The Refuge
2010
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About this movie
"François Ozon's styles are many and his talent protean, but there is one theme that recurs: the will of a woman. From the individual protagonists of Sous le sable and Swimming Pool to the entire cast of 8 Femmes, this French filmmaker revels in the force and range of female determination, whether or not its goal is admirable.
Le Refuge begins in a chic Paris apartment, where Mousse (Isabelle Carré) and Louis (Melvil Poupaud) have fallen into a spiral of drugs. Rich and beautiful, they are clearly in love, but perhaps also doomed. The next morning, Louis is dead of an overdose and Mousse is unconscious. When his mother shows up shortly after, it is to show the apartment to a prospective tenant. She had no idea of the life her son was leading. Now that he's dead, she's left with his junkie girlfriend, who is pregnant with Louis's baby.
Mousse is no bourgeois matron's idea of a daughter-in-law, and before long she leaves Paris behind for a house near the sea. Against all advice, she decides to keep the baby.
Ozon is especially deft as he follows a woman who neither solicits nor deserves much sympathy. And yet, as he draws us closer to her, she does become fascinating. When Louis's brother Paul (Louis-Ronan Choisy) visits the country house, her reactions to him are anything but expected. In characteristic form, Ozon keeps us off balance, guessing whether Mousse and her dead boyfriend's brother will become lovers, enemies or something else altogether. What's clear is that Paul offers traces of his brother that intrigue Mousse as her pregnancy progresses.
A character study that builds its tension in measured scenes, Le Refuge carries the stamp of its auteur in its pursuit of uneasy situations and its focus on the absolute enigma of the protagonist. When she makes her final, decisive move, it is both a shock and the only thing she could have possibly done."
Quoting Cameron Bailey from the 2009 Toronto International Film Festival site.
Le Refuge begins in a chic Paris apartment, where Mousse (Isabelle Carré) and Louis (Melvil Poupaud) have fallen into a spiral of drugs. Rich and beautiful, they are clearly in love, but perhaps also doomed. The next morning, Louis is dead of an overdose and Mousse is unconscious. When his mother shows up shortly after, it is to show the apartment to a prospective tenant. She had no idea of the life her son was leading. Now that he's dead, she's left with his junkie girlfriend, who is pregnant with Louis's baby.
Mousse is no bourgeois matron's idea of a daughter-in-law, and before long she leaves Paris behind for a house near the sea. Against all advice, she decides to keep the baby.
Ozon is especially deft as he follows a woman who neither solicits nor deserves much sympathy. And yet, as he draws us closer to her, she does become fascinating. When Louis's brother Paul (Louis-Ronan Choisy) visits the country house, her reactions to him are anything but expected. In characteristic form, Ozon keeps us off balance, guessing whether Mousse and her dead boyfriend's brother will become lovers, enemies or something else altogether. What's clear is that Paul offers traces of his brother that intrigue Mousse as her pregnancy progresses.
A character study that builds its tension in measured scenes, Le Refuge carries the stamp of its auteur in its pursuit of uneasy situations and its focus on the absolute enigma of the protagonist. When she makes her final, decisive move, it is both a shock and the only thing she could have possibly done."
Quoting Cameron Bailey from the 2009 Toronto International Film Festival site.