10. L'ennui (1998)
Martin - a middle aged philosophy teacher who questions everything - and I mean everything - is having a bit of a mid life crisis which is making him ponder the notion of love, sex and fidelity. He is irresistibly drawn to Cecilia - a young woman of whom it is said drove an artist to his death. Cecilia is stupid and questions nothing. Martin tries to possess her utterly and fails thus provoking a psycho-sexual crisis. Another sex driven drama from France that was too young to catch the hardcore express train. And yet more angsty existential hand wringing in the guise of Martin the philosopher. I must confess that I found the movie so pretentious, I switched off half way through. The characters are irritating. I don't see what is so special about Cecilia that she has apparently driven a man to his death and has Martin in her thrall. Maybe it is her air of detachment and the fact Martin cannot fully own her. But the lead actors fail to make their characters sympathetic and therefore we cannot engage with either of them. Yes, there are steamy sex scenes - Cecilia seems to be a non stop humping machine, at one point Martin rapes her and she seems to enjoy it. The sex scenes are a bit grotesque to be honest, but I am including this movie because, from its front cover, it is aspiring to be an erotic drama. I have a high level of pretentious film accommodation - but L'ennui definitely lives up to its name. Boring, boring, boring.