LA PISCINE Review: Classic French Film Flooded With Sexual Tension
As with many things Sixties and French, La Piscine has lost none of its iconic charm.
rating: 4.5
A quick look at the plot and cast of La Piscine is an instant evocation of timelessly cool 60's French cinema. Featuring Alain Delon, Romy Schneider, Maurice Ronet in a love triangle, with a young Jane Birkin caught up in the ensuing mess of passion, jealousy and revenge, this latest Park Circus re-release of Jacques Deray's La Piscine, that has returned to U.K. theatres on a limited run, is as stylish and sexy as ever. The plot sees Jean-Paul (Delon) and Marianne (Schneider) living an isolated but content life in a villa near St. Tropez. However, when former friend and lover Harry shows up on the scene with his daughter Penelope (Birkin), things quickly heat up as the group work themselves into a vicious circle of mind-games. This re-mastering of the film complements Deray's fastidious use of colour, in which the bone-dry look of the villa is juxtaposed against red furnishings and, of course, envy-green pieces of clothing worn by various characters throughout. The titular piscine sits invitingly in the middle of this carefully-coded environment, providing moments of relief from the unbearable heat physical and psychological - which is slowly working its way to boiling point.
The performances in La Piscine all work towards evoking an atmosphere of restrained resentment and sexual tension between the characters. In fact, so stoic is Delon's performance, that his cool detachment sometimes seems to border on the psychopathic, making the film's main twist seem inevitable and strangely cathartic. Likewise, former lovers Marianne and Harry are also performed in a way that suggests that the film's sparing dialogue reveals little about what is really being thought and felt. The plot here is to be found in the colours, framing, and exchanges of looks that pass between the characters, which Deray captures perfectly. In this sense, Birkin as Harry's daughter, and pawn in Jean-Paul's game, does not fit that comfortably into this sexually-charged dynamic; her timid performance could maybe be justified by her being the film's 'epitome of innocence', but her intentionally over-Anglicised accent is impossible to take seriously. 
La Piscine is a film which brilliantly evokes an air of unbearable sexual tension with relatively sparse dialogue. Some of the scenes particularly the final dinner are so wrought with suppressed electricity that at points I wished they'd all just f*ck and be done with it. Though given the sexual magnetism of all the film's characters, this could be a result of my fantasy as much as the brilliant performances and Deray's precise directing. Looked at now, La Piscine does appear to ultimately be a psychological duel between two men who use women as mere tools in their dangerous game of one-upmanship; but then this is the deceptively chauvinistic 60's we're talking about here. Furthermore, the film loses much of its charge after the critical pool scene. That being said, watching Delon's thitherto ice-cool character reaching the verge of meltdown is a thing of beauty, and reveals him to be much more than a pretty face. As with many things Sixties and French, La Piscine has lost none of its iconic charm. "Newly restored by Société Nouvelle de Cinématographie (SNC) and released by Park Circus, LA PISCINE will be back in cinemas from Friday 30 September, opening at BFI Southbank, Filmhouse Edinburgh and key cities."