8 femmes |  | Director: François Ozon
Actors: Danielle Darrieux, Catherine Deneuve, Isabelle Huppert, Emmanuelle Béart, Fanny Ardant
Category: DVD
Buy New: $14.99
as of 3/16/2010 02:56 EDT details
New (2) Used (1) from $9.99
Seller: musicpassion
Rating:  94 reviews
Sales Rank: 181158
Format: NTSC
Languages: English (Original Language), French (Original Language)
Rating: R (Restricted)
Region: 1
UPC: 774212303333
EAN: 0774212303333
ASIN: B000089QF3
Theatrical Release Date: September 20, 2002
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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Amazon.com
The cream of France's cinema sirens star in the deliciously candy-colored 8 Femmes, a murder mystery speckled with ornate performances that play up the public image of the actresses themselves. Eight women find themselves snowbound in a house with a dead man--a man each of them (his wife, sister, sister-in-law, mother-in-law, daughters, housekeeper, and chambermaid) had reason to kill. Secrets tumble forth, accusations fly, catfights flare, and confrontations turn steamy, all accompanied by campy performances of 1960s French pop songs. At first, these musical numbers seem like pure kitsch, comic and entertaining, but over the movie's course, they become strangely touching. Catherine Deneuve, Danielle Darrieux, Virginie Ledoyen, Fanny Ardant, Emmanuelle Beart, Isabelle Huppert, Ludivine Sagnier, and Firmine Richard are all superb, investing their cardboard characters with a strange emotional resonance--and their costumes are exquisite. An entrancing piece of giddy fluff. --Bret Fetzer
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Showing reviews 1-5 of 94
 Femme-tastic! March 15, 2010
Andrew Ellington (Mulholland Drive)
I love French films. I mean, in all honesty they are probably my favorite films. The whole 60's French New Wave movement contains some of the best films ever made, and the French style of filmmaking has always and will always intrigue me. `8 Femmes' is just another in a long line a marvelous French films.
I think what makes `8 Femmes' so great is that is wholeheartedly embraces its camp value. It knows that it is preposterous and unrealistic and it doesn't try to be anything more or less. I vamps it up, delivering something that goes just far enough to be over-the-top but not obnoxious. It sums up everything that is so great about the French way of filmmaking; that carefree jovialness that elevates their films in my eyes.
The film is an adaptation of a stage play written by Robert Thomas. It concerns eight women who find themselves trapped in a house with a corpse. That corpse happens to be the head of the house, Marcel. The women include Marcel's wife, sister-in-law, mother-in-law, two daughters, his sister, his maid and his housekeeper. All eight women, as it becomes very clear, had reason to kill him, but as the coincidences and accusations start popping up it becomes even clearing that none of them did.
I mean, how could it be THAT obvious?
The star of this show is the script, which is woven so effortlessly and exaggerated by such comical dialog. I love that the actresses really sink down into their respective roles and just give it their all. Everyone involved delivers here. Emmanuelle Beart is one of the most beautiful women in the world, and she uses her stunning exterior to create a mysterious nymph of a character. Firmine Richard is delightfully tense here, shattering that image of the maternal caretaker (her motives reek of selfishness). Fnny Ardant is the definition of a flirt, and while I didn't much care for her entrance (her big solo seems awkward) I loved the way she developed her character over the course of the film. Virginie Ledoyen and Ludivine Sagnier are pitch-perfect as the two daughters, every bit of difference between them yet every bit of natural similarities. Danielle Darrieux has that thankless role of `mother-in-law' but she is hysterical and more than makes up for it.
But, the two stars here are none other than Catherine Deneuve and Isabelle Huppert. They are both extraordinary in their contrasting roles. Deneuve oozes sensuality as the wife, Gaby. She wears her lavish costumes with pride and a sense of entitlement that never budges from her shoulders. Huppert on the other hand, playing the prudish Augustine, wears her colorless frocks with a faux sense of strength that gives way to an obviously hidden shame. They compliment one another flawlessly, and Huppert's manic meltdowns are some of the films major highlights.
In the end, this musical/murder mystery is every bit of `Clue' or even `Gosford Park' with a twist, a French twist; and those twists are always the best!
 Worst movie ever? December 6, 2009
Philip Herold
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
This is very possibly the worst movie ever made, unless I'm missing something and it's intended to be a spoof. Allowing for that possibility, I'm still incredulous when 'dramatic' situations (one family member just learning of another family's member's being murdered) progress within seconds to a laughably over-staged chorus featuring lyrics on the order of "It's a Small World After All." Adding to the absurdity is one of the eight women in the movie being shot, from offstage somewhere by an unknown assailant, falling into a heap on the floor ..... but, miraculously, no blood! By the end of the ordeal of watching this, I found myself bewildered, wondering what could have prompted backers to fund the production, and actors to sign onto the project. If I had auditioned for a part, hearing from the director what part I might have, then filled in on the scene, I would have walked out of the audition. Unless the director convinced me that the entire venture was just a parody taken to the brink of the known universe. Which is where it deserves to rest in peace.
Awful June 27, 2009
M. A. Arshad (London, United Kingdom)
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
I dozed off part way through the film and then after watching another ten minutes just turned off the DVD player. The film seems to be aiming to be a comedy, but fails utterly. It can not be anything else except for a very weak (dark) comedy.
bizarre mix of parlor murder mystery, cabaret, and lousy comedy May 2, 2009
Robert J. Crawford (Balmette Talloires, France)
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
I was very disappointed in this film. With such a stellar cast, I was expecting a really good psychodrama with interesting and perceptive twists.
Instead, you watch them sing (terribly), scream at each other (with very little humor that works), and run around in a fatuous investigation (unbelievably). The characters are so mutable that there is little consistency to them, and they make strangely abrupt transformations that make no sense. For example, Ardnt and Deneuve are fighting, perhaps murderously, and suddenly they start making out. Huppert, a dowdy spinster virgin, suddenly appears dressed to kill as a stunning sensual beauty. It adds nothing to the plot, doesn't fit with the characters, or resonate emotionally.
The whole thing is like a play you would see in an amateur theatre on vacation. But you have absolutely first-rate actresses, France's best, carrying on inanely. None of it worked for me.
Now it this kind of thing appeals to you, OK. But I saw no value in it at all. Not recommended.
 Crazy Musical January 7, 2009
Allen Windhorn
This film is a spoof of the "country house murder mystery" genre -- 8 women and a corpse snowed in at a country manor. Every once in a while one of them breaks into song and a new family secret is revealed. Fast paced and funny. French, but subtitles.
Showing reviews 1-5 of 94
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