Film Excess - Free Ukraine - Stop Putin - End the war NOW!!: Criminal Lovers/Les Amants Criminels (1999)

6/11/2021

Criminal Lovers/Les Amants Criminels (1999) - Ozon impresses with carnal crime drama

♥♥♥

+ Best French Movie of the Year + Worst Dollar Return of the Year: 0.18 Times Its Cost

Sexual intimacy and fresh blood allure from this out-of-focus poster for François Ozon's Criminal Lovers

Alice and Luc are young lovers, but Luc is not so starving for sex as Alice had hoped. Together they murder a guy, who wanted to get in her pants and escapes, - but gets captured in a forest lodge.

Criminal Lovers is written by Marcia Romano (Standing Tall/La Tête Haute (2015)), Annabelle Perrichon (Deep in the Woods/Promenons-nous dans les Bois (2000)) and great French co-writer/director François Ozon (See the Sea/Regarde la Mer (1997)).

The plot is sufficiently dramatic, and the structure only gives us the truth behind the planned murder drip by drip. Natacha Régnier (Orly (2010)) and especially Jérémie Renier (The War in Paris/La Guerre à Paris (2002)) are good as the young lovers, who lack a strong moral compass. - But where do they come from? The film doesn't dwell on this or give us any hints.

Instead it cultivates their transgressive adventure, where nudity and sexual scenes fill up a great deal. The scenes between Renier and the owner of the lodge are quite unusual and will for some be kinky and titillating while for others perverse. (SPOILER The man gets comfortable in the role of a submissive slave.)

Criminal Lovers is a dark sexual adventure for the initiated, although it does only get us to a more or less satisfying position as spectators, distanced some to the characters, who copulate near the animals of the forest in one enjoyable scene.

François Ozon: Swimming Pool (2003) - Rampling and Sagnier stand out in Ozon's suggestive, sensual thriller

1999 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess

Watch a short clip from the film here

Cost: Uncertain, reportedly at least 'under 2 mil. $'

Box office: Unknown - likely in the neighborhood of 0.3 mil. $

= Uncertain - but likely a box office disaster (projected return of around 0.18 times the cost)

[Criminal Lovers was released 18 August (France) and runs 96 minutes. Shooting took place in France. The film reportedly sold 40,754 tickets in France, coming to 243k $, using the average UK ticket prize of 1999 (approximately 5.97 $). The film was also released in several other markets, including New York and Los Angeles, but gross details are regrettably not to be found online. Ozon returned with Water Drops on Burning Rocks/Gouttes d'Eau sur Pierres Brûlantes (2000). Régnier returned in Everything's Fine, We're Leaving/Tout va Bien, on s'en Va (2000); Renier in The King's Daughters/Saint-Cyr (2000). Criminal Lovers is fresh at 67 % with a 6.10/10 critical average at Rotten Tomatoes.]

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Donald Sutherland has passed away

Born in Canada, Sutherland battled polio as a child. His first credit was in Suspense (1963, TV-series) and his first film was The Castle of the Living Dead (1964). Later credits in his remarkable career include The Saint (1965-66), The Dirty Dozen (1967), M*A*S*H (1970), Kelly's Heroes (1970), Klute (1971), Don't Look Now (1973), 1900 (1976), Casanova (1976), The Eagle Has Landed (1976), Ordinary People (1980), A Dry White Season (1989), JFK (1991), Outbreak (1995), Fallen (1998), Virus (1999), Fierce People (2005), Pride & Prejudice (2005), Lord of War (2005), The Hunger Games (2012), The Undoing (2020, miniseries) and many more. He passed away at age 88. R.I.P.

Roger Corman has passed away

Born in Detroit, Michigan, Corman had a sprawling, intellectually hungry life as a youth and young man before arriving with his first film in 1955, Five Guns West. He would follow that with titles such as Apache Woman, It Conquered the World, Attack of the Crab Monsters, Teenage Cave Man, A Bucket of Blood, House of Usher, The Little Shop of Horrors, The Pit and the Pendulum, The Intruder, The Raven, The Terror, The Masque of Red Death, The Tomb of Ligeia, The Wild Angels, The Trip, Bloody Mama and many more. As a producer he was behind almost 500 films. Arguably among the most important filmmakers of the 20th century, Corman passed away at age 98. R.I.P.

William Friedkin has died

Born in Chicago, Friedkin accrued TV credits prior to his advance to the big screen as the director of Good TImes (1967), The Birthday Party (1968), The Night They Raided Minsky's (1968) and The Boys in the Band (1970) before his major breakthrough, The French Connection (1971), for which he won his only Oscar. He followed it up with the even bigger smash, The Exorcist (1973), arguably the best horror film of all time, for which he was Oscar-nominated. Later credits include Sorcerer (1977), Cruising (1980), To Live and Die in L.A. (1985), Rampage (1987), Rules of Engagement (2000), Killer Joe (2011) and The Devil and Father Amorth (2017, documentary). Friedkin passed away at age 87. R.I.P.

Louise Fletcher has passed away

Born in Alabama to deaf parents, Fletcher got her first credits in late-1950s TV-series.She took a 10 year-long sabbatical to devote her time to motherhood after the release of A Gathering of Eagles, but then came back and soon saw her career's most important part, as Nurse Ratched in One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (1975), for which she won her sole Oscar. Later credits include Exorcist II: The Heretic (1977), The Lucky Star (1980), Brainstorm (1983), Two Moon Junction (1988), Cruel Intentions (1999), A Perfect Man (2013) and many more. Fletcher passed away at age 88. R.I.P.

Jean-Luc Godard has passed away

Born in Paris, France, Godard lived much of his life in Switzerland. He wrote for French film criticism magazine Cahiers du Cinema and became foundational for the New French Wave that inspired new waves in scores of other countries across the world with his Breathless (1960). Later credits include A Woman Is A Woman (1961), Vivre Sa Vie (1962), Le Petit Soldat (1962), Contempt (1963), Alphaville (1965), Pierrot le Fou (1965), 2 or 3 Things I Know About Her (1967), Weekend (1967), Every Man for Himself (1980), King Lear (1987), Century of Cinema (1995, documentary), Goodbye to Language (2014) and many more. Godard died of assisted suicide at age 91. R.I.P.

Wolfgang Petersen has died

James Caan has died

Caan was born the son of Jewish immigrants from Germany in New York. He got his start on TV in the early 1960s. His credits include El Dorado (1966), The Rain People (1969), Brian's Song (1971, TV movie), The Godfather (1972), - for which he earned his only Oscar nomination, - Slither (1973), The Gambler (1974), Funny Lady (1975), Rollerball (1975), Silent Movie (1976), Hide in Plain Sight (1980), - the only film he also directed, - Thief (1981), Misery (1990), Honeymoon in Vegas (1992), Bottle Rocket (1996), Eraser (1996), Dogville (2003), Elf (2003), Las Vegas (2003-07), Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs (2009) and many more. Caan passed away at age 82. R.I.P.

Jean-Louis Trintignant has died

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Adopted from an orphenage at a young age, Liotta got hooked on acting in high school. He had various TV credits in the late 1970s and early 80s, with his film debut in The Lonely Lady (1983). Later credits include Something Wild (1986), Field of Dreams (1989), Goodfellas (1990), Cop Land (1997), Hannibal (2001), Blow (2001), Narc (2002), John Q (2002), Identity (2003), Observe and Report (2009), Youth in Revolt (2009), The Details (2011), Killing THem Softly (2012), The Place Beyond the Pines (2012), Shades of Blue (2016-18), The Simpsons (2018, TV-series), Marriage Story (2019), The Many Saints of Newark (2021), Black Bird (2022, TV-series) and many more. Liotta passed away at age 67 in his sleep while on production in the Dominican Republic. R.I.P.

Philip Baker Hall has died

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Film Excess - Free Ukraine - Stop Putin - End the war NOW!!

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6/11/2021

Criminal Lovers/Les Amants Criminels (1999) - Ozon impresses with carnal crime drama

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