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Rating: The number of films that aim to impress the audience by showcasing a star-studded cast while dealing with a plot that is lackluster at best is countless nowadays. Sometimes the effects aren't even worth calling special, and the dialogues are inconclusive. You glance through the names of the actresses in "8 donne e un mistero" and think, "Wow!" Catherine Deneuve, Isabelle Huppert, Fanny Ardant, Emmanuelle Beart, Danielle Darrieux, Ludivine Sagnier. Missing only Morricone's music and the presence of Our Lady of Pompei in the room, you feel compelled to watch it. Armed with curiosity and that small dose of skepticism I have already elaborated on, I submit François Ozon's fourth film (Here in the role of director and screenwriter, and previously the author of various short films) to my judgment.
The ordinary life of a villa nestled in a snowy French province is disrupted by the murder of Marcel, the head of the household and the patriarch of a family composed solely of women. Each has a motive to have killed him, but throughout the story, the viewer realizes that the investigation to discover the culprit is certainly not the film's main aim, but rather the thread through which a series of repressed resentments, dissatisfactions, frustrations, and selfishness emerge. Thus, the beautiful and knowledgeable wife of the victim, Gaby, reveals to her eldest daughter that Marcel is not her father; the latter confides that she is pregnant but only tells her younger sister that the father is Marcel himself. Augustine, Gaby's sister, feels endlessly like a guest in her sister's house, and when their mother admits to having killed their father years ago, the woman mourns the lost possibility of living a life of comfort under a paternal figure. Pierrette, the victim's sister, despised by all for her promiscuous past, has a secret relationship with the housemaid Chanel, who declares her homosexuality, and the maid Louise shows an increasingly morbid attachment to her mistress. By the end of the film, it is revealed that the only one who knew everything was Marcel himself, who, faced with such a web of false and perverse connections, had accepted the proposal of his youngest daughter, Catherine, to pretend to be dead to escape. But when the family's youngest reveals everything to the relatives, stating her intention to take her father away from them and keep him just for herself, the poor man realizes there is no way out and opts for suicide.
Even in his previous films like "Les amants criminels" and "5x2," Ozon sought to desecrate the concept of sentimental ties and familial affection. However, more than a mere repetition of a theme previously tackled or a stereotypical satire targeting the middle bourgeoisie—paradoxically suffocated by well-being and in turn smothering genuine instincts—the film stands as a true reflection on love, with each character embodying an expression of it. There is adulterous love, homosexual love, sadistic love, filial love, incestuous love, and none is realized completely and satisfactorily but rather erodes every individual and the relationships they establish with others. A feature-length film that cites a lot without taking on a precise dimension. Pierrette and Gaby discuss love as in a platonic symposium, all the actresses perform short musical pieces that synthesize their existential condition and define them perfectly, and the director does not forget to temper the dramatic tones with amusing, sometimes grotesque ideas.
What Ozon manages to recreate is an atmosphere suspended between the harshest reality (The aspect that prevails at the end) and the characters' need to express their most natural and intimate side (The lingering of the camera on Fanny Ardant's slight tears). Supporting the film's beauty is meticulously curated scenography, a theatrical setup suggested by the red drapes, the vivid colors, the text itself, and the stylization of the characters, which seems to nod to Greek theater with its masks, each presenting a characteristic allowing them to be well identified. It's impossible to get bored in this continuous onslaught of plot twists that dictate a fast-paced but never hurried rhythm.
Some have wanted to talk about misogyny from Ozon, a critique of the manipulative female universe constantly overpowering the male one, but to radicalize this critical stance could be unjust for a film that aims to highlight the impossibility of achieving happy love without resorting to simplistic philosophy among amusing ideas and caricatures.
Il y n'a pas amours heureux...
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