The Chambermaid on the Titanic (1997)
Horty, a French foundry worker, wins a contest and is sent to see the sailing of the Titanic. In England, Marie, saying she is a chambermaid on the Titanic and cannot get a room, asks to share his room. They do, chastely; when he awakens, she is gone, but he sees her at the sailing and gets a photo of her. When he returns home, he suspects that his wife Zoe has been sleeping with Simeon, the foundry owner. Horty goes to the bar, where his friends get him drunk and he starts telling an erotic fantasy of what happened with him and Marie, drawing a larger audience each night.
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Touches You
The Worst Film Ever
Good start, but then it gets ruined
An old-fashioned movie made with new-fashioned finesse.
This is a French film directed by the Spanish director Bigas Luna, who has done a very good job with a difficult and ambiguous subject, which alternates between reality and fantasy so often that it is like a shuttle service. One really does not know from one scene to the next whether something is really happening or is being imagined. That is a tightrope, but Luna does not fall off. In this, he is assisted by the dreamy performances of Olivier Martinez (half French, half Spanish-Moroccan) and the well known Spanish actress Aitana Sanchez-Gijon. Both of them keep us wondering all the way. The only solid earthy figure is Romane Bohringer, being as Anna Magnani-like as possible, a young earth mother, but still an earth mother. There is lots of passion, it's all over the place. Sometimes it is real, sometimes it is fantasy. One never knows for sure about some of it. When Martinez is telling his stories, his quiet, introspective but commanding presence effects us as much as it does his audiences in the film. Romane gets a bit carried away by the myth of the chambermaid and wishes to become the chambermaid, wishes to be sprayed in champagne. The chambermaid was not listed amongst the survivors of the Titanic, so this creates a story steeped in tragedy. People like tragic passion best, because it is unattainable by definition, and can never disappoint. Or can it? Perhaps things are not entirely as they seem in more ways than one in this story. This film shows clearly how love and sensuality thrive in the hothouse of ambivalence and ambiguity: does someone really exist? Do they feel love too? Is the love simulated? Can any passion be trusted? Ultimately, it comes down to this: is reality even real?
As a new Olivier Martinez fan, I have clamored to get my hands on most of everything he's done. I bought this movie through Amazon.com along with 'Mon Homme' and 'The Roman Spring Of Mrs. Stone.'Anyway, this movie was very different from the very famous 'Titanic' movie made in 1997, as well. The story begins as Horty (Martinez) wins some kind of contest from his boss and he gets a free ticket to South Hampton to watch the Titanic set sail. When he arrives in South Hampton, he goes to the hotel he is staying at and is shown to his room. Suddenly, this chambermaid from the Titanic comes to his door and tells him that she has no where to stay and asks if she could sleep in his room for just the one night. Horty reluctantly, if I remember correctly that is, offers his room and his bed to the chambermaid while he tries to sleep in the chair. After they both settle down, she invites him into the bed just to sleep. He has this romantic dream about her, but when he wakes up she is already gone. He goes outside to watch the Titanic set sail, and sees that a photographer is taking her picture. After she walks away, he goes up to this photographer and asks to have her picture. When he comes home, his friends want to know what happened while he was there. He tells them that the chambermaid, named Marie, stayed in his room for the night. Obviously they were intrigued, and wouldn't believe that nothing happened between them. So, Horty gives in and starts to tell this elaborate story, making it up as he goes along. His wife overhears his stories, and believes that he cheated on her. He tells her that everything is made up and nothing happened. He eventually finds out that that Titanic sank, and figures Marie must have died. Somehow, this acting troupe comes along and wants Horty to make it into a play because he stories about the chambermaid named Marie are so popular in the town he lives in. He and his wife decide to go along and do it, because they need the money. One night as he's about to tell the story, he realizes that this person, Marie, is in the audience! I'll have to stop here, so I won't spoil it for you...This movie is a very good movie, and worth watching! It's not really even about the Titanic, the ship is in the details, but really its about Horty's fantasies about what could have happened the night he spent with a chambermaid named Marie.
Another viewing of this film recently simply left me where I was before: there is something about Bigas Luna which escapes me, or just simply irritates me. Whereas any viewing of Aitana Sánchez-Gijón evidently has its pluses, inasfar as anything else related to the story being told, I think I would rather make do with the pages of Didier Decoin.Having already waded through the insufferable `Las Edades de Lulú' (qv), `La Teta y La Luna' (definitely no qv), the trivial and frivolous `Bámbola' (qv), and the overstated and over-coloured `Volavérunt' (qv), I think I can only be glad that, thus far, I have missed out on `Jamón, Jamón' or `Los Huevos de Oro', among others, without being unfortunate enough to have missed out on anything. But the irritating thing is that Bigas Luna is a genius. Maybe not in the sense of getting the best acting interpretations he doesn't but certainly in all other techniques involved in making a film, especially in scene-setting for yesteryear and even longer ago. This is evidently apparent in `La Femme de Chambre du Titanic' and `Volavérunt', in which the Italian Franca Squarciapino is clearly one of the best specialists in the matter: the period costumes are superb in both films. I see on IMDb that she had plenty of schooling back in the 1980s with operatic productions.So I patiently sit here awaiting the next Bigas Luna more or less anticipating what it will be, because I am definitely in no rush for it, and will not even be sorry if it goes by without my catching on. But if it does turn up, you can be sure I shall be watching: there is something fascinating about a man whose films do not exactly end up being very appetising fare but which show such remarkable cinematographic talent.
This was an excellent movie & one of the funniest I've ever seen. I'm not the biggest Luna fan, but this was a great story with really good acting, too. The actress who played Zoe did a great job with a tough role.