everything you have heard about this movie is true.

What a freaking movie. So many twists and turns. Absolutely intense from start to finish.

Your blood may run cold, but you now find yourself pinioned to the story.

Although I seem to have had higher expectations than I thought, the movie is super entertaining.

Les amants criminels (1999)is François Ozon's topsy turvey world of children's fairy tales and psychotic horror based primarily on Hansel and Gretal but with nods to other children's stories. But perhaps to, Ozon recognizes the frequently violent aspects of these tales and has recasts this one in modern terms with Alice and Luc as the high school students whose adventure is presaged by Alice's recitation (shown in flashback) of a fragment from a poem by Rimbaud: Hell cannot attack pagans I'm still alive! Later damnation's delights will be more profound Quick a crime! That I may fall into the void, by human law So the crime is murder, performed by willing dupe Luc, of unsure sexuality, under the spell of the psychotic Alice. The children retreat to a forest to dispose of the body and become lost, eventually taking refuge in a hut of an ogre who intends to fatten Luc and starve Alice. The ogre take a fancy to Luc and after some preliminaries partakes of Luc in a way that goes some way toward deciding his sexuality. But still loyal to Alice, Luc engineers an escape and the pair eventually attempt consummation of their love naked in a clearing under the benign gaze of the forest creatures in a bizarre nod to a Disney animation feature. It all ends badly however in a deviation from the living happily ever after coda of fairy tales. To heighten the sense of the incongruous, Ozon adds a score that include themes from such great love stories as Trastan und Isolde but he is intending to amuse here rather than chill as in his Regarde la mer An entertainment, definitely not a statement. Not for those offended by the homoerotic.

You should be warned that 'Les Amants Criminels' is not an easy viewing, despite being a French movie with almost one decade of age. What can impress viewers after the various 'Saw' or 'Hostel' installments you may ask? It is not indeed in the graphical details that lie both the attraction and rejection that this film can cause. It is more in the surprising combination.'Les Amants Criminels' is sort of a meeting between fairy tales and horror, between 'Texas Chainsaw' and 'Bambi' in a setting that reminds 'Blair Witch Project'. It also resembles Larry Clark's 'Bully' as the heroes are teenagers planning and executing the murder of a colleague of theirs, with the huge difference that director's Francois Ozon's heroes seem completely clueless and lack any kind of moral sense. If we can understand that teenagers lack social awareness, and that their instincts and search of auto-discovery prevails on the connection with the real world, yet we seldom or never have met a couple lacking any awareness about suffering excepting their own. Behind their angelic and sexy appearances the two heroes (very well acted by Natacha Regnier and Jeremie Renier) are cold blood murderers who kill and are horribly punished by a series of atrocities up to the size of their deeds. Their behavior defies logic, their feelings seem to be permanently wrongly channeled, and even their tentative of redemption through love filmed in an idealist and ironical manner is cut off abruptly by tragedy as the real world hits back with the power of a hurricane on those who have broken its laws.Did the director who also co-authored the script intent to make any moral statement here? I doubt, as the final scenes presents the main hero back into his convoluted logic giving forgiveness to his evil tormentor, whom according to what happened on screen we cannot consider but a tool of punishment and source of horror in the story. And yet the film does have a magnetism of its own, and the story as incredible as it may be is very well told. At the end of the film I did not get any better understanding of the characters, as their motivation seems to be impossible to explain or understand. I did enjoy however the exquisite cinematography, and liked the coherent logic of the absurd behavior of the characters who do not cease to surprise on the wrong side of our normal judgment, all over the film.

I saw this film about 2 hours ago and I thought definitely merited a comment. Classic Ozon, it's got it all- dark humour, enough sexuality to satisfy even the most European of film goers, suspense and pathos.The film follows the story of Alice and her boyfriend Luc as they subsequently kill their classmate, go on the run and end up being imprisoned by a seemingly psychotic although rather sentimental woodsman.The story is fragmented: the immediate events and flashback sequences. These flashbacks are initially really well placed and effective as they progressively provide further and further insight into how the couple come to be where they are, their motivations and especially the nature of their relationship. The pacing is great in the first 3 quarters of the film though as past and present catch up to one another the film lags a little due to repetitiveness and a pretty useless dream sequence.Presented from the first frame as the driving force, Alice is in control. She convinces Luc that the beguiling Said had his friends gang rape her and is now blackmailing her into having sex with him for fear of photos of the incident surfacing.The first act is seemingly pretty serious- the violent murder of Said, the lengthy process of transporting his body to bury it, the panicked arguments of the two and the robbing of the jewellery store. This is all really enjoyable due to the humour and the absurdity of the situation: Alice walking around the supermarket in a blood-stained dress with a giant shovel and Luc shoving cookies down his pants. While burying the body, we are made aware that someone has seen them do it. This is foreshadowed earlier so it's pretty expected but only as the two realise they're being watched do things begin to escalate. After getting lost, Luc stumbles on the woodsman's cabin. Hungry and desperate, they break in only to be caught red-handed by the odious woodsman himself.The second act sees the story take a darker turn as the woodsman locks them both in the cellar. Now it gets interesting as the woodsman reads Alice's diary. Now we're introduced to the series of flashbacks. These are particularly effective in establishing Luc and Alice as a somewhat dysfunctional, mismatched but close couple. Luc is completely endearing as the pragmatic virgin, the essentially good guy swayed by the oversexed, demanding and manipulative Alice who parallels Julie in Swimming Pool. Said is great as the playboy of ambiguous sexuality who fascinates them both and who's only real crime is of having a one track mind. We follow Luc and Alice as she conceives of the crime and he plays along, initially hesitant but persuaded by the love he has for Alice and the red-herring rape photo fabrication.Reading the diary and gauging Alice pretty aptly, the woodsman warms to Luc and frees him from the cellar, supposedly because he "likes his girls with nothing but muscle and skin over their bones and his boys soft and round". Here begins the relationship of Luc and the woodsman which I personally find as interesting as that of Luc and Alice. Chained by the neck, Luc hasn't much more freedom than Alice but slowly the woodsman proverbially reins him in.The final act sees the escape of Luc and Alice from the woodsman, albeit with his quiet consent, and the subsequent capture of the two after an idealised love scene (this presents a quasi-epiphany for Luc) and a rampant chase through the woods. Luc is caught by the police but urging Alice to go on without him, she eventually is stopped by the river and gets her brains blasted out. This I didn't care about in the slightest but when the woodsman is arrested and violently apprehended Luc is seen screaming from the paddy wagon to let him go I pretty much cried a bucket's worth.The script is great, especially enjoyable are the fights between Luc and Alice as well as their lighter moments (after robbing the jewellery store Alice complains they should have robbed the bakery, they could have gotten croissants).The cinematography//lighting//directing largely matched the tone, there was some excellent juxtaposition and some beautiful shots (Luc's fingers on the headboard, Alice's bedroom) although there were some frustrating cuts, including the later flashbacks, and some self-indulgent drawn out sequences (the blood- every time). The editing fell short at the end as the audience really awaits a wrapping up of loose ends rather than just reiteration. Also somewhat frustrating is the lack of distinct character motivation. I just can't believe someone would kill someone because the wanted some drama. This isn't Murder By Numbers, although it is Ozon and this is ultimately not really the crux of the film.Basically the great elements are the relationships of the three leads, whose performances, especially Jeremie Renier's, leave nothing to be desired. In no way does the script or the acting allow for a two dimensional view of the pairings. Never do you get the impression the relationships are merely predator/prey or leader/follower.

Sometimes when I watch a film, I say to myself later "why did I even bother finishing that film?"--this is exactly what happened when I finished watching Les Amants Criminels. Despite some excellent moments and a couple decent plot twists, I felt dirty and uneasy about having watched this mess through to the end. It wasn't just because the film was so sexually graphic or violent--though these are big turnoffs for me and many other viewers. It was these factors PLUS the fact that certain things just don't need to be shown on film and I worry about people who WANT to see this in films. For example, the two young and totally annoying "lovers" are kidnapped by a guy who lives in the woods. The girl is kept locked in a dungeon with a rotting corpse and the guy is brought upstairs to be anally raped and fed the leg of the rotting corpse in the basement. I just didn't need to see this. Why it was shown is possibly because some directors and writers include awful scenes like this because they don't believe in the power of the film and toss in sick stuff to try to either generate controversy or appeal to prurient interests. As a result, I just can't see recommending this film to anyone.It does get a score of three because there is the germ of a really good film there--it just gets lost among all the crap. The notion of a killing and the odd motivation behind it (that doesn't become apparent until later) is interesting. Plus, her boyfriend who seems to have some serious problems with his latent homosexual desires is interesting as well. BUT, having him raped and then enjoy it is just sick and unnecessary--and socially irresponsible. I would have really thought it interesting if they had further explored this character's latent homosexuality--it WAS apparent several times throughout the film.Additionally, the film is actually a very twisted take on Hansel and Gretel. A modern retelling of the tale is a great idea--just not when it is combined with a touches from THE Texas CHAINSAW MASSACRE and DELIVERANCE! The people who made this mess should be ashamed, but I'm sure they went on to make money and more sick stuff like this.