La Captive

2003

La Captive

Critics Consensus

No consensus yet.

La Captive Photos

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Movie Info

Inspired by Proust's short story La Prisonniere, renowned filmmaker Chantel Akerman creates this challenging meditation on love, desire, and obsession. The film opens with grainy Super-8 footage showing Ariane (Sylvie Testud) and her female friends rollicking on a beach. Now Ariane lives in third empire splendor in the tony Parisian apartment that her rich significant other Simon (Stanislas Merhar), shares with his grandmother (Francoise Bertin). Simon proves to be a fanatically jealous lover; he subjects her to surveillance and endless questions about her whereabouts. Though Ariane acquiesces to his will, she answers his inquires vaguely to maintain at least a modicum of privacy, which only fuels Simon's suspicions that she is leading a double life as a lesbian. His pain and obsession is further compounded by his own kink: he demands that Ariane be utterly passive (sleeping or pretending to sleep) while he can never quite bring himself to actual physical coupling. When Simon tries to break off the relationship, they end up on a road trip to the sea, resulting in tragic consequences. This film was screened at the Director's Fortnight at the 2000 Cannes Film Festival and at the 2000 Toronto Film Festival.

Rating:

PG
Genre:

Art House & International, Drama
Directed By:

Chantal Akerman
Written By:

Eric de Kuyper, Chantal Akerman
In Theaters:

Mar 28, 2003 wide
On Disc/Streaming:

Jan 27, 2004
Runtime:

118 minutes
Studio:

Gémini Films

Cast

Stanislas Merhar
as Simon

Sylvie Testud
as Ariane

Liliane Rovère
as Francoise

Françoise Bertin
as Grandmother

Olivia Bonamy
as Andree

Françoise Bertin

Aurore Clement
as Lea

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Critic Reviews for La Captive

All Critics (11) | Top Critics (2) | Fresh (8) | Rotten (3)

La Captive is so good that it makes amends for A Couch in New York, Akerman's simply dreadful 1996 English-language love story.

May 9, 2002 | Rating: 3/4

V.A. Musetto
New York Post
Top Critic
A gently captivating, deceptively austere work.

May 7, 2001 | Rating: 4/5 | Full Review…

David Wood
BBC.com
Top Critic
For the high-minded, literary, and formally invested viewers who are receptive to how she works and what she worries about, the film offers a starkly insinuating exercise in the contemplation of love.

Jul 7, 2009 | Rating: B+ | Full Review…

Nick Davis
Nick's Flick Picks
Not-so-surprisingly drawn from a Proust work, the film is interesting, but is far from captivating.

Jun 21, 2007 | Rating: C | Full Review…

Jason Gorber
Film Scouts
... meditative exploration of a dark, obsessive and possessive love.

Aug 18, 2006 | Rating: B+ | Full Review…

Dennis Schwartz
Ozus' World Movie Reviews
This film represents a perfect match of filmmaker and material.

May 9, 2002 | Rating: 4/5

Ken Fox
TV Guide
It's like an even more inert version of Antonioni's L'Avventura without the overriding mystery that made that film so compelling and enduring.

May 8, 2002 | Rating: 3/4 | Full Review…

Jeremy Heilman
MovieMartyr.com
Akerman creates a cinema which demands you work at watching the minimalist goings on of her protagonists. However, the long takes and meticulous compositions serve only to distance us from events.

Apr 23, 2001 | Rating: 3/5 | Full Review…

Bob McCabe
Empire Magazine

View All Critic Reviews (11)

Audience Reviews for La Captive

Jun 26, 2010

"La Captive" is an atmospheric and creepy movie, aided by Chantal Akerman's fluid direction, about well, a creep. Simon(Stanislas Merhar) is a bookish, probably also spoiled, wealthy young man who wants to know literally everything which is frankly impossible, even if he were to somehow read every book. This is especially true of someone who does not get out as much as he should. However, in his quest for forbidden knowledge, he does get out to stalk Ariane(Sylvie Testud), following her in his car and on foot. He does know her very well, in fact, as they live together in his spacious apartment that he also shares with his grandmother(Francoise Bertin). While unwilling to let her out of his sight during the day(he has even gone to the trouble of hiring her friend Andree(Olivia Bonamy) to be her companion and report back to him), the same cannot be said of the night. There is sex, of a sort, but little intimacy. In the process, he has completely isolated her from her friends and former career as a singer. Even though we see the entire movie through Simon's eyes, there is every indication that things have gotten so bad that Ariane has no choice in her actions, as the relationship is just as abusive as if it had been violent.

Walter M Super Reviewer
May 17, 2008

One of those sexually explicit art house films the French love to make. This is quite possibly one of the most boring, pretentious, uninspired films I have ever seen. Absolutely nothing happens over the running time of this film, it?s literally just a guy following his girlfriend around for two hours. No one in this film acts like an actual human being, they behave like odd robots that exist to make whatever the hell kind of point the director thinks he?s making by deliberately putting the audience to sleep with his plodding non-cinematic style. I?m really open minded about experimental work, but my patience was at an end by halfway through this thing. I even found myself fast-forwarding through parts of the second hour. If I had seen this in the theater I would have walked out after 45 minutes and I would have missed nothing. This is exactly the kind of pretentious bullshit that gives art films a bad name.

MJS M Super Reviewer