L`ennui [VHS] [2000]

The negative feedback on this film MUST be by people who have missed the whole point of this strange but wonderful film.
It is about the desire to possess that which cannot be possessed at all and the sheer frustration and madness that follows such an impossible quest. Beautifully played by all concerned, this is not a parody of French cinema: it is a classic example of all that is good about French cinema. None of the sex scenes are gratuitous (or particularly erotic, funnily enough) and Sophie Guillemin is nobody's idea of a sex goddess, so, if it's a thrill you want, don't bother. But is you want quality cinema, this is one for you!

This is an incredibly honest portrayal of a love-game that I know very well. He is jittery, intellectual, unstable, both needing and fearing female attention. She doesn't like to think, and feels nothing beyond her own needs, and will take whatever the world offers her if it suits her. He walks into a trap, knowing full well it's a trap that can only lead to his destruction. To her it's just `nice', in a world of `nice' and `not nice', where there are no morals or rules, and only the immediate gratification of her own needs.

The drama is played out beautifully, and completely - no detail of this love-game has been overlooked. If any of this sounds familiar, you're really going to appreciate this film.

Let me start by stating that I do not understand the 5 one-star reviews; this is a wonderful movie. It is frighteningly accurate and beautifully acted.
I presume it is called Ennui because boredom can lead to obsessional, self-destructive patterns of behaviour. Nothing is more destructive than trying to catch the wind.
Here an older man (a philosopher poet - aren't all Frenchmen?) meets a younger woman who has caused another older man to die 'loving her'.
Our hero believes he can view things objectively: 'you seem most ordinary, not at all the kind of a woman to cause a man to lose his head!' he boldly states.
She just shrugs unemotionally. She is without emotion, a true nymphomaniac. She gets all she needs through intimate physical contact.
Within moments they are making love and his fate is sealed. His ego is on the rocks. He's doomed.
Aristotle warned: 'do not seek a greater degree of clarity than the subject matter allows' and our hero fails to heed these words.
La femme fatale offers herself up to him completely, but like many young females she has no thought or time for exclusiveness - she has, in fact, a younger, unemployed boyfriend who she no doubt relates to more closely, and she makes it quite clear that they make love whenever they meet: 'what is that stain on your dress?' our post Lapsarian hero asks her: 'Momo and I made love yesterday and I kept my clothes on' she replies matter of fact. She is always truthful and it is her truth that cuts through him like a rapier. His need to possess forces him to ask more and more searching questions and her honest answers make him more insecure and his actions become more inflamed by jealousy: 'you are a wreck!' his ex girlfriend tells him. He could of course have stuck with his beautiful, far more suitable, ex, but l'ennui and his need for self discovery has forced him to face the void; and he cannot handle it.
Nothing scares a man more than an uncontrollable woman.
He even ends up offering her money so she have can have a better holiday with her boyfriend: an unselfish act of love that is of course not so unselfish; he is immediately rewarded by her intimate and enthusiastic attentions in bed. She wants to do it everywhere; in the car, in the woods, in the cinema.
Ennui is a study of absurdity, existentialism and basic human nature. A fecund young woman who simply wants attention and especially sensual attention, and a bored older man who wants to turn back the tide and who cannot handle sharing and not being worshiped and obeyed like a god.
Of course all this tension and jealousy leads to endless passionate love and that is the 'up'side if you like of obsession but the downside is terrible.
If you like thoughtful realistic studies of human relationships then this is for you. It's a masterpiece of its genre and only the enlightened, morally free thinking, French can make this kind of movie.
Tres Bonne! Vive le France! JP :)