See the Sea (1998)

I don't have all the words right now but this film is a work of art.

As Good As It Gets

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

This movie feels like it was made purely to piss off people who want good shows

A scruffy girl backpacker Tatiana (Marina de Van) shows up at the beach house of a Parisian young mom, the English Sasha (Sasha Hails), who has a 10-month-old baby--and demands permission to pitch her tent in the back yard. The dad is working in Paris and only shows up at the end of the film's 52-minute running time. (De Van was to appear again in Ozon's Sit Com). The mom precedes to trust the obviously suspicious and ominously aggressive and affect-less outsider far too much--to the torment of nervous viewers. A rather minimalist horror flick, this shows Ozon's characteristic visual elegance and economy but leans dangerously far toward the more glib aspect of his rarely absent desire to shock. One of the hardest of his films to watch, but not one of the more convincing ones. Various elements strain credulity and others are not even really made clear. Roger Ebert wrote a very good (if typically over-kind) review.. This was Ozon's longest film so far. Though not well reviewed in this country his Criminal Lovers/Les amants criminels (1999), with the naturally combustible couple of Jeremie Renier and real-life girlfriend Natacha Regnier, was longer (96 min.) and a huge improvement.

MAJOR SPOILER ALERT--Don't Read This if You Haven't Seen the Film! This little picture is slightly less than one hour long, but due to its being a rather disgusting little picture, it seemed longer--I simply didn't enjoy it at all and found it tough going. It's the story of a screwy young lady and her baby at the beach. They meet a very strange female drifter and they become friends, of sorts. Then, rather out of the blue, the film has a very, very bloody and unsettling ending--complete with very explicit nudity and violence.The very end of the story I found to be very confusing, as it was hard to figure out exactly WHO murdered WHO (I am sorry for the spoiler, but this is a truly confusing film). Apparently I got it wrong who perpetrated the attack when I first reviewed the film, as an alert IMDb reader noted. And while I usually don't make these sort of errors, I tried re-watching the film just to see how I could have made this mistake. And, even the second time, I could see how this occurred, as the body and perpetrator were only VERY briefly seen at the end. This ambiguity may have been intentional--I just don't know. Another reason I think I didn't exactly understand who did what is that what DID occur didn't make much sense to me at all--it seemed like a gratuitous and senseless ending and the motivation for this act was unclear.

My main reason for seeking out this film was due to the fact that it's directed by one of the great filmmakers of today, Francois Ozon. You can always count on Ozon to deliver a well observed tale of the unexpected, and even though he lacked experience at the time this film was made, it's still a great way to spend 52 minutes of your life. From Ozon's later movies, the one I would say this one most closely resembles is the seductive thriller Swimming Pool, as Ozon captures the meeting of two very different women and the resulting absurdity that stems from that meeting. See the Sea is a lot grittier than Swimming Pool, however, and if his objective with this film was to make an impact; he definitely succeeded in doing just that. The film focuses on Sasha, a young woman living a peaceful life with her baby daughter in a beach house. Her life is disrupted one day when another woman by the name of Tatiana asks if she may camp out on Sasha's land. Sasha agrees, and the film follows the relationship between the two over the course of a few days.This film is very short, running at just 52 minutes; but Ozon makes great use of his time, and overall I've got to say that I'd have been happy for him to drag the story out more. The pace of the film is very relaxed, but it's always obvious that it's leading to a sinister conclusion. Ozon builds the tension between the characters well, and by constantly hinting that there's more to the eerie stranger that meets the eye, the director skilfully entices his audience into the central situation. The build-up to the final resolution is never terribly shocking (toothbrush scene aside), but it's always foreboding and this bodes excellently with the shock climax. The style of the film is very down and dirty, and the film doesn't feature the picturesque settings and cinematography of the later Swimming Pool. The way that the director finally shows his hand is absolutely superb, however, as the character that has been referred to but never seen until the end comes home to survey the damage to his family home. Overall, See the Sea is a distressing and damaging film that leaves the viewer with something to think about, and while the director has done better; this early film is well worth seeing.

SEE THE SEA is a well made short (52 minute) film that works on most levels. I wouldn't go so far as to call it a "masterpiece" or anything (as some reviewers have...), especially being that the film's ending is completely predictable - but even so, the good acting, "suspenseful" atmosphere, and swift run-time keep this one from ever being boring or too self-indulgent...A young mother lives in a small sea-side community with her 10-month-old daughter. Her husband is off on business and the two are left alone in their small cottage. A young female drifter/back-packer wanders into the community and stops to ask if she can set up her tent on the woman's property for a few days, and the woman reluctantly agrees. We soon find that this was not such a good idea, as our wandering "friend" turns out to be a little "off"...Everything in SEE THE SEA was handled competently and confidently by the director, building a sense of tension through the interactions of the mother and the back-packer. Also, the mother's lacadaisical treatment of her baby (leaving her alone in the tub and on the beach, leaving her alone with the back-packer that she just met as she goes to drink wine at a restaurant, etc...) adds another layer to the story and almost makes you wonder if the ending of the film was almost justified - or if this was perhaps what the director was trying to convey. Speaking of the ending (which I will not give away here...) - that is my one major problem with the film. The sense of "tension" in the film was well-built, but led up to an EXTREMELY predictable (if still somewhat "satisfying" ending. A decent short film overall - worth a look to those that dig "darker" material in their films...7.5/10