Cesar & Rosalie | Yves Montand, Romy Schneider | A Mature, Beautifully Observed Love Triangle

Cesar & Rosalie | Yves Montand, Romy Schneider | Cesar and Rosalie

DVDs:

Cesar & Rosalie

	Cesar & Rosalie Yves Montand, Romy Schneider Fox Lorber, 2003 average customer review:based on 6 reviews view larger image
	for more information click here

highly recommended

In American romantic comedies, after overcoming some silly obstacle, the heroine will choose this guy or that one, and it's usually pretty obvious which. In French romantic comedies, not only is either guy just as likely, but the heroine could just as well end up with both of them--or neither. Ah, the worldly French! César and Rosalie are a happy May-December couple (young Romy Schneider and middle-aged Yves Montand) until the return of Rosalie's old flame David (Sami Frey). David immediately inflames the insecure César with jealousy, to the point that his aggressive behavior threatens his relationship with Rosalie far more than David himself does. The story of César & Rosalie takes unpredictable turns, but every shift is compelling because of how truthfully written and acted the characters are. The French don't need to invent silly obstacles to romance; they understand that human nature itself is obstacle enough. --Bret Fetzer

for more information click here

A Mature, Beautifully Observed Love Triangle

Claude Sautet is one of the lesser known French directors in the United States, but he made a number of wonderful dramas about romantic relationships that are hard to find on DVD (two of his last films found an audience in the U.S.--Un Coeur en Hiver and Nelly and Monsieur Arnaud). Cesar and Rosalie is one of his best with memorable performances by Yves Montand, Sami Frey, and the extraordinary Romy Schneider. The love triangle in this film is unpredicatable and touching. Another Sautet film that should be released is Vincent Francois Paul and the Others, which is a melancholy ode to love and friendship.

for more information click here

Cesar and Rosalie

Subtle and engrossing - and unequivocally French - this movie explores a menage a trois and its effects on the three involved. Rosalie (Romy Schneider) is loved by two men: Cesar (Yves Montand), a scrap metal tycoon, loud and brash, and conceited; and David (Sami Frey), quiet and reserved and detached. As the movie begins Rosalie and Cesar are living together; divorced now, Rosalie has a young child. Before that marriage she was the lover of David. When David comes back onto the scene after a five-year absence, Cesar becomes insanely jealous - to the point, ironically, of actually driving Rosalie and David together. But Cesar is a pursuer, the agressor, where David tends to walk away. Thus Cesar wins Rosalie back, but her thoughts are still with David. Desperate now, Cesar goes to David and begs him to come home with him to be with Rosalie. The two men end up becoming the best of friends - and Rosalie leaves them both! The script is strong and very clever, and the acting by all three principals is superb. Rosalie's never flinching honesty, which eliminates any guilt for her, is wonderful. A very well constructed and acted movie.

for more information click here

Should be a Criterion selection

This is a provocative film. You will enjoy it from the beginning and all the way to the end. After the first 15 minutes I think you will realize how much is going on and that's a good thing.

First and last, the actors are all top of the line and they all fit this movie perfectly. Casting this must have been rewarding in itself, but once the film was out...tres bien!

The storyline is simple, but the story is about 3 or 4 layers deep. And not just for females, not just for the young or young at heart and not just for the romantics. And you probably won't want it to end.

And if it becomes a "Criterion Collection" offering, I will buy it again.

for more information click here

César et Rosalie is a Flawless French Film.

Claude Sautet is best known for his highly-acclaimed films Un Coeur en Hiver ( A Heart in Winter ) and Nelly and Monsieur Arnaud. Sautet's earlier, 1972 French romance, César et Rosalie, stars Yves Montand and Romy Schneider as a May-December couple who unexpectedly find themselves in a love triangle involving Cesar (Montand), Rosalie (Schneider), and Rosalie's former lover, David (Sami Frey), an artist who is determined to win her back. David evokes jealous feeings in César, threatening his otherwise happy relationship with Rosalie. Ultimately, Rosalie is forced to choose between the two men.

The plot of César & Rosalie is far from predictable. In fact, one of the things I enjoy most about French films such as this one is that, unlike Americans, the French seem so much more grownup in their attitudes toward sex and relationships. The unlikely relationship between César et Rosalie is not intended to be a typical Hollywood romance. It is more complex, and it may not live up to some viewers' expectations. This film avoids cliches, and the result is a film that feels real. Yves Montand and Romy Schneider carry the film with their flawless, nuanced performances. Highly recommended.

G. Merritt

for more information click here

Yves Montand at his best

Cesar et Rosalie is from the days when Claude Sautet still set his films in a wider world before retreating into chamber pieces set in enclosed universes (the bookshop of Un Mauvais Fils], the apartment of Nelly et Monsieur Annaud, the hotel room and junkyard of Max et les Ferraleurs). Here he's still embracing a wider canvas of characters and everyday locations, with a strong visual sense of location (the long grass of a field is beautiful), and it gives this romantic trifle a breath of fresh air and life that the material doesn't always deserve. But what really makes the film work is Yves Montand's outstanding performance, one of his very best, turning what could easily have been a larger than life stereotype into something flesh and blood and all too believable as everything he tries to prevent lover Romy Schneider (also excellent here) from returning of Sami Frey only drives her into his arms. There's a real vulnerability beneath the bravado: his reactions in the scene where Frey casually tells him he still loves Schneider are an amazing mix of conflicting emotions he can't quite hide.

The film paints itself into a corner by the end, with a particularly unsatisfying conclusion that would probably have worked a little better had the film ended a minute earlier, but it's still a surprisingly vital little movie.

The Region 1 NTSC DVD offers an acceptable but not outstanding widescreen transfer. The only extras are trailers for The Last Metro, Stolen Kisses and Z.

for more information click here

reviews: page 1, 2

products you might be interested in