VividSimon Simply Perfect

Fairaher The film makes a home in your brain and the only cure is to see it again.

FirstWitch A movie that not only functions as a solid scarefest but a razor-sharp satire.

Kirandeep Yoder The joyful confection is coated in a sparkly gloss, bright enough to gleam from the darkest, most cynical corners.

happytrigger-64-390517 In the early 80's, as a young movie lover, my favorite was "le Plaisir" directed by Max Ophüls. And at that time, it was quite hard to have vidéo cassettes of such masterpieces, I found the cassette and watched "Le Plaisir" so many times showing it to everybody around me, the movie in fact I showed the most. We just loved "La Maison Tellier" with Gabin (so funny as a peasant searching for a love affair with Danièle Darrieux, unforgettable), every scene was perfect. And shot by master Christian Matras. The two other sketches are also great, especially the one with Simone Simon. Thank you Mr Ophüls for that true masterpiece.

museumofdave This trilogy of tales adapted from De Maupassant is such a vivid contrast to today's mainstream cinema of frenetic editing, overblown adventure and concurrent explosions; instead, it is an evocation of times gone by, three mood pieces enriched by incredibly complex but telling cinematography. A personal favorite is the middle story, The Teller House, relating how some Ladies of The Night close their beloved city brothel for a night in order to attend a niece's Catholic confirmation in a small town; Ophuls captures the contrast between the women dressed in their lavish best with the simplicity not only of the child but all the village in their working class blacks, as they attend the service in a local church and surprise themselves and the town folk with an emotional catharsis; the episode is incredibly rich in atmospherics, capturing everything from the baroque traceries of the tiny church to the rickety wooden train interiors; the tracking shots of the brothel exterior, creating a sense of voyeuristic benevolence are simply incredible! The remaining two stories offer pleasures of their own in this lovely film with a sadly ironic view of happiness

jonathan-577 A trilogy of Guy de Maupassant stories, two short simple ones framing a long and impossibly rich one, and I don't know why everyone complains about the framing ones - everything is given exactly the weight that their narrative will support. An old man dressing up like a young dandy to relive the gavotting excesses of his youth, only to end in physical collapse, starts things off; and to close we have a beautiful young couple who go from romantic bliss to petty vindictiveness to resigned acceptance via an attempted suicide. This gives us a rather complex understanding of the meaning of 'pleasure', and the worst you can say is that one and three don't utterly embody pleasure the way number two does (although the swirling camera work in the dance scene comes damn close). The story of a troop of sex workers romping off to a country wedding is simplicity itself, but also incredibly rich - full of memorable human beings and interactions. Everyone sees happiness in the place that they're not, but this episode celebrates life wherever it finds it, and it's a joy to watch.

Alice Liddel It has been rightly claimed that, between 1945 and 1955, Max Ophuls was the greatest director in the world, crafting a string of dense pearls unmatched before or since. Even 'Le Plaisir', supposedly a minor film in his canon would be a staggering masterpiece in anyone else's.A triptych of Guy de Maupassant stories, it is also about a trio of Gods. The first two are shown to be limited: Maupassant, author, creator, narrator, speaks to us from the darkness, disembodied, all pervasive ('I could be sitting next to you'), responsible for everything we see - in the last story he crashes down to earth, and is responsible for a suicide attempt; and Ophuls' camera, seemingly weightless, able to navigate space with a freedom unavailable to humans - even it is barred from Madame Tellier's Establishment, forced to peek in from outside. It can reveal the bleak reality behind the prostitutes' gaiety, but is has no access, like the men who exploit them, to their souls.Or does it? The stunning epiphany at the church, is, after all, on one level just a trick of the camera, or a mere figment of the women's imagination. As we would expect, the camerawork, composition, decor, music and acting are breathtaking and ambiguously nostalgic; what is more remarkable is the magic sense of nature, so rare in Ophuls, and, with the exception of the Archers, King Vidor and Lynne Ramsey, so rare in cinema.