Venus Beauty Institute [DVD]

I loved this film. Disappointed that Audrey Tautou wasnt the lead, but it was very well cast, and the lead is good. Wondered whether it was from Ms Tautou's earlier days and a good place in my collection of all her films.

Enjoyable

Enjoyable

This film is a bit like a painting by Marie Laurencin: charming, full of nice textures, essentially concerned with a feminine perspective (but not really a feminist one). In film terms it clearly owes more consciously to Jacques Demy and his umbrella shop in The Umbrellas of Cherbourg, even referring to Catherine Deneuve by name at one point. The opening shot of the beauty salon has an almost candy floss prettiness, against which the credits pass in pink neon strips. This rather sets the tone of this interwoven tale of three assistants at the salon, of which Nathalie Baye (Angele) is the main focus. Mathilde Seigner and Audrey Tautou provide pleasant distraction, as do the host of other names who glide in and out of the film: Bulle Ogier, Jacques Bonnaffe, Marie Riviere, Micheline Presle and Emmanuelle Riva as Angele's maiden aunts (it's hard to believe they've stayed that way looking the way they do and having such presence, but still ...) Then there is the remarkable presence of Samuel Le Bihan as Antoine, a younger man who becomes obsessed with Angele, who has had a relationship with the Bonnaffe character (Angele, that is) that seems to have left him facially scarred and her emotionally damaged. So the tone is bittersweet, as it attempts to inject some depth into the pretty talk about beauty creams and treatments, with the harp-like doorbell ringing every few seconds whenever someone walks into the salon. It's a bit like having permanent confetti pumped into the atmosphere. Baye holds the film together, Le Bihan conveys the beauty of a man who has been totally swept off his feet, and altogether it is an entertainment that it is worth going with, and that gives a certain elegance to the concept, even. However the hints at something bigger - whether it's good to be too concerned with appearance, the value of being a beautician as opposed to a nurse - are nothing more than that, leaving you with a slight feeling of limitation. Maybe Laurencin is deeper after all, without even trying to put in the shadows ...

Bought Venus Beauty Region 2 UK from Amazon and, good news and contrary to Amazon's description, it's 1.85:1 anamorphic widescreen, not 1.33:1.Just a couple of downsides. English subtitles are forced so you can't turn them off if you understand French, and there are no extras whatsoever, just the movie.Finally, Audrey Tautou fans beware, her name appears first in the list of actors on the box but she only has a supporting role here. Nathalie Baye is the leading actor.