Éperdument

Though it is filled with passion, I didn’t feel any passion myself for Down By Love. Adele looks like a frightened animal with the gaze of one too, but she should be playing a femme fatale causing men to lose their wits and depriving them of their peaceful family life. It doesn’t matter that the film is based on real events when the animalistic attraction between the lead actors is not believable and the amount of space and time they find for their amorous games behind prison walls is equally improbable. For an archetypal story of mad love built on the foundation of an ancient tragedy, the film is too literal and not very timeless. The filmmakers have taken from Phaedra, which Anna reads in the film, the ambiguity of who the culprit is and who the victim is. They achieved that, however, simply by concealing from us who the protagonist was before she went to prison. She is unreadable due in large part to the fact that we are given nothing about her that is readable. Jean does not come off much better than Anna. While she is characterised by her vanity (she constantly grooms herself in front of the mirror, taking great pains to look good) and nymphomania, Jean considers running a prison to be an art (how French!) and can think of nothing better to do during a passionate moment with his wife than answer the ringing telephone. Down by Love is a rather insipid study of sexual desire based on the model of two characters who are so captivated by each other that the world around them ceases to exist (accordingly, even we don’t know what's going on around them and how others perceive them). Such a promising theme deserves bolder execution. Any given episode of Orange is the New Black offers a more intense viewing experience, a more authentic look behind the walls of a women’s prison and characters acting in a more reasonable manner. 50% (26.12.2016)

A French film about the fact that even a prison governor can fuck his wards and fall in love with one of them. Sure, he'll suffer the consequences, but he probably won't mind in any major way. That’s what you get with this film, which is very predictable, but still manages to impress you at times with the heavy atmosphere of something bad coming. (27.03.2017)