To Paint or Make Love (2005)

just watch it!

It's a good bad... and worth a popcorn matinée. While it's easy to lament what could have been...

Each character in this movie — down to the smallest one — is an individual rather than a type, prone to spontaneous changes of mood and sometimes amusing outbursts of pettiness or ill humor.

It is interesting even when nothing much happens, which is for most of its 3-hour running time. Read full review

There are films one loves to hate. This one is so awful, so contrived, so inane, so pretentious, so ludicrous at times ( particularly the dialogue ) that I wonder how well-known actors like Azema and Auteuil condescended to be part of such an abysmal opus. That it was well-received in France and Belgium is a sad reflection on some people's critical faculties, and also on the topics that we deem worthy of attention ( or rather on our treatment of them ). I understand that the directors, the Larrieu brothers, until their disastrous foray into serious film-making, had made documentaries about insects, quite a worthy enterprise ( one has only to think of the superb BBC productions ). Perhaps their intimacy with these tiny creatures have deprived them of any savoir-faire when dealing with human beings and their problems, since their stilted direction and clumsy camera work make the spectator wonder:" am I missing something? Is there some hidden intention in such lack of talent ?" I am relieved to note that there is a reviewer in Germany who shares my opinion that this film is unadulterated faeces.

"Peindre ou faire l'amour" is a film light like a feather. There is nothing dark about it. It is a film about spontaneity, a film about getting back enjoyment in life through art and sex, through friendship and sex, and through sex. Almost all characters in the film are blessed with a constant level of sexual desires, which results of their carelessness. Our main characters for example (played by Daniel Auteuil and Sabine Azéma): The husband has just retired and has a lot of time and his wife's nature seems to be very sexual in general. Or their new friends (played by Sergi Lopez and Amira Casar): It looks like it has always been their plan to get to bed with Auteuil's and Azéma's character. Or at least to gather different sexual experiences. Moreover, nearly all characters, who appear in this film come twosome, as a couple (which says a lot about the world it plays in). All in all a light and very good film, funny at times, touching at times, and for the characters always interesting.

This is a movie that just begs for someone to observe how FRENCH it is, the implication being that other countries somehow can't get their celluloid souffles to rise quite like the Gauls. Be that as it may this IS, I suppose, typically French, whatever that means. Sabine Azema and Daniel Auteuil are a well-heeled couple of the 'early retirement' school. Azema likes to dabble in landscapes and whilst she is thus occupied a blind man (Sergi Lopez) tells her and shows - if that is the right word - her a house that is for sale. In nothing flat she and Auteuil are installed and beginning a new life in which Lopez and his wife (Amira Casar) quickly become their new best friends and in the fullness of time - probably about two or three months - it's wife-swapping time. Azema and Auteuil take to this like ducks to water so much so that they're soon advertising for like-minded couples. If it sounds sordid on the page it doesn't come across like that on the screen, possibly because it's French. All the principals are on top of their game and Casar proves that there IS life after Catherine Breillat. Well worth a look.

I went to see it unexpectedly yesterday evening. It's absolutely amazing. For all of us 30, 40, 50 somethings out there, it's a real breath of fresh air. Sabine Azema never looked so stunning (to say the least!). The appearance of Philippe Katerine at the end as well as scores from Jacques Brel (an incredible echo at the moment when they play "Les Marquises" made me cry straight away). Even Daniel Auteuil whom I really don't like most of the time plays well here, as well as all the other actors. I would advise all of you to go and see it if you'd like to follow Borges' advice :"wash your eyes between each looks". It's what this movie will allow you to do, no more, no less.