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Amazon.co.uk Review
Chantal Akerman's La Captive is a deceptively simple story following the fascination of a wealthy young man for his apparently innocent and lovely girlfriend. Only loosely drawn from Proust's La Prisonniere, the Proustian elements are often largely submerged. Yet as a study in obsession it is balanced somewhere between Death in Venice and Vertigo. A chase through the streets of--an apparently timeless but actually contemporary--Paris, this is a picture of inexplicable obsession, moved along by fragments of whispered dialogue and a glimpse of bizarre daily ritual. With much of the story framed within the odd anti-hero Simon's grandiose apartment (which he appropriately shares with an ailing, rarely glimpsed grandmother), the film cleverly avoids suffocating its viewers by giving odd gasps of breath from the cheeky, light encounters between his girlfriend Ariane and the beautiful Andree--friends, or possibly sometime lovers. As a portrait of a relationship, La Captive will keep its viewers absorbed with its elegant tone and its intriguing and inexplicable story; but it might just as easily frustrate with its unresolved twists and turns.--Tricia Tuttle
Special Features
1.85 Wide Screen
16:9 Anamorphic Wide Screen
French
Region 2
Dolby Digital 2.0 French
Dolby Digital 2.0
Theatrical Trailer
Production Notes
Filmographies
English
16:9 Anamorphic Wide Screen
French
Region 2
Dolby Digital 2.0 French
Dolby Digital 2.0
Theatrical Trailer
Production Notes
Filmographies
English
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
8 of 10 people found the following review helpful
Format:DVD|Amazon Verified Purchase
Everyone seems to love Proust, except moi. I have tried. I have tried to read 'In search of lost time, Swann's way' etc but it leaves me stone cold. The endless boring sentences:'the room was large, the sofa red and gold, the rug made of bear fur, the chandelier was gold, the window was large and filled the room with brilliant sunlight, the fire was unlit, the gramophone was silent, the garden could be seen from the window, the grass was green, the sky was blue, the birds sang, a dog barked...ad infinitum'...
And so it is with the Proust inspired 'The Captive'. It is dull.
Essentially a bored rich young man has nothing better to do except smother his girlfriend controlling her like a robot. It is typically French: 'I love your veg, Ina, sometimes it smells strong but that just makes me love it more. Sometimes when you are asleep I part your legs and just look at its loveliness, do you mind?', 'Non! I do not mind!'
The young man is like Proust. He stays indoors and is allergic to everything. Except he is not. He looks like an athlete, an Olympic swimmer. Proust was a very frail man. Our young man fears his girlfriend prefers women. He ends the relationship as a kind of test of her love. Eventually she can't take any more and we get the tragic but tediously obvious ending. The 'hero' is a deeply irritating individual and a classic example of 'the devil finding work for idle hands'. He is idle and his life utterly futile. It is quite pretty and every shot is like a painting. It is French and it is thoughtful but like Marcel is is deeply dull....
And so it is with the Proust inspired 'The Captive'. It is dull.
Essentially a bored rich young man has nothing better to do except smother his girlfriend controlling her like a robot. It is typically French: 'I love your veg, Ina, sometimes it smells strong but that just makes me love it more. Sometimes when you are asleep I part your legs and just look at its loveliness, do you mind?', 'Non! I do not mind!'
The young man is like Proust. He stays indoors and is allergic to everything. Except he is not. He looks like an athlete, an Olympic swimmer. Proust was a very frail man. Our young man fears his girlfriend prefers women. He ends the relationship as a kind of test of her love. Eventually she can't take any more and we get the tragic but tediously obvious ending. The 'hero' is a deeply irritating individual and a classic example of 'the devil finding work for idle hands'. He is idle and his life utterly futile. It is quite pretty and every shot is like a painting. It is French and it is thoughtful but like Marcel is is deeply dull....
3 of 4 people found the following review helpful
Format:DVD
I can't say that I've read Proust so whether this is a true reflection of his writing, I don't know, but if his books are long, ponderous, dawdling with nothing as such actually happening then maybe it does reflect his writing.
I realise that this isn't 'Tropic Thunder' or anything as action packed but nothing happens in this film, it starts and 112 long minutes later, it finishes.
The only scene that I can remember after watching it less than 24 hours ago is when the male lead dry humps his sleeping 'girlfriend', makes a mess in his pyjamas and she wakes up afterwards moaning somebody else's name.
Pretentious drivel.
I realise that this isn't 'Tropic Thunder' or anything as action packed but nothing happens in this film, it starts and 112 long minutes later, it finishes.
The only scene that I can remember after watching it less than 24 hours ago is when the male lead dry humps his sleeping 'girlfriend', makes a mess in his pyjamas and she wakes up afterwards moaning somebody else's name.
Pretentious drivel.
13 of 18 people found the following review helpful
Format:DVD
Loosely based on a work by Proust, this is a film which rapidly dissolves into obscurity and enigmatic pretensions. A rich, effete, dilettante young man is obsessed by his skinny (almost anorexic) girlfriend. He doesn't work, he doesn't have to. Occasionally, he does some translation of literary texts ... when he can be bothered. The sole purpose for his pampered, purposeless, passionless life seems to be his obsession. He's loathe to let her out of his sight unless accompanied by another, equally slim, young woman and without, apparently, the further chaperone of a camera.
He keeps his captive in his house, she is invited to visit his bed from time to time, but his sexual contact is adolescent, premature, and entirely self-centred. He is obsessed. But what does she appear to gain from the relationship? She lives a life of idleness and ennui. Deciding which dress to wear is the most exciting and most challenging thing she will do in the day. She certainly does not appear to be captive. Somehow, she has captivated him, and he is the one trapped by the nature of his obsession.
Quite frankly, it's a film in which I could not identify with any of the characters, could not sympathise with any of them, and in no way wished to sympathise with any of them. Obsession is a fascinating subject for literary or cinematic enquiry. Obsession, here, takes place in such an extraordinary and unreal a setting as to make it trivial and unbelievable. Obsession becomes transparently the vehicle for a story which otherwise has no substance, and the absurdity of the setting robs the vehicle of any drive or direction.
In the end, you want to be charitable and decide that this is not pretentious drivel, and then wonder if you are trapped in your own intellectual pretensions and are extending too much weight and significance to this film because it's French? If it had been an American or a British movie, I would have been instantly more scathing. Because it's French, I looked for greater depth, sophistication and significance. Ultimately, therefore, I won't be charitable - this is pretentious drivel!
He keeps his captive in his house, she is invited to visit his bed from time to time, but his sexual contact is adolescent, premature, and entirely self-centred. He is obsessed. But what does she appear to gain from the relationship? She lives a life of idleness and ennui. Deciding which dress to wear is the most exciting and most challenging thing she will do in the day. She certainly does not appear to be captive. Somehow, she has captivated him, and he is the one trapped by the nature of his obsession.
Quite frankly, it's a film in which I could not identify with any of the characters, could not sympathise with any of them, and in no way wished to sympathise with any of them. Obsession is a fascinating subject for literary or cinematic enquiry. Obsession, here, takes place in such an extraordinary and unreal a setting as to make it trivial and unbelievable. Obsession becomes transparently the vehicle for a story which otherwise has no substance, and the absurdity of the setting robs the vehicle of any drive or direction.
In the end, you want to be charitable and decide that this is not pretentious drivel, and then wonder if you are trapped in your own intellectual pretensions and are extending too much weight and significance to this film because it's French? If it had been an American or a British movie, I would have been instantly more scathing. Because it's French, I looked for greater depth, sophistication and significance. Ultimately, therefore, I won't be charitable - this is pretentious drivel!
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
Getting to Prousts obsession
This film is a very accurate depiction of the mood created in a small part of Prousts novel. Updated to modern day Paris, it reflects the obsession(Simon) Marcel has for Ariane... Read more
Published 18 months ago by John Haynes
Quality French cinema
An impressive and captivating (no pun intended!) film from Chantal Akerman. As others have rightly noted, it is loosely based on Proust's novel La Prisonniere from In Search of... Read more
Published 18 months ago by Essex Reviewer
A magnificently subtle film
This loose adaptation of Proust makes for a quiet, intense, low key look at the dysfunctional relationship between a very rich young man and the young woman he `keeps' at his... Read more
Published 24 months ago by K. Gordon
The photography's not bad
Despite having read some discouraging reviews and knowing that this film was not being sold on Amazon France (never a good sign), I thought that as an amateur of Proust who has... Read more
Published 24 months ago by R. Napier
Proust stripped bare by his suitors
While loosely based on the Proust volume from "Rembrance of Things Past", this film should be seen as very much as a highly stripped down version; not surprisingly given the length... Read more
Published on 13 Oct 2002
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