The film's reception was fairly warm overall, although high marks from the notoriously tough Mike D'Angelo gave me a lot of hope.Īs the film's U.S. In the months leading up to the film, I read up on it as much as I could, and occasionally checked out reviews of the film- carefully though, so I wouldn't spoil my first viewing.
Much more of a factor for me was the film's cast, a veritable who's-who of French leading ladies- Danielle Darrieux, Isabelle Huppert, Fanny Ardant, Emmanuelle Béart, and particularly Catherine Deneuve, who was my favorite then as now. I had been a fan of Ozon's film Under the Sand previously, but my interest in the film was only mildly due to his involvement. I first read about the film in early 2002 in Film Comment. For me, the best example of this is François Ozon's 2002 film, 8 Women. Occasionally, we feel close to movies that no one else seems to love as much as we do, or at least no one we know. However, it's not like this for all the movies we love. Such was the case with the subject of my first "Movies of My Life" column back in December, Back to the Future. Sometimes, these movies are widely loved, and as such they become a common currency among all those who love them. Most of these movies are legitimately great, but our love for them transcends quality. We all have movies we love, and movies to which we feel a particular closeness.