Pacionsbo Absolutely Fantastic

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

BeSummers Funny, strange, confrontational and subversive, this is one of the most interesting experiences you'll have at the cinema this year.

Dana An old-fashioned movie made with new-fashioned finesse.

Saad Khan Une vieille maîtresse – The Last Mistress – CATCH IT (B) Based upon controversial French novel "Une vieille maîtresse/An old Mistress" by Jules Amédée Barbey d'Aurevilly. Just like most of the French movies The Last Mistress doesn't hesitate from sex, seduction and brutality of love. It's a story about a young rich French Ryno de Marigny who is ready to get married into a Nobel family. Just before getting married he confronts in front of his future rich wife's grandmother about his last old mistress of 10 years. The movie unfolds how Ryno falls head over heels for an older married woman, who is not even pretty or graceful. It's the rawness which attracts Ryno towards her, whom he first called an ugly nut. Fu'ad Aït Aattou a newcomer played Ryno with utmost honesty. He is divine and his falling for an Asia Argento's ambiguous character is questionable. But that's the whole point of love, lust and seduction when two unlikely people meet and ruin everything around them along with each other. Asia Argento is amazing, even though I saw her first in Marie Antoinette as French king's crazy mistress raised question of her action ability because she acted the same as she acted here. If I ignore that she was in tedious Marie Antoinette and Une vieille maîtresse release long before atrocious Marie Antoneitte. I actually loved her performance. There are many few actresses who can let them emotionally and physically open like that. You forget that it's the part of an act as it looks reality. Fu'ad Aït Aattou and Asia Argento's chemistry makes this a memorable venture. The long sex confrontation scenes are the proof how involved they are with the subject. Roxane Mesquida as Ryno's wife is stunning as always. Une vieille maîtresse is a controversial tale of lust, love and seduction. Overall, I enjoyed the movie even though I wanted the characters to be smart not so naïve and stupid, lost in sex, lust and seduction.

AnnieLola Well, I've just started watching this and at the very least it seems like a good way to brush up on my French. Definitely worth a look-- though less than a half hour into it it some technical things struck me. For one thing, Fu'ad Ait Aattou-- he looks about 18! ...though I find that he was in fact pushing 27 when this was made. I just couldn't quite buy him as someone who'd been grown up enough to have had a mistress for ten years; he seems too much of a kid. And Roxane Mesquia, who plays the winsome young bride Hermangarde, doesn't look like a blonde; she looks like the bleached brunette she became for the role. Maybe it's just the color on my old TV... The lighting takes away from the period credibility, though this is a common enough feature of films set in what were dimly-lit times: rooms are brightly and evenly lit to accommodate the camera. The lighting and camera folks could take some pointers from the miniseries "Cranford", which stunningly evoked the look and feel of a shadowy 19th century candlelit indoor world. In "Mistress" the characters are shown in comfortably lit sets when it's supposedly dark out, and you find yourself wondering why they have candles burning when their light is plainly not needed and is in fact hardly visible.None of this, of course, addresses the quality of the film as a whole, and I'll resume commenting after having viewed the rest of it.

pragers We just came back from Paris and wanted to get an impression of Paris' society in the 18 hundreds when we decided to watch this movie. Actually, we were quite excited since we did not know the director nor any of her former movies. We waited for the story to unfold and draw us into the atmosphere - but the story, the actors, the script were so predictable and stilted. Even the 'erotic' scenes were anything but erotic. At some points the people in the movie theater started to laugh and we got terribly bored. I always saw the actors acting which destroys the whole magic of a movie. I don't think that this movie has anything to do with the great tradition of French movie making. Close shots, love for details, the good looks of the leading male actor, and beautiful costumes don't make a good movie.

Red-125 Une vieille maîtresse (2007), adapted and directed by Catherine Breillat, was shown in the U.S. with the title, "The Last Mistress." This is a period film, set in early 19th-century France.The basic plot is a love triangle--Fu'ad Ait Aattou plays the young aristocrat, Ryno de Marigny, who wants to marry the virtuous young woman, Hermangarde, played by the elegant Roxane Mesquida. Asia Argento plays Vellini, a highly sophisticated courtesan, with whom de Marigny has been having an affair for ten years.The film is filled with beautiful women and lots of sex, but not much else. de Marigny doesn't seem all that desirable or interesting to me, and I didn't buy the plot line that Vellini simply couldn't let him out of her life. It's not that prostitutes can't fall in love, but it struck me as unlikely that this prostitute would fall in love--and stay in love--with this client.We are supposed to understand that sexual values and attitudes are shifting at this time, and women are becoming liberated from the assumption that they can only be desired, but can't have desires themselves. Maybe so, but I think that justification was tacked on to a film whose raison d'etre is the display of lovely female bodies.This movie was shown at the excellent Rochester High Falls International Film Festival. Most of the action takes place in drawing rooms and bedrooms, so the film will work well on DVD.