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MYSTERY WRAPPED IN AN ENIGMA

Today's François Ozon film was

Swimming Pool (2003)

in which an uptight spinsterish British mystery writer goes to France, he editor's villa, to rest, recuperate and cure her writer's block.

Before too long she is interrupted in her idyll by a sexy, uninhibited, young woman who is everything that the writer is not.

Sparks fly.

A plot develops that involves these two and other characters who are in the vicinity.

There is violence. There is some resolution. There is a deliciously different mystery.

Rampling used to be the young libertine. She was famous for audacious roles of sexuality and rebellion.

Here, Ozon has cleverly cast her against type and shows how inhibition can be a creative force. And then some.

The young woman is Ludivine Sagnier, an Ozon stock company player, this time a totally different role.

You should be warned that there are puzzles to solve in this one and Ozon does layout some clues but you have to be especially nimble to catch them as they go by.

I have read through the "user's comments" at the IMDb site for this film and the interpretations vary wildly.

I, personally, believe that there is only one solution but, hey, what do I know? Maybe I am not as nimble as I thought.

In some ways this is a coming out film or, more aptly, a film about opening up and reaching down to pull up the inner libertine.

Or maybe not.

I would probably want to see it again to see if my memory is served by the actual scenes and how they unfold.

That would make it a 4 out of Netflix5.

Labels: films