We follow the story of how she and her father (a thoroughly rogueish David Niven) have been, in one summer on the South of France, abruptly confronted by the consequences of their casualness towards the feelings of other human beings, and how they have both come to pay the ultimate price for their selfish "live now pay later" mastercard philosophy of the heart.
Stylishly filmed, "Bonjour Tristesse" is a movie which will haunt you. Not merely because of the poignancy of lost innocence which Jean Seberg's performance depicts so well, but because it places its fingers on the wound all of us carry with us - the moment, when we cannot quite say, exactly when childhood slipped away.
seventeen year old, her life was happy and filled with possibility. We follow the story of how she and her father (a thoroughly rogueish David Niven) have been, in one summer on the South of France, abruptly confronted by the consequences of their casualness towards the feelings of other human beings, and how they have both come to pay the ultimate price for their selfish "live now pay later" mastercard philosophy of the heart.
Stylishly filmed, "Bonjour Tristesse" is a movie which will haunt you. Not merely because of the poignancy of lost innocence which Jean Seberg's performance depicts so well, but because it places its fingers on the wound all of us carry with us - the moment, when we cannot quite say, exactly when childhood slipped away.
13 of 17 people found the following review helpful
Format:DVD
The use of black and white versus colour to reflect the desert of her present life compared to her previous golden existence is notable, true. The story is simple, almost simplistic, and the film joggles because of the alternately stiff or almost sing-song delivery of lines. It shows more like a stage play than a film. But it's more the era in which the film was made rather than poor acting, I think. It's worthy, but still worth watching: Cecile as the gamine social butterfly is luminous and mesmerizing; Raymond as the feeble, immoral bon vivant, pathetic. The film, for all its faults, is rather better made and has more wistful charm and punch (cf. the final scene) than some of the drivel one pays to see in the cinema these days.
3 of 4 people found the following review helpful
Format:DVD
Just a quick word as there are no reviews for this film as yet. David Niven makes a superb performance in this film which is undoubtedly one of the funniest films of its kind. Unfortunately this appears to be out of print and so subsequently is very expensive. Hopefully there will be a new edition at some point soon!
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
Fantastic
Excellent product. Whole heartedly recommended. The whole buying and receiving experience was faultless and flawless. No problems at all. Read more
Published 6 months ago by Dr. Aslan Mordecai
Bonjour Tristesse (DVD)
I thought I had already reviewed this item! I was very happy with the service and the the DVD was excellent. Read more
Published 7 months ago by E. Lombard
Missing the point.
"For all its frantic pleasure seeking and superficial pizazz, their round of party going and revolving door relationships in Paris and on the Riviera strikes me as lacking any real... Read more
Published 12 months ago by Mrs. Susan E. A. Andrews
Bonjour Tristesse Film of the Book by Francoise Sagan.
A very good story with a great performance from the teenage Jean Seberg who was quite at ease with the very cool and elegant Deborah Kerr, who at that time was a very well... Read more
Published 19 months ago by Paul Blue Eyes.
"A dress makes no sense unless it inspires men to want to take it off...
The problem with Bonjour Tristesse is that director Otto Preminger and scriptwriter Arthur Laurents fail to establish why the viewer should care about the past and present... Read more
Published 20 months ago by Humpty Dumpty
YVONNE DE CARLO & DAVID NIVEN
HAPPY EVER AFTER is also known by it's other film title of TONIGHT'S THE NIGHT.
It is a very funny comedy,shot in both England and Ireland in glorious colour,amongst
some... Read more
It is a very funny comedy,shot in both England and Ireland in glorious colour,amongst
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Published 21 months ago by Mr. W. J. Wright
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