Main Cast: Anne Parillaud, Béatrice Dalle, Patrick Aurignac, Bernard Verley, Alain Chabat
Release Year: 1994
Country: FR
Run Time: 96 minutes
MPAA Rating: R
Plot
A menage-a-trois between rival sisters and a boyfriend provide the dramatic focus of this French film. The sisters Alice and Elsa have been apart for two years. Alice, a painter, lives in Paris with her lover Franc. Problems for the happy couple ensue when Elsa suddenly appears at their door after leaving her cheating husband and two children. Elsa immediately begins trying to dominate their lives. Alice wants the out-of-control Elsa to leave, but then suddenly changes her mind. To thank her, Elsa destroys her art studio, has sex with Franc, convinces him that Alice is unbalanced, and then ties Alice up in her apartment. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
Two rival sisters, Alice and Elsa, have been apart for two years. Alice, a promising young artist, lives in an attic flat in Paris. Her lover Franck, a boxer, has just moved in with her. Problems for the happy couple ensue when Elsa, a bored housewife, suddenly appears unannounced at their door after leaving her cheating husband Thomas and their two children, and a menage-a-trois develops. Elsa immediately begins trying to dominate their lives. Alice wants the out-of-control Elsa, who disrupts their life by playing psychological games with them, to leave, but then suddenly changes her mind, unable to bring herself to throw Elsa out. To thank her, Elsa destroys her art studio, has sex with Franck, convinces him that Alice is unbalanced, and then ties Alice up in her apartment.
Music
à la folie
photography by Jean-Marie Leroy
design by Dave McKean
The music by Michael Nyman has been praised as one of his better works, and considered unusually buried in the sound mix of the film. The album is Nyman's 23rd release, and the fourteenth with the Michael Nyman Band. The American album became very difficult to come by; American Nyman fans attempting to special order the album only a few years later were often presented with copies of Randy Edelman's Six Days Seven Nights, derived from distributors' fuzzy searches. In France, however, the album was promoted as "Michael Nyman Nouvel Album."
The score features yet another of Michael Nyman's waltzes. "Waltzing the Bird" is based on Nyman's early "Waltz in F," which appeared on Michael Nyman, although it develops in a very different direction. "Love Theme" is a very loose reworking of material from the String Quartet No. 3 with material from other themes written for the score of the film.
The only liner notes on the French release of the album are an uncredited synopsis of the film in French.
