Entre Nous

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Filmmaker Diane Kurys examines the bittersweet friendship of two women (Isabelle Huppert and Miou Miou) during post-World War II France in this semi-autobiographical account of her mother and father. The women struggle with their dreams and identities, compromising themselves with marriages that are not very satisfying. They long to own their own boutique, but domestic priorities always seem to cut short their aspirations and their friendship. They are only happy when they are together. However, the husbands struggle with their postwar identities as well, and compromise turns them into angry men. The children, meanwhile, are the quiet victims in all of this. It's a predictable yet moving film with much to offer. --Bill Desowitz

Customer Reviews:

Feminism in France in the Fifties.......2005-11-13

The best movies, like the best novels, are those that present characters in such a way that you can't help getting involved with their lives, in having a strong reaction to them. This is one of those movies and the reaction I get from it is negative: I want to shake these characters by the shoulders to get them to stop what they're doing.

Set in Lyon, France, during the 1950s, two women become very close friends (lovers actually) and want to escape from the confines of their marriages and their husbands. One is married to a selfish schemer who deals on the blackmarket; the other to a garage owner who loves nothing more than playing with his kids. The two womwn feel "trapped" and "confined" by these men, and long to be "free."

If director Kurys wants the viewer to feel sympathetic toward these two "modern" women, she's failed miserably with me: they come across as little more than selfish flakes. The men have their problems, too (insensitive, doting), but they at least appear more honest. I know feminism meant different things in different parts of the world, and this movie deals with French concerns (which are different than American or Arabic or Chinese), but it's really difficult to swallow. As a piece of movie making it is very well done - and certainly evokes very strong reactions. I wonder what the validity quotient of this movie is today, even in France.

A Moving and Complex Tale of Emotion ..........2003-12-03

The beuty of the film lies in its subtle power to transmit the complexity of when family obligations come in the way of self-fullfilment. The film is based on the true story of the the film maker's mother and was a cathartic process for Kurys, who was very close to her father and mourned his seperation from her life. Kurys exhaults her mother's strength and independace in the face of 1950s tradition but does not entirely pardon her for splitting up the family. The narritive is also a feminist consciousness-raising exercise to the extent that it invites the spectator to share in the protagonists' growing awareness of their unsatisfactory lives as married women in the pre-feminist patriarchal world of the 1950s. And though Kurys maintains that her mother's relationship with her female remained platonic, the movie is full of shared looks and pauses that suggest a desire between the two women. the intensity of the their attraction (wether platonic or otherwise) is expressed through the small seemingly meaningless phrases that we utter when we are overrun with emotion. One may postulate that had the relationship between the two women evovled in a different time where the idea of a lesbian affair would not have been so 'unthinkable' their feelings could have bloosemed into a sexual affair.

The French Before the Invited the Manage a Trois........2003-05-31

This movie is frustrating because it was apparently fimed before the French invited the Menage A Trois. Here you have two guys who are total .... I ask you, if you were married to Isabelle Huppert, would you act like this [guy] in the movie? Here is what I get from this movie: Never lose your temper, never slap your wife, never yell at your wife, never complain to your wife, and, most importantly, when your wife has sex with another woman, don't get mad, just beg to watch, okay. Now, I am not a .... I get it.

Entre Nous - The power of feminism.......2003-05-14

This movie is one of the top 10 in my list. It describes the special nature of female-female friendships and how we women have to rely on each other to survive the slings and arrows of an outrageous patriarchy. However, the movie does, unfairly I think, portray men in a rather negative light. This is just not realistic in the global perspective. On the other hand, if I had a daughter, I would make sure that she owned this DVD. The players in this movie are fantabulous actresses. The plot is believable. The direction and cinematography are a cut above the norm. I would rate this 6 stars if I could.

Entre Nous.......2002-09-21

This movie is definitely a love story between two women, regardless of what Isabella from Texas (say no more)wants to believe. I think she needs to watch the movie again and this time, read the subtitles. I originally viewed this movie on A&E in the mid 80's and specifically remember reading that the director is one of "Lena's" daughters. I am not saying that two women would leave their husbands and live together for years, and not be lesbians, however, the odds are quite remote. Having lived in the gay community for 25 years, I think I know a lesbian subtext when I see it. It is really sad that someone who is heterosexual wants to deny we lesbians our love stories. It is especially pathetic when we are constantly bombared with heterosexual everything. I think any lesbian and enlightend straight women would love this movie as much as I did. This is definitely a "must see" for lesbians and all thoe straight women out there who cannot stand their husbands.

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