Rapture (1965)

You won't be disappointed!

If you like to be scared, if you like to laugh, and if you like to learn a thing or two at the movies, this absolutely cannot be missed.

This movie feels like it was made purely to piss off people who want good shows

It is encouraging that the film ends so strongly.Otherwise, it wouldn't have been a particularly memorable film

From her stark novel of loneliness, "Rapture In My Rags" by PHILLIS HASTINGS.Patricia Gozzi, giving a 'bravura' performance that is nothing short of amazing, plays 15 year old disturbed Agnes (Fr. pronunciation: 'Anya'), a child-like waif who lives with her widowed Father in a ancient château on the jagged coastline of Brittany, France in conditions that are outwardly normal but with more psychological twists than a Freudian barber pole!Melvyn Douglas plays an ex-judge with what he seemingly believes is the key to the ageless paradox, "justice vs crime: egalitarian or barbarous?" His long suffering writings on his revelations are hamstrung by his quilt-ridden widower hood which continually stands between either world-fame or solitary madness.Agnes' latest trifle is to create a homemade scarecrow that gives her more succor than any human ever could. Suddenly, as a bolt from the sky, an escaped fugitive appears, (Dean Stockwell) who is befriended by the family. Guilt and innocence become more confusing than a Fallujah road-map!Recently previewing this Tour-De-Force again I am truly amazed why this Masterpiece isn't considered one of the greatest of it's time period. Although admittedly I haven't read the book, from which it is adapted, this film must certainly be considered a brilliant interpretation of a totally original story.

Believe it or not,Patricia Gozzi is virtually forgotten in her native France.Not only "Cybèle Ou Les Dimanches De Ville D'Avray" is NOT available on DVD ,but it's also NEVER screened on French TV!But at least ,it's included in the French Dictionnaire Des Films whereas "Rapture" aka "La Fleur De L'Age" is nowhere to be seen.It was broadcast today on satellite TV.I knew Patricia Gozzi was outstanding,but in "Rapture " she is even better an actress than in "Cybèle".Her decision to call it quits after her marriage was a major loss for French cinema.(Gozzi had made her real debut in Melville's "Leon Morin Pretre" but she only had a supporting part.It's hard to admit that the director who made "Tower Inferno" or "Death on the Nile" made this art house work.But it is so."Rapture" is an exceptionally original movie,with complex characters (one user wrote ,and he was right ,that the relationship father/daughter remained extremely mysterious ,running the whole gamut,from desperate love to hatred and resentment),a gloomy cinematography which takes advantage of the splendor of the landscapes of Bretagne.Some scenes are absolutely phenomenal: the rag doll on the rocks (and the final scene which is its exact equivalent),the fight in the shed,the insane asylum where Agnes is irresistibly attracted ,the chemistry between her and James Deanesque Dean Stockwell .There are similarities between Gozzi's parts in "Cybèle" and "Rapture" :in both works,we find a little girl or a teenager in love with someone much older than her.The endings are very similar too.Both are heartbreakingly beautiful .To write that Georges Delerue's scores are simply magnificent is to state the obvious.He too was never replaced.

This was one of only two films that touched me to the deepest (the other was "A Summer place"). For years after I first saw it in 1965, this was my "all-time favourite". It was absolutely perfect in all respects: the cinematography, the incredibly moving Delerue score, the performances by Gozzi (better than her memorable "Sundays and Cybele" of three years previously), who subsequently all but disappeared from view, by Melvyn Douglas, Stockwell, and Ingmar Bergman regular Lindbloom, all of this blended together into such an emotionally satisfying package that even today I think back to it with trepidation (there's just so much one can take)... I really think there should be an Oscar category for "unaccountably neglected masterpieces". "Rapture" would get one hands down. If you have the chance to see it, just watch for the terrific contrasts between the moody seaside cliff and mansion scenes and the vulgar, brash, city noises. They are a splendid metaphor for what you get and what you long for. The experience will haunt you for always.

i first saw this film about 7 years ago and i still pop it in every now and then. i seem to be the only person that finds the story to be well formed and moving. a young stockwell plays a charismatic fugitive that becomes involved with a tattered young girl and her estranged father. There is some very simplistic yet beautiful foreshadowing techniques that tie the movie together neatly. overall, i think this a great little flick about the trials of human nature and the way our hearts sometimes take us on journeys we are not prepared to undergo.