Venus Beauty Institute | 
| Director: Tonie Marshall
Actors: Nathalie Baye, Bulle Ogier, Samuel Le Bihan, Jacques Bonnaffe, Mathilde Seigner
Studio: Fox Lorber
Category: DVD
List Price: $14.95
Buy New: $5.15
You Save: $9.80 (66%)
New (34) Used (18) Collectible (2) from $3.00
Rating:  26 reviews
Sales Rank: 41239
Format: Color, Dvd, Subtitled, Widescreen, Ntsc
Languages: French (Original Language), English (Subtitled)
Rating: R (Restricted)
Region: 1
Aspect Ratio: 1.85:1
Number Of Discs: 1
Running Time: 105 Minutes
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.3
Dimensions (in): 7.5 x 5.3 x 0.6
MPN: FLVD5279D
ISBN: 0794200699
UPC: 720917527925
EAN: 9780794200695
ASIN: B00005B1WH
Theatrical Release Date: 1999
Release Date: June 26, 2001
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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| Editorial Reviews:
Amazon.com
The carefully unattached existence of working girl Nathalie Baye is suddenly upended when lovesick hunk Samuel Le Bihan introduces himself: "My name is Antoine and I love you." Set in a cute glass storefront with a neon pink and blue facade that could have sprung from a Jacques Demy musical, this bittersweet romantic drama was written for the arresting Baye, who plays a middle-aged "girl" in a uniquely Parisian beauty shop that specializes in facials, body treatments, massages, and emotional confession. Her coworkers, young, sweetly guileless brunette cutie Audrey Tautou and gloomy twentysomething Mathilde Seigner, are like glimpses into her past lives, one full of hope and giddy optimism, the other turned resentful from disappointment. She clings to the girly camaraderie and workaday autopilot of her job while her "patronne" (the incomparable Bulle Ogier) nudges her toward responsibility. Writer-director Tonie Marshall has a marvelous feeling for the women who work and visit the place, though her soulful bohemian artist Le Bihan is defined by little more than good looks, shaggy charm, and a kind of reckless attraction. The film is at its best with the women: the easy by-play and guarded emotions of the shopgirls, the often uncontrolled outbursts of the offbeat and oddball clients, and especially the haunted and lonely performance from Baye, who warily creeps out of her shell for another chance at intimacy. --Sean Axmaker
Product Description
Follows the lives and loves of four strorg smart women who make their living practicing beauty at a parisian spa. Studio: Genius Products Inc Release Date: 03/26/2002 Starring: Nathalie Baye Mathilde Seigner Run time: 105 minutes Rating: Nr Director: Tonie Marshall
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| Customer Reviews: Read 21 more reviews...
'Tis better to have loved and lost, then to have never loved at all... June 5, 2009
Aegis Nod (Where I hang my hat.)
Then again, Angele, a forty-something jaded beautician who merely goes through the actions of living, will definitely argue with Tennyson, and you, on the matters of love.
Trying to recapture the fresh and vivacious ease and romanticism of her girlhood, Angele engages in numerous one-night stands, indulging in a physical need but unwilling to commit on an emotional level. Her relationships, whether short lived or touch-and-go interactions, are superficial attempts to connect, but avoid the messy thing of love and being in love. She is looking, but not really, just filling the void in her life that she knows will never be filled. By day, she is an aging and lost woman, listening to the woeful tales of her clients and her two young co-workers, and by night, watching and letting life pass her by.
On a chance moment, a young sculptor, Antoine, witnesses a crushing breakup between Angele and a would-be suitor that moves him into passion and, what Angele believes, is fanciful lust, and nothing more. As he declares his love for her, and even breaking up with his twenty-something fiance, Angele must contend with her own growing feelings, and perhaps, believe in love again. But the question is, can Angele find it in herself to fall again, and to hold onto something, before it too, slowly slips from her fingers?
In Angele, you will either find a capricious whore, or a woman so torn between the reality and what she believes is utter hopelessness and fantasy, that you cannot help but feel her pain as a new journey opens up to her, in the form of a young and passionate man, who believes in everything she can't and won't.
The performances by Baye and Li Bihan are raw and sensual, the subtle interplay between the characters wonderfully enriched by the two main leads ability to show the complexities of love, and at the time, the utter simplicity. The supporting characters of Tautou and Seigner as her young co-workers, who struggle with love and understanding what that means just as much as Angele, and Bonnaffe, who plays, Jacques, a former lover, and the various clients, enliven and show all the aspects of love, love lost and regained. But Baye and Li Bihan truly make the film.
Watch, and believe.
***
English subtitles are automatic, easy to read and well paced scene from scene. If you're a foreign film lover, sometimes the color of the subtitles interferes or move too quickly. There are no special features that'll blow you over, if you can call scene selection, filmographies and the theatrical trailer 'special features'. Otherwise, this film is a keeper!
french movie with english subtitles October 4, 2007
N. janus (Fishkill NY USA)
I like Nathalie Baye, she is definitely not hollywood pretty nor attractive, but like Audrey Tautou who stars in this film, they are both extremely feminine, unlike Emmanuelle Seigner who seems almost masculine next to them.
It is a French movie and you have to accept the plot is thin and the movement slow, but if you dig the French style, then this movie is worth watching several times.
 Great Romantic Comedy. Buy it if you love French movies. March 26, 2007
B. Marold (Bethlehem, PA United States)
`venus BEAUTY institute' written and directed by Tonie Marshall, in French, with English subtitles, strikes one, on first viewing, as being like some other French movies where nothing of any real consequence seems to happen. The example which comes to mind is Jean Renoir's `The Rules of the Game', one of the all time great movies, and yet not much happens except some intense interaction between the characters, and a seemingly inconsequential accident / murder (ambiguous).
While Audrey Tautou gets second billing on the cover, this is due entirely to her later successes. She plays a less important character than Mathilde Seigner or Bulle Ogier, who are billed below her.
For one who is not up on French cinema beyond Francois Truffaut's early classics, the great treat in this flick is the performance of Nathalie Baye, who does a job easily comparable to some other great French classics such as Katherine Deneuve and Jeanne Moreau. If this were not a `Romantic Comedy', her role would be comparable to Diane Keaton's dangerous life in `Looking for Mr. Goodbar'.
Like `Rules of the Game' and `Jules and Jim' and unlike the fantasies of Ingemar Bergman and Fredrico Fellini, the values in this movie grow out of the reality we see in these characters as they reflect, maybe, some of our own tendencies.
I was genuinely astounded at the number of films in which Ms. Baye has appeared (including some late Truffout works such as `Day for Night'). It made me look forward to the pleasures of seeing more of their work, as her performance is what elevates this from a routine comedy to something on the level of `Hannah and Her Sisters' or `When Harry Met Sally'. And yet, it has a distinctly Gallic flavor that I suspect neither Woody Allen nor Rob Reiner could ever capture (although it would be very interesting to see Woody do a parody of a French comedy.)
Probably the most endearing invention is the basic venue of a Paris beauty salon whose products and services are probably only marginally effective in making women beautiful and staving off the ravages of age. And yet, Ms. Maye, who has appeared in movies since the 1970s seems to have that ageless quality of Madame Moreau.
Terrific flick!
Good Light-Hearted Movie to Watch September 9, 2006
Diaspora Chic (Silver Spring, MD)
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
I first saw this movie on cable but never had the chance to see it from the beginning to see what it was about. And it never came back on cable again so I could get the chance to see it. Coming back to school I looked forward to spending a Friday night watching rented movies after a week of school and work.
"Venus Beauty Institute" is a great movie. Ms. Marshall does a great job at examining the lives of three women who toil in a beauty parlor. Angele is cynical about love after she has experienced a lousy relationship with a guy who didn't even acknowledge her. She has been hurt by love and she becomes the aggressor. But being the aggressor doesn't exactly make her a powerful person. She has doubts as to what could have happened if she were patient. Marianne, the optimist, finds love with a widower and former pilot. Angele looks out for her because she fears that she will be hurt by this man. And Samantha is just outrageous. She flirts around but is very selective. She is unhappy with being at the institute.
Antoine observes Angele and finds himself drawn to her. Why is he drawn to her? That is what she can't understand. Love has never been fair to Angele. Her father killed her mother thinking that she had a lover behind his back. When he found there wasn't one, he turned the gun on himself. She grew up with her spinster aunts in Poitiers. Although they have their cynicisms about men, they are still optimistic about men. Angele is fearful of love and being loved.
Antoine, a young man finds this woman attractive and full of life despite her misery. He looks from a distance at her in the salon she works at. He tells her that he loves her and knows how much in love with her he is. He brings out her inner beauty and allows for her to feel joyful.
I loved the scene with Marianne and her beau making love. It was a movie in itself because Angele and Antoine were enthralled to explore their passion for each other rather than break up the affair with them. This movie does have some quirkiness to it. Madame Buisse appears naked to have her daily tanning, a married woman who comes into the salon because her husband wants her to look a certain way for him, and Sam's replacement who tries to turn the salon into a department store.
This is a movie that women can enjoy in a group or by themselves. I would definitely watch this movie the second time around. This movie is a lesson in love--it can hurt as well as heal.
An Unknown Gem - Surprisingly Well Done! May 16, 2006
Utah Blaine (Somewhere on Trexalon in District 268)
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
I got this movie because it stars Nathalie Baye and expected it to be a light hearted romantic comedy (i.e. a chick flick) based on the cover photo and the text on the back of the case. That will teach me to never judge a book by it's cover. I was VERY pleasantly surprised upon watching it, this film has considerable depth and complexity. The story is about a woman (Nathalie Baye) who works as a beautician and who is looking for love. She was crushed by a previous relationship and now carries many scars. She refuses to emotionally commit herself to another relationship, prefering instead to pursue short lived affairs with no attachments, although deep inside she would like to find someone, even if she won't admit it to herself. Her life changes dramatically when a man comes up to her from out of the blue and expresses his undying love. He is currently engaged to another woman who loves him deeply, but he is so profoundly attracted to Baye's character that he will leave her. This may sound like some bizarre, confused love triangle, but in fact this film is extremely well done. The pacing of the story is perfect, and the complexities of the emotions and the characters are on full display without being melodramatic in any way. There are a few side plots in this film (Audrey Tautou's relationship with an older man), some of which enhance the story and some of which are a pointless distraction (the woman who comes to the salon to tan in the nude). There is a realism in this film (and French films of this genre in general) that is totally lacking in comparable American films. We can feel and sympathize with Nathalie Baye's fear and anguish about committing herself again. This is not Baye's best performance (Le Retour de Martin Guerre), but she is still outstanding, one of the world's best actresses. I would rate this film as 4.5 stars if I could, rounding up to 5. If you are new to French cinema, this would be a great film to start with. If you are a connisseur of French cinema or Nathalie Baye, this is a must have. An (unexpectedly) outstanding film.
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