The Captive

2000 [FRENCH]

Drama / Music / Romance

10
Rotten Tomatoes Critics - Certified Fresh 79% · 14 reviews
Rotten Tomatoes Audience - Spilled 48% · 250 ratings
IMDb Rating 6.0/10 10 2335 2.3K

hotel friendship paris, france based on novel or book love triangle self-destruction

Director

Chantal Akerman Photo
Chantal Akerman

Top cast

Françoise Bertin Photo
Françoise Bertin as The grandmother
Bérénice Bejo Photo
Bérénice Bejo as Sarah
Aurore Clément Photo
Aurore Clément as Léa, the actress
Sylvie Testud Photo
Sylvie Testud as Ariane
720p.BLU 1080p.BLU
1.06 GB
1280*768
French 2.0
NR
Subtitles
24 fps
1 hr 58 min
Seeds 10
2.19 GB
1798*1080
French 5.1
NR
Subtitles
24 fps
1 hr 58 min
Seeds 18

Movie Reviews

Reviewed by the red duchess 6 / 10

A radically different approach to Proust from Ruiz's 'Le Temps Retrouve'(spoiler in penultimate paragraph)

Reviewed by Rogue-32 7 / 10

La Captive is....captivating

Having recently discovered French actress Sylvie Testud when I saw The Chateau, I was interested in this film because she's in it. I haven't read the story that the film is supposedly based on so I had nothing to compare it to when I saw it and therefore I went in without any preconceived notions. And with a film like this, a film that doesn't operate on any conventional filmmaking level, that is a very good thing. This movie doesn't try to tell you what to think or feel about its characters; there is none of the contrivances so common in American movies, none of the manipulation. It just simply presents them and follows them and allows them to do what they do without the camera cutting away too soon for fear that the audience will get bored when there's not a lot "going on" in a scene - in fact some of the best scenes in the film have hardly any movement at all. And this is not done in a self-conscious, 'arty' let's-create-mood sort of way, which makes watching it - or rather experiencing it - even more hypnotic.This is a film that must be experienced more than once, I would say: you're not really sure what's transpired OR how you feel about what you've witnessed upon a first viewing because it doesn't hit all the 'buttons' that a commercial film is compelled to hit. And Testud is brilliant, managing to imply complexity without demonstrating it (if that makes sense) - she's beyond subtle, beyond sublime.
Reviewed by ligonwd 6 / 10

you have to read Proust

You have to read Proust to appreciate this movie. I imagine it was the most awful, boring treachery to subject someone to if they hadn't read La Captive. Ackerman is actually quite witty in portraying the mental restlessness of the characters, especially Ariane/Albertine constantly being caught in her poorly planned deceptions). In addition to this her visual portrayal of Proust's themes of desire and dissatisfaction are very poignant(although sometimes uncomfortable). An example being the bathing scene, where Simon/Marcel is most vulnerable and unselfishly sensual (I say unselfishly because of the contrast of the other sensual scenes where Ariane is sleeping) but this is only possible for him because of the distance and physical barrier between them. Ackerman is not entirely successful at putting Proust's La Captive on film, but she does make a beautiful, simplified attempt.
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