See the Sea (1998)

Good movie but grossly overrated

Let me be very fair here, this is not the best movie in my opinion. But, this movie is fun, it has purpose and is very enjoyable to watch.

The acting is good, and the firecracker script has some excellent ideas.

A clunky actioner with a handful of cool moments.

It's amazing, an English actress playing a moody, sensual French young mother, hiding an enigmatic darker side, unleashed at the end of this film. Sasha Hails walks the walk and talks the talk, strangely unfazed by the threatening presence of a course, uncouth backpacker, initially camping in her backyard, but before long babysitting, almost playing the role of au pair, which had first borough Sasha to France. The visitor, Tatiana, played by Marina de Van (surely it should be vin, given the amount of wine they consume?) is obviously the unsettling element - initially. But as with all good French movies, even short ones like this, you're left wondering who, in the end, is stranger, Sasha, having sex with strangers in the woods while leaving her baby on the beach or Tatiana, with the apparent nihilism of her diary, dark hangmen, twisted doodles and a propensity to ask strange, detailed questions about childbirth? I was flumoxed by the ending; who had done what? In the end, I deduced with Sherlock Holmesian logic, it must have been Sasha, how else could the ropes have been tied? But then, going on a boat, uncaring, nonchalant, as her husband arrives home from his business trip to Paris, unzipping Tatiana's tent, making a discovery enough to put him off camping for life? Ah, yes, now I know: Sasha is really the dark player, the other girl, merely the mixed up backpacker. I think. Not horrific, not a masterpiece, a 52 minute vignette of Anglo French foibles and sexual deviance. Forgive me, I must go and lick my plate clean.

When watching See The Sea on DVD recently, I saw a trend from the movie that was actually done a few times in real life since its 1997 release. In the United States, there were reports of mentally unstable women, usually those who had a bad experience with the birth of a child or the child was aborted for some reason, who broke into homes where other women lived with their newborns, leading them to murder the mother and kidnap the child. In those cases, the kidnapper/murderer was arrested by the authorities. However, in one other incident, the kidnapper/murderer committed suicide.When Sasha Hails character invites Tatiana (Marina de Van) into her beach side home, she invites her own death and the kidnapping of her little Samantha (played by Hails' real life daughter, who was born prior to the making of the film). What Francois Ozon does well is to slowly unravel the Tatiana character's intentions as the film progressed. Even Sasha finds out late in the story about the real person behind the backpacker who admitted that she had lost her child. To make matters worse, Sasha is a victim of her naivety.Amazingly, this film lasts only 51 minutes. You would think that this thriller would go, at least 90 minutes, but not enough material was written to extend the movie's length. However, I would have been happy to have seen the kidnapper/murderer get caught by the police to put closure on the case. But the film ends with a crime committed, the perpetrator running free with the baby. Apparently, European films deal more with unsolved answers to problems than finding solutions. How sad.

A scruffy girl backpacker Tatiana (Marina de Van) shows up at the beach house of a Parisian young mom, the English Sasha (Sasha Hails), who has a 10-month-old baby--and demands permission to pitch her tent in the back yard. The dad is working in Paris and only shows up at the end of the film's 52-minute running time. (De Van was to appear again in Ozon's Sit Com). The mom precedes to trust the obviously suspicious and ominously aggressive and affect-less outsider far too much--to the torment of nervous viewers. A rather minimalist horror flick, this shows Ozon's characteristic visual elegance and economy but leans dangerously far toward the more glib aspect of his rarely absent desire to shock. One of the hardest of his films to watch, but not one of the more convincing ones. Various elements strain credulity and others are not even really made clear. Roger Ebert wrote a very good (if typically over-kind) review.. This was Ozon's longest film so far. Though not well reviewed in this country his Criminal Lovers/Les amants criminels (1999), with the naturally combustible couple of Jeremie Renier and real-life girlfriend Natacha Regnier, was longer (96 min.) and a huge improvement.

See The Sea is one of those films that's truly horrifying. This is oneof the few movies that gave me a true scare, not a cheap one. A motherand her child live in a cottage that's located by the sea. Her husbandis always on a lengthy business trip, leaving the two alone for longperiods of time. One day, a female drifter comes into their lives. Thisis when the fun begins. Mere words cannot describe what happens next.But the end results are down right scary. If you want a nice scare orif you enjoy a real good thriller every now and then, this one might beyour cup of tea.Highly recommended.A-