A poignant and often charming but always understated look at drifting lives.
Seaside (2003)
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Reviews Counted:16
Fresh:12
Rotten:4
Average Rating:6.4/10
Theatrical Release:Aug 6, 2003 Limited
Synopsis: Julie Lopes-Curval's debut film is a lushly photographed and mature work. Set over the course of a year in Cayeux, a once-luxurious coastal town in Northern France, SEASIDE follows the lives of a... Julie Lopes-Curval's debut film is a lushly photographed and mature work. Set over the course of a year in Cayeux, a once-luxurious coastal town in Northern France, SEASIDE follows the lives of a group of residents who are struggling to find happiness. Rose (Bulle Ogier) is a compulsive gambler and mother of Paul (Jonathan Zaccai), who lives with the beautiful, but unhappy, Marie (Helene Fillieres). Across town, Albert (Patrick Lizana), finds himself becoming disillusioned with his marriage. As the seasons change, time continues to stand still for these individuals, who can't seem to escape the confines of their town's haunted past. Co-written with Francois Favrat, Lopes-Curval's deeply poignant drama captures life in a small seaside town with unflinching honesty. Almost painterly in its composition (compliments of director of photography Stephan Massis), the film pulls the viewer into the characters' world, and keeps them there for the entire year. Winner of the Camera d'Or at the 2002 Cannes Film Festival for best first feature, SEASIDE marks the arrival of yet another important French director. [More]
Starring: Bulle Ogier, Ludmila Mikael, Jonathan Zaccai, Liliane Rovere
Starring: Bulle Ogier, Ludmila Mikael, Jonathan Zaccai, Liliane Rovere, Hélène Fillières
Director: Julie Lopes-Curval
Director: Julie Lopes-Curval
Screenwriter: Julie Lopes-Curval, Francois Favrat
Studio: First Run Features
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Reviews for Seaside
Poles-Curval balances the banal with the sublime in this simply remarkable and very French film.
If you were lolling on the beach, casting your eyes at the scantily clad folks around you and overhearing bits of their conversations, it would be akin to the experience of watching Seaside.
The film's simple beauty lies in the way that Lopes-Curval effortlessly equates life to a passing season.
Along with Ms. Ogier, these four actresses [Fillières, Lizana, Mïkaël, Rovère] are the best reasons to see Seaside.
Stifled passion isn't necessarily engaging, and by focusing on too many characters, it's tough to care about all of these drifting souls.
Rarely does a filmmaker emerge so wholly formed, creating a miniature masterpiece first time out.
Writer-director Julie Lopes-Curval's film is commendable for its resolute honesty in depicting unabating starkness in both scenery and existence, but cinematically galvanizing it's not.
Seaside is splendid exploration of the power of place and the small changes that give our lives meaning.
Director Julie Lopes-Curval's deeply thoughtful first feature explores the factors and forces, notably class difference, that determine the direction one's life takes.
Touching, amusing, sometimes compelling, Seaside is ultimately little more revealing than a weekend visit. It's a sheaf of captivating postcards.
[Lopes-Curval's] achievement is so particularly -- and peculiarly -- realized, evoking the enforced parameters and rhythms of small-town life, that the movie itself begins to feels restrictive.
The story is familiar and the direction doesn't break any new ground. Still, Lopes-Curval's excellent ensemble cast makes Seaside pleasurable viewing.
Compare it to what passes for sophisticated filmmaking in this country and the movie becomes a living instrument of cinematic humanism.
A lifeless film that drags an audience into the lives of a group of people in Cayeux, a coastal town in northern France, during the summer. We leave them after 12 months with a sigh of relief.
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