To Our Loves (1983) User Reviews

A little misplaced

[Rodrigo_Amaro · 6/10 · 3 May 2013]

A perfect example which illustrates why being truth to life sometimes doesn't often equal great movies. Maurice Pialat wasn't completely truthful in its depiction of youth's shallowness but he isn't completely off mark, just a few objectionable things that look bizarre, too exploitative or unbelievable. But that's life sometimes. "À Nos Amours" ("To Our Loves") focus is a teenage girl (Sandrine Bonnaire) and the way she conducts her sexual relationships, first with a boyfriend, the good hearted Luc (Cyr Boitard), and later evolves to sometimes mindless, sometimes affectionate casual encounters with other guys. Almost fine if it wasn't for her family bothering with this, and a somewhat unpredictable disintegration when her father (Pialat) decides to leave the family. What spirals after that is an emotional roller-coaster with the infatuated girl being a victim of constant reprehension and beatings from her older brother, now head of the family, and the mother who seems to be rotting away into madness, not knowing how to cope with everything happening around her. And there's plenty of time for her dedicate some time with her lovers, miserable for not getting the love she deserves.

One goes through this with plenty of expectations and interest but one walks out with plenty of reservations and little gain. C'mon, this was made in 1980's and you're telling me that even back then, in such a bourgeoisie family, allegedly cultured, they treat the typical adolescent behavior in that horrid way? With punches, yells and stuff? I would expect this in a poorer background. Everything's so over-the-top, so forced, very off-putting. The movie seems to suggest that there's something going on between father and daughter and also between brother and sister, just suggest some incestuous relations but never goes into that deep.

What Pialat captured with some excellency was youth's boredom, trying everything to escape from the usual routine of schools, classmates, and dealing with parents; youth's incapacity to love or find love, or using such as something to pass the time, not knowing what love truly means, going from one relationship to another, desperate to find something new that may cure them from their boredom and apathy towards life. This is clearly evidenced in the scene where the girl has an one night stand with an English sailor. She had her fun, experienced something great but she doesn't show much after the fact, a little worried because she cheated on her boyfriend. It isn't a first rate portrayal, obviously, but it's far more realistic than the other topics already mentioned (the family matters). The movie strangely went absurd towards the ending, giving unexplainable solutions and the strange return of the father.

I enjoyed this movie, enjoyed its good pace, it makes you interested with the very few it has to share. A little saddening that it wasn't all that much of a good film as a Cesar Award winner should be. Bonnaire, in one of her earliest roles, has plenty of qualities despite the relative lack of expression her character has, constantly down, sad, beaten. Far from being the great French cinema but beautiful to look at. 6/10

Life's not much fun when you don't love anyone.

[lastliberal · 8/10 · 29 September 2009]

France dubbed this the best film of 1983, and named the love Sandrine Bonnaire, in her first credited role, as it's most promising actress for that year. It is easy to see why as she was a joy to watch as she flitted from bed to bed trying to find happiness. I am sure there are many who will shirk at the thought of admiring the 15-year-old's body.

Those not in the loop on French films will not appreciate the style and grace of her life as she deals with a family that fights all the time, and can only find an outlet for emotions in the arms of willing lovers. But, she avoids the one who loves her Luc (Cyr Boitard), treating him like dirt when he says he loves her.

Excellent film with great performances by Maurice Pialat as the father and Evelyne Ker as the mother, as well as a knockout job by Bonnaire.

Je m'excuse. Can you tell me the way to the point?

[rmax304823 · 6/10 · 25 August 2012]

Well, the movie got one thing right anyway. Sandrine Bonnaire is the essence of sixteen-year-old nubility and it comes in a delightful frame. Don't worry too much, though. There's very little nudity and no simulated sex. She can act too. Once in a while she grins. But her default expression is one of solemn and distant contempt. It happens to fit the role because she's not supposed to be a happy adolescent, despite her middle-class family.

Sandrine lives at home with her father, her mother, and her possibly gender-confused, plump older brother. Her father, in this context, is the soul of common sense and tranquility. He's played by the director, Maurice Pialat, who had the good taste to give himself the good-guy role. Sandrine's mother, on the other hand, although she tries to live up to her responsibilities, is a whirlwind of hysteria with a waspish temper. She treat Sandrine the way my concierge treated me. She and Sandrine bat each other around -- really HARD, too, so you can hear the loud whacks as the blows land. When Mom isn't beating Sandrine, the brother is.

I want to give the film points for its elegant dinner conversation with guests present. They argue over who's the better artist and fling around names like Ingre and Bonnard. And they're entirely serious except when making up portmanteau words like "Picasshole." Well, that's the French for you. In a fancy restaurant in Paris there was a ruckus at the next table and one of the staff came over and apologized to us, explaining that the waiter was a Cartesian.

And how does Sandrine handle all this strife? Not well. She's really just a dependent kid, after all. She balls every boy who shows an interest in her, even if the kid can't speak French and, after intercourse, says, "Thanks a lot." With Sandrine's absent father and her mother the paragon of instability that she is, it's understandable that Sandrine's reaction is less than what Freud called "anaclitic." Sandrine isn't interested in older men, just horny high-school boys. And her musings sound like those of Henri, the existential cat. "It's terrible to love no one," and, "Sometimes it feels as if my heart has dried up."

What eluded me was the point of the movie. Is it that married couples who have been together for twenty years find that they don't have much to say to one another, and so they argue a lot? Is it that teens who are striving for an identity outside of the household run into trouble with their mothers who demand that they obey orders as if they were still toddlers? Is it that, even outside the household, teens have trouble deciding who they are and what they want because they don't have enough experience to decide? Well, knock me down with a banal feather!

I can tell you it wasn't that way when I struggled through high school. Oh, it was tough, sure, but there weren't any girls around who were as accommodating as Sandrine. You couldn't even get close to the plain-looking girls, let alone the devastating beauties. And these young punks take their access to her body for granted? I don't like those boys. Come to think of it, I don't like this movie because it has such lucky goons IN it. These kids are spoiled rotten. They don't have to put the least effort into what I yearned for, the swine. I ask you -- the sensitive and discerning viewer -- is it any wonder that the world is going to hell in a handbasket?

Pialat juggles detachment and intimacy to intriguing effect

[tomgillespie2002 · 7/10 · 21 May 2011]

15-year old Suzanne (Sandrine Bonnaire) is a precocious child, living with her mother, her career-driven brother, and her sometimes overbearing father (played by Maurice Pialat). She has recently split from her boyfriend and is intent on moving from man to man in search of sexual pleasures and guardianship. When her father splits from her mother and moves out, home life becomes unbearable as her mother and brother disapprove of her lifestyle. She is most comfortable in the arms of a man, be it one of her seducers or her father. Men seems to flock to her, as she is pretty, charming and is happy to accommodate her admirers.

This is the second film that I've seen directed by French master Maurice Pialat, the other being the excellent L'Enfance Nue. They are both similar films in terms of themes and execution, and tell the familiar coming-of-age story from an original perspective. Whereas the former was a sledgehammer portrayal of a young juvenile causing havoc amongst the various foster homes he was placed, where redemption never seems possible, A Nos Amours' Suzanne is a more sympathetic lead character, and her journey is portrayed in a more subtle manner. While it would be shocking to hear of a 15 year old girl bedding a number of men, Pialat is more focused on what drives her to act this way.

She is not a tease, and she doesn't flaunt her body to anyone who will look. Instead, she seems to simply enjoy the comfort of a man. When the father moves away, her home life falls apart and her bed-mates increase. Perhaps Pialat is trying to portray the impact an absent father can have on a child, or that all women need comforting every once in a while. Or maybe this is an individual character study, with no overriding message. What it most definitely is, though, is a wonderfully acted (especially from the young Bonnaire), intelligent, and intriguing film that has Pialat's usual cold detachment alongside a certain intimacy with the lead character.

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Notable, yet overlooked piece of French cinema

[sleestaker · 9/10 · 10 March 2008]

For many, the lack of a defined storyline is maddening, often resulting in a less than satisfying experience. Almost stream-of-consciousness in its approach, Maurice Pialat's À Nos Amours does not appear to have much story structure, but the story is most definitely there and is related with a subtlety not often found in modern film.

Bonnaire's portrayal of Susanne is brilliant (as others have said), and her almost wistful sadness permeates the performance. In one scene, her father (played by Pialat) says, "You never smile anymore," indicating the transformation of Susanne from innocence to experience. The men in her life are shown only for the time she is with them. There is neither introduction upon their arrival nor explanation as to their departure. Pialat uses this method to show Susanne's lack of emotional investment in these temporary romances.

The only men who do return are her father, her brother, and Luc, her one real love. It is when she is with these men that she shows her true self, rather than the detached uncaring girl who sleeps around in an effort to replace them. The dialogue drives this film. There is little music, save the inspired use of Klaus Nomi's "The Cold Song". The sad wailing of Nomi's pseudo-operatic vocal against the opening credits of Susanne in the pulpit of a boat is a wonderful moment.

Long out of print, this film is now available on DVD. It is deserving of a look by the discerning cinephile who may have missed it 25 years ago.

Domestic Violence!

[derek-duerden · 7/10 · 24 January 2023]

I saw this film when it came out in the 80s (probably in the fondly-remembered Chelsea Cinema on the Kings Road...) and remember quite enjoying it - but little else as to why. Thus, when it popped up on MUBI I thought I'd give it a revisit...

Again, I quite enjoyed it, but the most shocking element this time was the amount of physical fighting among the family - Suzanne, her brother, her mother - after the sudden departure of the father. Clearly the mother was struggling to cope but the brother's violence just came across as unnecessarily over-the-top - presumably he doesn't know any other way to try and assert his "authority"?

Meanwhile, Suzanne gets on with her romantic adventures with a roster of partners in a fairly engaging way.

Worth a look.

Greatest French film of last thirty years

[bob998 · 10/10 · 22 October 2006]

Let me get it off my chest now: I'm very disappointed in the lack of notice given Pialat's films. Why am I only the fifth person to review À nos amours, and not the 500th? This is the sixth feature by Pialat, and it is a masterpiece. The travails of Suzanne and her family have universal implications; if you think only of her relations with her brother Robert--violent at times, yet often tender and half-incestuous--that's enough material for a film in itself. Some people are bothered by the promiscuous nature of Suzanne's love life, how she just doesn't behave like a regular teenage girl should. I have met a girl like her.

About two-thirds of the way through, we are confronted with a scene of astonishing virtuosity: the party at the family home, into which erupts the absent father, played by Pialat himself. The script the actors had been given gave no notice of this plot turn; it is fascinating to watch eight actors dealing with this incredible event--no one blows the scene, no matter how dumbfounded they must have been. For about ten minutes, we get pure acting, or reacting, however you want to put it. This is the kind of film event that makes movies worthwhile.

Bonnaire is tremendous, it's one of the greatest debuts in film history. Pialat as the father is great, all the more remarkable in that he had never acted before. The dimple scene is wonderful. Dominique Besnehard has to bring off an unsympathetic role as the brother, and he performs very well.

Bonnaire shines

[gbill-74877 · 6/10 · 17 November 2022]

Sandrine Bonnaire is wonderful in the role of a teenager coming of age, and is really the only reason to watch this film. Her character deals with a fractured and abusive family while exploring her emerging sexuality with several boys, which is the main gist of what felt like a rather formless story. Along the way, there were aspects that were unpleasant, such as hints at incest, a creepy brother ("you should smell my sister"), and domestic violence. Worse yet, the film doesn't really explore these things in a meaningful way. They happen and are immediately forgotten - there is no real trauma, only smiles as if nothing had happened. In any event, the familial relationships didn't seem particularly authentic or fleshed out. The film seems to shame the daughter's sexuality or possibly link her inability to love someone to her home life, neither of which I appreciated. The best moments were when she experiences angst because of decisions she's made, as those were truly her viewpoint, but there are only a couple of them. Much of the film seemed like shallow melodrama, written from a male point of view. On the strength of Bonnaire's performance and screen presence this was watchable, but even there as she was just 15 when it was made, the nudity and sex scenes are problematic.

Its mesmerizing power touches us

[howard.schumann · 9/10 · 19 March 2017]

"And you want to travel with her, and you want to travel blind and you know that you can trust her for she's touched your perfect body with her mind" – Suzanne, Leonard Cohen

In Maurice Pialat's À Nos Amours,casual sex without emotional involvement is a defense mechanism that 16-year-old Suzanne (Sandrine Bonnaire) uses to mask her anger at the family that does not, or cannot understand her. Winner of France's César Award for Best Film in 1984, À Nos Amours is not a film that will leave you with a warm glow or an optimistic feeling about the human condition, but you will not easily forget Bonnaire's striking performance in her first starring role. The younger child in a dysfunctional Polish family living in Paris, Suzanne must confront what is most common to the process of growing up - finding who you are and where you belong in the world.

Unlike most adolescents, however, she must also deal with a father (Maurice Pialat), who sends her mixed messages about his love, a bullying brother Robert (Dominique Besnehard), and an emotionally unstable mother (Evelyne Ker), all who resent her sexual independence and, what they see as her lack of self control. Suzanne's best instincts are to love and be loved but she is constantly thwarted in realizing those instincts by her insatiable need for sex. Pialat does not stand in judgment of her or anyone else's behavior, taking her own words that "I'm only happy when I'm with a guy" as just the way it is for her.

Though she takes great pleasure in sex and remains a sympathetic character throughout the film, she recognizes that "Life's no fun when you don't love anyone" and talks about suicide. As the film begins, Suzanne is rehearsing a play in a summer camp about a woman who deserts a promising relationship, convinced that love is an illusion. She will demonstrate the play's narrative arc in her own life throughout the remainder of the film. Though the film tells us nothing about their back story, Suzanne's romance with the handsome Luc (Cyr Boitard) seems to have hit a wall, though he tells her that he is still in love with her. Keeping her distance, Suzanne rejects his sexual overtures without offering a reason.

Attending a party in the port where she dresses in a manner that will be instantly appealing to the sailors who congregate at the bar, Suzanne loses her virginity with an American (Tom Stevens) who, when it is over, says "Thanks a lot," to which she replies, "You're welcome. It's free." Feeling uneasy about her first experience, she confides to her friend Martine (Maité Maillé) that she doesn't know why she did it but doesn't regret it. Transcending her experiences with the young men who are more than willing to accommodate her desires, her relationship with her father is the most meaningful one in the film, though it is inconsistent and ambiguous.

Telling his daughter that he is leaving the family, his intimate conversation with Suzanne is honest and tender, yet, while her father finds a way out, Suzanne is offered none and the film unfortunately never suggests any. After her father leaves, relationships with her brother Robert and mother turn to histrionic outbursts and physical assaults that look all too real and feel jarringly incongruous with the good feelings the film has built to this point. Now under the weight of being left alone, Suzanne's mother, who previously had been encouraging her daughter's independence, now turns against her and suffers what is casually referred to as a "nervous breakdown."

In one of the film's most referenced scenes, a family dinner party in which Suzanne seems to be content with her husband of six months, Jean-Pierre (Cyril Collard),is interrupted by her father who walks in unannounced and proceeds to antagonize everyone in the room including Robert and his friends. The scene has the feeling of being improvised yet is one of the most convincing, if unpleasant, scenes in a film that defies cinematic conventions and acceptable social norms. Though at times A Nos Amours is not an easy film to like, its mesmerizing power touches us and remains in the hidden places where our fears live.

One of Pialat's finest films

[MOscarbradley · 9/10 · 19 October 2017]

On the surface Maurice Pialat's "A Nos Amours" is about a promiscuous young girl and the film deals with both the dynamics of her sex life and her home life. You may say not much happens conventionally; the girl sleeps around and her life is observed episodically but you might also say the film is about the dynamics of acting. As the girl, Suzanne, 16 year old Sandrine Bonnaire, making her film debut, is virtually never off the screen and in her extraordinarily naturalistic performance it's almost impossible to know where Bonnaire ends and her character begins.

Pialat himself plays the father with a world-weariness that makes you wonder how much of himself he had poured into the part or why he hadn't chosen another actor for the role. As Suzanne's mother and brother Evelyne Ker and Dominique Besnehard are equally brilliant and make for a very realistic and dysfunctional family. It is, of course, very 'French', full of amour fou and Gallic passion and is certainly not the kind of film a British or American director might have made and for a film full of characters you are unlikely to empathize with or like it nevertheless holds you in a vice-like grip. It is also one of Pialat's finest achievements.

Inconsistent and lazy

[ormich · 3/10 · 18 July 2018]

The movie doesn't offer much in the way of plot, so it relies heavily on character development. And that all goes smoothly until halfway through, where all the characters disintegrate and become inconsistent and unpredictable. Why does the father abandon his family after 20 years? Why does Suzanne react in such a nonchalant way about this if she loves her father so much? Why does the brother become an abuser? Why does Suzanne continue to take that abuse? We find out in the end that she keeps in contact with her father and the two still get along, so why doesn't she seek shelter in his house? Why does she get married? Why is she not pushing her brother away when he keeps being all over her and insulting her during the dinner, after all the abuse he's put her through? All of these things could be explained, but none of them is. Not to mention there are so many characters and faces throughout the film that make no impact. They're just flashes. They appear and disappear without doing or saying anything significant. The only character whose reactions and overall trajectory made sense throughout the movie was the mother. She's distraught after her husband abandons her and she's struggling to cope with her 2 children by herself, so she starts losing it. Logical. The rest of the characters are just exhibiting random behaviors in random situations, with no consistency.

I don't generally mind vague characters or insinuated plotlines, but there has to be a foundation, something concrete to tie it all together. The movie doesn't have one. It deals with everything and everyone on a surface level and seems too lazy or too unfazed to go any deeper. So, in the end, it gave me nothing and left me feeling like I wasted 2 hours of my life (or so). I gave it a 3 -and not lower- mostly because I absolutely love Bonnaire and because I did enjoy the first half of the movie visually.

This character study about a troubled, confused teenager follows her life into adulthood where she continues to have trouble with her relationships, as well as with her own identity.

[Glenn-31 · 18 January 1999]

"The only time I'm happy is when I'm with a guy," says Suzanne, (Sandrine Bonnaire) a promiscuous and directionless teenager. Suzanne's parents are splitting up; her brother beats her as a disciplinary gesture in her father's absence; and her mother has control over nothing. Suzanne hangs out with her friends; sleeps with anyone she is attracted to (except the boy that loves her); and returns home for knock down, drag out fights with her older brother and mother. The last 30 minutes of the film skips quickly into Suzanne's life after marriage and jumps yet again to her life after divorce. The only person Suzanne loves is her father; perhaps because he is the only person who understands and unconditionally loves her. Fine direction from Maurice Pialat who also plays Suzanne's father. Excellent acting from most of the cast saves a somewhat meandering and overwrought script.

The Greatest film about a Young French Girl that I watch

[ongoam · 10/10 · 13 March 2023]

À nos amours was a movie that I loved, in reality. Pialat said it was written in the 1970s and set in the 1960s and would have made a three- to four-hour film. Title Les Filles du faubourg, the characters are French Jews, but Pialat minimized the family's heritage to brief references. However, the Project was changed to this movie, and I know that Sandrine Bonnaire, who was 15 at the time of filming, has several nude and love scenes in this film. She has said that her personal story at that time is linked to Suzanne's. In fact, during the filming, Bonnaire, who was still a virgin, fell in love with a colleague and had sex for the first time.

Life Without Father

[writers_reign · 8/10 · 5 November 2007]

Sandrine Bonnaire has matured into one of the finest French actresses of her generation - and incidentally directed a fine documentary about her handicapped sister, Sabine - yet this is only early promise fulfilled as this movie illustrates. Just sixteen when it was shot Bonnaire exudes the confidence of someone twice her age and easily dominates the film against fine support including Oliver Reed lookalike director Pialat himself as the father, absent during the central section of the movie, who is clearly responsible for Bonnaire's drifting from man to man. Dysfunctional families are seldom the basis for 'entertaining' stories be they on stage or screen but this is highly watchable and can support multiple viewings.

The 18th Greatest Film of All Time

[aprilzh · 10/10 · 28 April 2022]

Maurice Pialat is the French John Cassavetes, and this film is his masterpiece. It feels totally real from the very beginning all the way up until the end. Don't be fooled by the title; it pulls no punches, showing the harsh realities of adolescent life and what it meant to grow up in a certain time and place. We feel what the characters feel, and we see the unadulterated truth in what they are going through. It is my understanding that certain scenes were unscripted, and that really shows. This is a very powerful story, told in an extremely effective way that would not have worked if it had been made at a different time or place, or by a different director.

A mature take on teen sex- in an '80s flick!

[gizmomogwai · 8/10 · 8 September 2014]

I first heard of À Nos Amours as a Criterion film; later I saw Time Out rank it pretty high in its top 100 French films of all time, which made me more curious to see it. Winner of the Cesar Award in 1983, À Nos Amours centres around Suzanne, a French girl of 15 (when we first meet her) who breaks up with a boyfriend she likes after unthinkingly cheating on him. As life at home grows more unstable, she becomes increasingly promiscuous and is seemingly unable to love anyone. Her father, who she adored, abandoned the family, her mother is hysterical and her brother has become the tyrannical head of the household. After a few years she marries a man who she doesn't love but who brings her peace, believing it's too late to go back to her first boyfriend.

To a degree, À Nos Amours explores the relationship between her promiscuity and her crumbling domestic life; her brother beats her for her affairs. There are incestuous overtones, as Suzanne asks him if he's jealous and later, he keeps going on and on about how she smells (!). But she also started sleeping around before her father split. To a degree, À Nos Amours is just a teen drama about her remorse of dumping her old boyfriend. That's less interesting, but not bad.

There's definite erotic value in the film as well- particularly when her mother finds her sleeping naked (she's alone). We see only her back and a side of her breast, but it may be the sexiest part of the movie (where we often see more). Her mother scolds her as disgusting, and you want to defend her (the only reason her mother can call it disgusting is that it's "just not done," but it is done). Still, À Nos Amours is mainly a drama and mostly succeeds there.

No growth, no redemption

[sparkyjaffe · 3/10 · 23 June 2010]

The acting in this film is fine, but the film itself is very sad while somehow lacking much real substance. Suzanne, the troubled teen, wanders from boy to boy, showing us her lovely body and sweet smile, but she never seems to achieve any understanding. Her father, the most articulate character, talks a lot, but explains nothing. He is mostly just critical--especially of his son. Why does he walk out on his family?--oh, perhaps another woman, as Suzanne guesses, but we have seen no indication of what motivated him to leave. Many continuity problems contribute to making this film hard to follow. Suzanne leaves home in one outfit, has sex, then returns home in a totally different outfit. Is this supposed to represent different events or is it just sloppiness? The one character who seems to have any compassion is Jean-Pierre, the boy Suzanne marries and betrays. Poor lad. The film ends with Suzanne off to another man with Papa's blessing. No growth, no redemption. One can be reasonably sure Suzanne's latest adventure will end just as badly as all the previous

Bitter,even poignant realism

[Cristi_Ciopron · 7 August 2006]

Being so restrained, blunt and straightforward, Pialat's film is also enormously touching. The concreteness of the world he creates here is tangible. Psychological realism true in each detail, and as ensemble. The brutal restraint is somehow disconcerting—being given the bad habits inflicted by the standard psychology of most other films. Pialat's project was a naturalist one, hence the impression of a thing just begun, just started, still in progress. (It would be, anyway, absurd and stupid to try reducing Pialat's implicit aesthetics to some theoretical statements and criticism's clichés.) What is obvious is that Pialat achieved his aim—finding the fourth dimension of this coming of age story. For me,Pialat might not be worthy of love; he is certainly worthy of respect. In his movies—not only in this one, but in several others as well—one finds not only probity—but also genuine power, inspiration, the strength of a secret master, Pialat. Good and serious director, keen psychologist, avid of femme's perfume and scent, intelligent and uncompromising.

In psychology, Pialat rightly perceived the distances and the gaps and ,as it were, the laws of the perspective. In this movie, Pialat uses this sensational and hidden knowledge to tell the tribulations of a gamine.

The amazing lead actress is worth seeing; with her, the film took one more chance at the ineffable.

Any movie is made with elements,but it lives out of the rapports and the ideas.On the cinematographic elements' level,Pialat's movie is austere.There is no bit of stylization,but each element has a 4th. dimension:the rapports' level.This dimension is widened by the music.Purcell's suitable music gives the action a strange coherence.The movie is made out of relations,rapports,reflections.Far from being some kind of a flat realism,Pialat's movie lives entirely out of this wealth of thought.

Most important,this strengthener,firm,intelligent,bitter,even poignant realism is not fake.

A courageous decision is the refusal of all stylization.(The "cruel movie",the ferocious movie relies on stylization.)True realism means ideas,reflection,a lively mind.Far from being mechanical and passive,it is fertile and elastic.

This movie is also a medicament.

I find it disappointing that only 3 comments were written here for "À nos amours ".Also,the weighted average vote of 7.5 / 10 is unfair.

Miss Bonnaire is a standout.Her cinema presence in "A Nos ..." surrounds the viewer.

One of Pialat's best movie

[krikorola · 10/10 · 23 February 2023]

If not its best.

The film effectively captures a moment in French history when a great divide existed between the youth of the 70s and 80s, and their parents, who belonged to the 50s era. Pialat illustrates the shallow existence of a young, lost teenager who searches for love in all the wrong places. Yet, the film's most significant strength lies in its portrayal of the complete misunderstanding between two generations, separated by the 1968 revolution in France.

No other film from that period has brilliantly depicted the struggles of a dysfunctional family, where parents who experienced the sexual revolution were emotionally disconnected from their children, often resorting to force and vulgar language out of frustration. Many viewers have highlighted the dinner scene, including Pialat's monologue, which references Van Gogh, as a standout moment in the film. This scene critiques the intelligentsia of the art world, specifically cinema journalism and cultured individuals from a specific era.

This film is a beautiful meditation on ethics, love, and finding one's purpose in life. The final scene on the bus is one of the most poignant moments ever committed to film and serves as a powerful summary of the film's themes.

Critics who claim that the film could not be made by today's standards would do well to consider the quote attributed to Van Gogh: "there will always be sadness."

'You think you're in love, but you just want to be loved.'

[scorfield-51711 · 2/10 · 31 January 2023]

Gallic obsession with promiscuity here centres on a fifteen-year-old girl's naive attempts to navigate her way through the tempestuous waters of teenage love and emotional entanglements by utilising her own charms to enter meaningless physical relationships. As she openly confesses: 'I'm only happy when I'm with a guy.' Yet, unlike many young female characters in all art forms, she is a free spirit and remains in control of her dalliance with an array of male lovers who she captivates and abandons at whim.

The film's undoubted attraction is that of the beautiful, fresh-faced adolescent muse, Sandrine Bonnaire, the same age as the character she plays, Suzanne, with whom the camera as well as the audience falls in love. Moreover, both actress and character share the same sexual awakening, as the actor playing the American sailor who deflowers Suzanne became the 16-year-old virgin actress' first love. Bonnaire had initially come to Maurice Pialat's attention when she auditioned to be an extra on a project which was later sidelined. Bonnaire has always maintained that the director became a second father figure during the shoot, and though there is nudity it is handled tastefully and sensitively. In fact, post-coital reflective conversation abounds with no need for scenes of the physical act itself. No matter one's views on just how appropriate is the relationship between Bonnaire's character and her father, and the fact that those men who seek to conquest her refer to her attractive smile, the sweetest scene is the one in which father and daughter discuss a vanished dimple. Unquestionably, Bonnaire was more than a worthy winner of a César award for most promising newcomer.

As a director, Pialat is noted for his boldness in subjects he wished to cover, but also for doing so in a harsh and unsentimental fashion. To a great extent, his style was similar to John Cassavetes in that the scenes of his movies appear largely improvised but were in reality scripted. Greatly influenced by the work of legendary French director, Jean Renoir, he strove through the body of his own work to capture a similar vein of realism. The main issue with this feature is that it appears to have two distinct foci which do not seamlessly merge. In the first we encounter our young protagonist, seemingly doted upon by almost everyone, above all by her brother. In the second we are witness to a family in full disintegration with no real narrative arc to get us there. In a blink of an eye, Suzanne is being physically attacked by her father for planning an evening out late with some boys before he confesses his own adultery and plans for leaving the marital home. She is then constantly set upon by her brother to the point that others talk openly of the abuse he is meting out - this is a great performance from Dominique Besnehard who was actually Pialat's casting director until the auteur decided after so many unsuccessful auditions to offer him the part. One could argue that the father's departure has derailed the family home, but there is no attempt at any explanation for how Suzanne is mercilessly targeted. Another issue is that this 'rite of passage' at times has no discernible timeline with scenes suddenly merging from one to another, and given how unremarkable are some of her lovers left this reviewer uncertain as to whether she had moved on to the next or not. As such, the film lacks both structure and coherence.

The screenplay was written by the sister of director Claude Berri, Arlette Langman, who having divorced her first husband after a short marriage to be with Pialat, included elements of her relationship with the director within the narrative here. In addition, she apparently included biographical details of her her own adolescence, much to the dislike of her illustrious brother. Still, with the character of the father presumed gone for good, and only members of the crew in on Pialat's intentions, the film's standout scene of the dinner party interrupted by his surprise entrance was a genuine shock to the cast who were left to improvise on the spot. None more so than film critic and future collaborator with Pialat, Jacques Fieschi, playing his son's brother in law. During the scene, the father accuses the latter of having written a disparaging review of his son's work, in the knowledge that in real life Fieschi had conducted an acerbic interview on Pialat himself with a disgruntled former cinematographer who had hated the aggressive director's methods. Another member of the cast, Evelyne Ker, in the role of Suzanne's histrionic mother and long-suffering wife, had become so exhausted by the director's abrasive manipulation of his cast that her abrupt turn and slapping of his cheek was as real as it appears.

In terms of a soundtrack, Pialat has chosen just one musical motif that appears with the opening credits as the audience are invited to gaze at our virginal beauty staring out from the prow of a boat, and returns with the end credits. This is Klaus Nomi's chilling version of Henry Purcell's 'The Cold Song'. The German counter-tenor and New York vaudeville performer would succumb to AIDS the same year.

As the Criterion review of this feature highlights, Pialat was 'a difficult, truculent, even impossible' individual whose 'abrasive personality comes through in his films'. Certainly, his characters tend to not make psychological sense, as in the case of Suzanne's choice of who to elope with after her marriage of convenience fails to satisfy her desire for fulfilment. She seems to be happy just in the knowledge that in similarly abandoning a marriage of only surface contentment she has finally earned her father's approval. One is left with the impression that true happiness will evade Suzanne, as it does for the youthful characters of Alfred de Musset's 1834 play 'On ne badine pas a ex l'amour' which Suzanne and her fellow summer camp attendees rehearse for and perform at the outset of the movie. As her father later quotes from a dying Van Gogh: 'There'll always be sadness'.

Pialat dishes out dime store misanthropy without impact

[timmy_501 · 3/10 · 2 June 2009]

A Nos Amours is the story of Suzanne, a promiscuous young girl with a troubled home life. In spite of their wealth, her family is very dysfunctional and pretty much every one of them (Suzanne, her brother, and her two parents) hits every other one at some point in the movie but the abuse they dish out is verbal just as often as it is physical. As a result, Suzanne is already in the early stages of being a slut by the time she is sixteen. As the film begins she has been dating a young man who really seems to care about her but she is unwilling to share any type of intimacy with him. It isn't long before we see Suzanne having sex with strangers or casual acquaintances who are less likely to want a real emotional bond with her and hence pose less of a threat to her fragile mental state.

Pialat's style in this film could be defined as minimalist but he still covers a pretty big stretch of Suzanne's life. The film's very loose chronology is completely linear but different amounts of time take place between each scene. Early on it seems that the entire film will take place over one year of Suzanne's life but before long there are entire months or years between scenes. Some major events happen but none of them are really explored with any depth. For me this is the film's major flaw: since major plot events (and there are many) are briefly shown or only hinted at we can't see how each character reacts and the film is robbed of all dramatic impact. Once I realized that the film was inherently undramatic I began to expect some sort of character based movie but Pialat completely fails at creating three dimensional characters. I suppose the idea here must have been to keep it universal and make some sort of statement about the impossibility of people to connect to each other even when they have the most reason to do so. This message comes off as trite at best and misanthropic at worst. I suppose the misery porn crowd that digs melodrama and cynicism will be likely to enjoy this film but I imagine they'll be the only ones.

How can anybody get bored watching a film like this?

[bill-729-637551 · 22 July 2013]

Others have already said that "À nos amours" is a great film, even more have said that Sandrine Bonnaire was a knockout in her demanding rôle as Suzanne. There is a sort of timeline, a beginning and an end, but this is really a film about a personal journey through a part of Suzanne's late adolescence. Young people who have watched the film recently are sometimes very annoyed with Suzanne, but this only proves that Miss Bonnaire has made them care about her character even to the point that they perhaps want to shake her, to take her into a corner and tell her what mistakes she is making. There is also a conflict which some pretend had disappeared by the end of the "swinging sixties" - the generation gap between the sexual mores of parents and adolescents, which was of course still real in the early eighties and remains so in many cultures. Unpredictable behaviour (by Suzanne's brother, for example) is also a real part of family life for many young people. Every time I watch the film (and I have seen it very often, as I used it in my French classes more than once) I notice details which had escaped me or which I had forgotten. Pialat made other great films, but "À nos amours" remains my favourite. If possible watch it in French, with subtitles if necessary - but see it before you die!

Young Lovvvvvvvvvvvvvvve

[Spuzzlightyear · 5/10 · 21 August 2005]

A fairly maddening French teen angst movie here, featuring one of the more bordering-on-hysterics performances I've seen in a long time.

Sandrinne Bonnairre stars as a unsettled teenager growing up in France. She doesn't really pay attention to no one's advice about what to do in her life, sleeps with countless men, and gets into endless fights at home. She is a sad soul trying to make heads or tails about the men in her life, while her Mom and Brother just want her to concentrate on her studies.

I wasn't too crazy about this film, sometimes boring, sometimes confusing. But Bonnairre is fantastic here, really getting into her character: Screaming, swearing and fighting her way through everyone. Mind you, they dish it out (and do they ever) on her as well.

So, good performance, so so movie.

Kind of French "feminist lolita" movie with a strong performance by Sandrine Bonnaire

[lazarillo · 10 February 2014]

This is the story of a teenage French girl (Sandrine Bonnaire) with a difficult home life. Both her father (who abandons the family) and her older brother (who regularly physically assaults her) seem to have an unnatural interest in her sexuality, while her mother (who may the worst of them all) is a raving hysteric who eggs everyone else on. Not surprisingly, the girl is quite promiscuous, availing herself of any number of boys and men. In an American movie like this, her male paramours would at best be panting dogs and at worst villainous cads taking advantage of a vulnerable girl, but here they're probably the most sympathetic people in the movie!

The young girl is not unsympathetic by any means, but she simply refuses to be a victim and remains firmly in control, and no family member or lover ultimately seems to have much chance against her. She is similar to the kind of "feminist lolitas" that often appear in Catherine Breillat movies like "A Real Young Girl" and "36 Fillete"-- teen girls that are very desirable, but also wise beyond their years and in perfect control of their own sexuality, and thus never simply mere sex objects. It's surprising Bonnaire never worked directly with Breillat because she is a much more self-assured and commanding actress than any of the ones Breillat did work with. I don't know if I believe the IMDb dates regarding Bonnaire's age as her assured acting (and her nude body) suggest that she was somewhat older than the character she's playing here, but she's very impressive regardless. Interestingly, while she became a very formidable actress in her later years (especially in films like Claude Chabrol's "Initiation"), she would not really be one of your more glamorous and sexy French actress. She certainly compares well to her contemporaries at the time like Emmanuelle Beart and Sophie Marceau, but while they would become leading ladies, she stayed more of a character actress.

Ironically, the one problem I had with the movie is that Bonnaire and her character is perhaps TOO self-assured and as an actress Bonnaire tends to dominate the rest of the cast too much. It might be a feminist statement to have young female protagonist who is this self-confident, but I don't know that it's necessarily very realistic.