La Lectrice (1988)

This movie is the proof that the world is becoming a sick and dumb place

Great Film overall

It’s not bad or unwatchable but despite the amplitude of the spectacle, the end result is underwhelming.

It is an exhilarating, distressing, funny and profound film, with one of the more memorable film scores in years,

Our heroine Constance (played by Miou-Miou in yet another role where she seems to play the same character as always...herself) turns her passion for literature into an exciting and profitable "profession". Her little newspaper advertisement eventually brings her a variety of eccentric clients who take advantage of this young woman's services (literally). Hired to read to the disabled, the elderly and the bored, Constance creates, fulfills and participates in her employers' fantasies and peculiar dreams. Warned by the clerk who helped her with the initial advertisement not to be surprised if her ventures yield complications and trouble, Constance seems to not only meet the challenge, but to enjoy the sense of danger and surprise.The degree of tolerance and acceptance of human sexuality displayed in this film may appear over-the-top to viewers unfamiliar with French culture, and French society's extremely liberal social mores. This film was produced in the 1980s, not the 60s (you'd never know it). The "anything goes" mentality is likely to perplex the average viewer, and it may even offend some. The twisted freshness and daring situations eventually seem gratuitous. We "get it" pretty early on, yet the soft-core peep show continues throughout the film. The intertwining of actual literary passages and storyline are fascinating. Unfortunately my fascination with this film ends there.

I want to indicate a thing of literary merit—a passage from Marx that Constance/Marie reads to the old Bolshevik lady.This makes it the third place where the existence of such exciting things is seized in Marx's works—Noica did this,pointing out such literary beauties in Marx's journalism.The second such place that I found was in Simmel.And this film is the third.I guess that such things could be find in Baudrillard also (and perhaps somewhere in the many French Structuralist Marxists who wrote in the '50s-'70s …);anyway,the pointing of the Marx's works' literary charm is something interesting.The quote given in this film is remarkably well chosen.As a writer,Marx was much better than the cohort of his trite followers.But this was here a literary parenthesis;anyway,the literary source offered the material for a postmodern piece of fun.The film has a level of competence and fun that certainly makes it agreeable and interesting—on a medium level,just enough to maintain it above the ridiculous.The passion for reading transforms, changes invariably into something else—or is already something else,or it is a bridge to a sphere of the life that has a more banal dimension;not even one case of passion for reading,as everyone wants something else from this and reading is but a pretext.So,it is more about various ways of misusing reading.All Constance/Marie's clients want something else from her,another form of fun.One of the main deficiencies is the length:the film is obviously overlong.With this director's footage, a 40' movie would of been much better. Sylvette Héry 's hips and thighs are indeed beautiful and well-filmed,but the sexual side of The Reader is mishandled.The director lacked the necessary cinematographic culture and subtlety for such a movie.In conclusion,the movie is average and less amusing and beautiful than it could be.Better scripted,and much better conceived and made,this could of been one of the best surrealist films.It was obviously above the director's aptitudes.It is interesting to think about who would of been suited for such a movie;a direction could of been explored by Truffaut.It would of been even less surrealist than it is in its actual director's hands,but it would of had style and more charm. Truffaut was the man for the graceful fairy ingenuity needed here.Another direction could of been explored by Bunuel—and then,the surrealism would of reached the heights.Anyway,one feels here the existence of a material for much better movies.It has potential.

One SHINWA has made some scathing remarks about this film, and has passed judgment on the script as well as the direction and even the motivation of the leading actress who (in company with the rest of the cast) gives a most satisfying and believable performance. The character does not indeed refuse to read Sade for her client, she declines to give a second reading of it to an audience including two other men, invited by her client without prior consultation. SHINWA goes on to accuse the character of duel standards because she refused to read Sade, yet earlier leaps into bed with one of her clients; they are both adult and both play the game, she exercises her will as an adult woman in both this and the Sade episode, and I don't know where SHINWA'S notion that the actress bares her crotch has come from, certainly not from this rather wonderful and light hearted film. I can only think that Shinwa considers this film to be unworthy because it fails to meet the high intellectual standards of Shinwa. Unfortunately for all the people who think this way, films are made for anyone to enjoy and must therefore stoop a little every now and then as well as excel. Believe me, this film has nothing to apologize about, it is a beautiful little romp, and the music (composed by a first class bloke who knew what he was doing)is a true delight and so very fitting.

A woman in bed starts to read a story to her husband about a woman who visits people and reads to them... Confused? You needn't be. Despite some unusual links between reality and fantasy, this is easy to follow and engaging.It's inventive without being in love with itself. The staging is fantastic without feeling contrived. It's made with the kind of lightness of touch you need for this kind of film and isn't the kind of thing I've seen coming out of America for some time.This isn't your usual comedy or romance. It is very French. I don't mean this as an insult. There is fantastic set design, some lovely comic moments and a lilting feel to the music.Probably not for everybody but if you like a subtle, gently funny, literate and unconventional film then watch this.