Beautiful and tragic. Distant and cold, with sprinkles of happiness. A story of a decaying marriage told in reverse order to help pinpoint when the decline began. Ozon's comedic and satirical ventures, such as 8 Women and Potiche are loads of fun. But it's his serious films, 5x2 and Time to Leave, that venture deep into the heart of the soul and yields some of the most raw emotions and cinematic gold.
At the end of the film have a scene whose composition is a remarkable masterpiece, which helps in the end, to summarize that our relationship with love: we know the risks they run when we fully expose and cast ourselves in a new venture love so to speak. But still, we could not live without this feeling that we are happy and we need someone.
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Here's what I like about Ozon: even his less memorable films are always nice to watch and never a bore. Telling this failed love story backwards and restraining it to only 5 episodes was a smart move that made the film less banale. Great duo of leading actors, the soundtrack was fabulous and all the unseen and untold stories just made me admire the director's confidence more. The sunset was a bittersweet goodbye.
A more engaging use of the reverse narrative structure previously employed in Noe's Irreversible, with fall again preceding decline. A tad cold and obvious but nevertheless a decent example of the French talking-heads mode of middle class cinema with enough home truths between the cool exposition to make this generally satisfying viewing. A pair of well judged performances from the leads help lead the conviction.
Interesting at first glance but so vain and pointless if you scrub a little. See it for Valeria Bruni's performance only. Already forgotten, I'm afraid.