Surprisingly good

Went into this movie with very little expectations. Was initially put
off by what seems to be an incredibly lousy transfer to DVD (I rented
this movie). The picture quality on the DVD is grainy, the colours are
murky, the whites are washed and the blacks are more like dark browns,
but the worst thing is that it somehow felt as if there is a lot of
cropping of the frame. Not a promising start.

But soon enough, I got pulled into this fantastic movie, and managed to
quickly forget about the lousy transfer (I'm still convinced that a
professional publishing house such as Criterion should take this movie
and give it a real treatment).

One thing that's important to me is that the movie be believable. I
don't like it when I have to squint while watching the movie and make
an effort to pretend as if what the director is trying to portray is
actually there. In this movie, none of that was expected of me, as each
scene came to me with a fully loaded presence. In other words, each and
every scene was fully convincing. And I was buying it.

That fact alone is enough to make the movie a really good one. Other
factors contributed even more, such as Gerard Depardieu's superb
acting. That guy is an unbelievably good actor!

There is a downside, however: Catherine Deneuve's on screen presence is
quite disturbing (at least to my eyes). Seems like she's been subjected
to a botched cosmetic surgery which rendered her face expressionless.
Or, to be more precise, throughout this movie she was capable of
showing only one expression -- that of being unbelievably pissed at
something.

Being pissed at something all the time, whether she is frowning or
smiling or making a bored face, is not really a good quality for an
actress. In an attempt to hide the signs of ageing (she was 60 when
this movie was made), she obviously subjected herself to a face lift
surgery. But the problem is that the end result is disturbing -- her
face looks bloated, like a mask. This was a very bad move for an
internationally acclaimed actress. I only wish that a normal 60 years
old actress played that role next to Depardieu, instead of Catherine
Deneuve, with her '60 is the new 30' philosophy.