Movie Description
Francois Ozon's haunting UNDER THE SAND stars the remarkable British actress Charlotte Rampling, who plays Marie Drillon: a strong, attractive, professional, independent middle-aged woman trying to get her life back on track after the sudden disappearance of her husband. Even for a superwoman like Marie, the shock of the tragedy is psychologically traumatizing. Marie isn't sure what happened to her husband (Is he dead? Did he run off with someone else?) and she's in denial about him being gone. At Parisian dinner parties with her supportive, careful friends, Marie still talks about her husband in the present tense. At home, she still imagines that he is with her; she pours two cups of tea in the morning and she reminds him to set the alarm clock before going to sleep at night. At the university where she teaches English, she reads to her students from the melancholy book THE WAVES by Virginia Woolf. Through all of this, Ozon's camera caresses Marie and encourages her, always casting her in cold, confident light. Using film language such as the repeated double reflection of Marie's face in the mirror, audiences come to understand Marie's innermost thoughts and feelings. She is a woman confronting herself (her identity, her age, her body, her sexuality, her emotions, her intellect) with brutal honesty. UNDER THE SAND is beautiful, sad, languorous film that includes some unforgettable images of the rolling ocean waves near Marie's beach house in Landes, France.
| Credits | | Cast: | Alexandra Stewart |
Notes
Theatrical release: May 4, 2001.
Editorial Reviews
"...Like the beauty of its star Charlotte Rampling, UNDER THE SAND is stylish and slightly haunted..."
Sight and Sound - p.59 - Ginette Vincendeau (04/01/2001)
"...[Ozon] has an uncanny ability to convey physical sensation on film....[Rampling's] whose performance is like a perfectly executed piano etude..."
New York Times - p.E14 - A. O. Scott (05/04/2001)
"...[Rampling] acts with a peppery restraint that suggests female wisdom, her sinewy grace intensified by the comforting solidity of Cremer's easy girth..."
Entertainment Weekly - p.51 - Lisa Schwarzbaum (05/11/2001)
"...A beautifully controlled portrait of the pain of bereavement....Rampling herself provides a superbly understated, expressive performance..."
Total Film - p.101 - Tom Dawson (05/01/2001)
"...Ozon's film crackles with sound....Rampling carries UNDER THE SAND with her assured turn..."
Box Office - p.57 - Jordan Reed (05/01/2001)
"...A delicate and devastating film....[It] features one of the best performances of the year....It's a role of fierce demands, and Rampling meets them all..."
Rolling Stone - p.82 - Peter Travers (06/21/2001)
"...[A] fine, provocative film....Ozon reveals fragility and vulnerability underlying seemingly secure and solid bourgeois appearances..."
Los Angeles Times - p.6 - Kevin Thomas (05/18/2001)
"...UNDER THE SAND is a movie of introspection and defiance....We are surprised how much we are touched..."
Chicago Bulletin - Roger Ebert (07/10/2001)
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