ThiefHott Too much of everything

Doomtomylo a film so unique, intoxicating and bizarre that it not only demands another viewing, but is also forgivable as a satirical comedy where the jokes eventually take the back seat.

Sameer Callahan It really made me laugh, but for some moments I was tearing up because I could relate so much.

Cassandra Story: It's very simple but honestly that is fine.

gavin6942 Jean is a clerk in a bank. His colleague Caron is a gambler and gives him the virus. In the casinos, Jean meets Jackie. Their love affair will follow their luck at the roulette.Jacques Demy was still early in his career at this point, having really only made one film, "Lola". He returns here to black and white and a non-musical, the second and last time he would do that. But he always told stories of love and this is no exception. (Some think he had his own take on Hollywood, but that is a whole other issue.) Here gambling, especially roulette, is glamorized. At a time when gambling was run out of Cuba and was illegal basically everywhere in the United States besides Nevada, there is a sense of mystique about gambling that evokes thoughts of James Bond. This film captures that perfectly.

ikanboy The first fifteen minutes promise much. A young man is introduced to gambling and wins. His drab life is transformed, briefly. Then he decides to take off for 3 weeks to the coast and more Casinos. There he meets Jeanne Moreau, platinum tresses, and pouty lips, addicted to gambling, and as guileful as they come. Will he succumb to her flashy exterior or will he see sense and quit while his common sense is still intact? Well it's a french "new wave" movie so as can be expected, it's all about people's weaknesses not their strengths.The movie then drags us around from casino to casino, from loss to gain, to loss. There is no passion here. This I hope was intended for wasting one's life for a turn in ones luck is a passionless existence. These kinds of themes are like movies about alcoholics. Who cares for these people? Who wants to watch people we care less for pissing away their lives? Don't waste your time. This "wave" laps on shore like a whisper.

writers_reign ... or one of them is the movement that pseuds insist on promoting to upper-case as The New Wave and I dismiss as the lower-case new wavelet but in life we can seldom pigeon-hole everything and Jacques Demy is a case in point; he is part of the hiccup only inasmuch as his early features were made just as the vague in question was retreating back into the ocean of mediocrity from whence it came. True, he made these early movies for a stick of gum and mostly on location but he possessed more flair for actual film-making than for intellectualising on celluloid. Nor was he above subtlety; there is, for example, a nice touch in this film when Claude Mann and Jeanne Moreau share a pint bottle of whiskey and the brand is Black and White reflecting the motif of the entire film; Moreau, the car, the beach are all white, Mann, the croupiers and virtually every other male are dressed in black. Plot-wise it's stripped to the bone; Mann is a straight-up guy, Moreau is Gamblers-in-yer-face. They meet. End of. On the other hand if you want to talk Theme how much time do you have. Nice makes a nice location, Michel Legrand weighs in with a pleasant jazz-inflected score and it's fine for one viewing and just for the record another of my bete noirs is wagering against the red at roulette.

Daryl Chin (lqualls-dchin) Jacques Demy's second feature is an amazingly fluid, vibrant comedy about love and luck, starring Jeanne Moreau at her (dazzling) best. And she is literally dazzling, in resplendent costumes (mostly by Pierre Cardin) and radiantly blonde. The music by Michel Legrand is one of his best scores ever, as it sweeps through the film, carrying everything along with two basic themes, one furiously accelerated piano theme, the other a softer, more lilting theme played in different variations, but mostly on the mandolin. It's a movie that sweeps you along, just as fast and unpredictable as a spin on the roulette wheel. This is a film in which "black-and-white" becomes a dazzling metaphor, so that the sun-drenched exteriors of the south of France are contrasted with the various interiors of hotel rooms and casinos. LA BAIE DES ANGES may seem slight, but only "seems": it's one of the most passionate statements on love and faith in the modern cinema, and it's a work of true enchantment.