Other Titles • Under the Sand (2001) • Sous le sable • Unter dem Sand (2001)
Synopses for Under the Sand (2000)
1.
Francois Ozon's haunting UNDER THE SAND stars the remarkable British actress Charlotte Rampling, who plays Marie Drillon: a strong, attractive, professional, independent middle-aged woman trying to get her life back on track after the sudden disappearance of her husband. Even for a superwoman like Marie, the shock of the tragedy is psychologically traumatizing. Marie isn't sure what happened to her husband (Is he dead? Did he run off with someone else?) and she's in denial about him being gone. At Parisian dinner parties with her supportive, careful friends, Marie still talks about her husband in the present tense. At home, she still imagines that he is with her; she pours two cups of tea in the morning and she reminds him to set the alarm clock before going to sleep at night. At the university where she teaches English, she reads to her students from the melancholy book THE WAVES by Virginia Woolf. Through all of this, Ozon's camera caresses Marie and encourages her, always casting her in cold, confident light. Using film language such as the repeated double reflection of Marie's face in the mirror, audiences come to understand Marie's innermost thoughts and feelings. She is a woman confronting herself (her identity, her age, her body, her sexuality, her emotions, her intellect) with brutal honesty. UNDER THE SAND is beautiful, sad, languorous film that includes some unforgettable images of the rolling ocean waves near Marie's beach house in Landes, France.
(21 votes)
2.
François Ozon's Under the Sand revolves around a tender, frightening contrast not easily forgotten: the dead live on only as long as we remember them. Marie (a luminous Charlotte Rampling) and Jean (Bruno Cremer), a middle-aged couple, are on vacation. As they ready the beach house almost wordlessly, a long-standing, intense love is immediately understood. While Marie naps on the shore, Jean goes off for a swim from which he never returns. Six months later, back in her empty Paris apartment, Marie goes about her life as if Jean is still there with her, reading in bed, massaging her feet, sitting at the breakfast table. At dinner parties and lunch dates, her close friends are visibly appalled her behavior. It becomes clear that Marie's place in society is increasingly precarious with a ghost at her side: her husband's bank accounts remain frozen because no body has been identified, her lectures at the university end abruptly in silence, her untimely laughter frightens a new lover. Ozon does not manipulate the viewer with surprise endings or try to charm with gags. Instead, we are intimately drawn into Marie's refusal to let go and her awful panic as Jean begins to fade. --Fionn Meade
(19 votes)
3.
Can love vanish without a trace?
Named one of People Magazine's Most Beautiful People, Charlotte Rampling (The Night Porter, The Verdict) gives one of her most acclaimed performances in Francois Ozon's (Criminal Lovers, Water Drops on Burning Rocks) mesmerizing tale of loss and grief, Under the Sand.
For many years, Marie (Rampling) and Jean (Bruno Cremer) have happily spent their vacations together at their country house. One day at the beach, Marie naps in the sand while Jean goes for a swim. When she awakens, he is gone. Did he drown? Did he run off? Distraught, Marie notifies the authorities but after an extensive search, no body is found.
Tenaciously and disquietingly, Marie keeps the memory of her husband alive, often speaking of him as if he never disappeared. She strikes up a tentative relationship with Vincent (Jacques Nolot), but is unable to make any real commitment. Ultimately she must grapple with her life alone while coping with her erotic stirrings and fantasy life.
(19 votes)
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