Eight women for a man’s suicide

Finally, we have waited till 24th Moscow Cinema Festival! The names of film stars who should participate in the opening ceremony in Pushkinsky Movie Theatre became known only in the ceremony itself: Nikita Mikhalkov, famous Russian film producer and organizer of the festival, explained this with petulance and pressure of work of the stars. Already in the morning, the press gathered in Udarnik Movie Theatre to see Francois Ozon’s Huit Femmes (Eight Women), the film, where the producer gathered a beautiful bouquet of actresses. The plot is built in a crime-story way, so while watching, the film becomes more and more interesting every minute. A family consisting of one man and six women gathers to celebrate Christmas and suddenly gets to know that the head of the family was killed with a knife in his own house…

The characters, while suspecting each other of the murder, learn some shocking things about each other: for example the elder daughter is pregnant, while the child’s father is also the father of the pregnant girl. But, actually, he is not her father. The mother has a lover and so on.

The master of the house being blackmailed by his women cannot stand this and decided to imitate his suicide, though further events were too shocking for him, so finally he rally shot himself before the eyes of the women.

Francois Ozon openly admires his woman characters, while painting his beloved types in romantic tones of the 1960s. Lively characters, rich colours, music and easiness attract the viewer spite all horrors which happen in the film and the tragic end. And now we know how many women are necessary to make a man character to commit suicide.

Natalia Boiko, Roman Sokolov PRAVDA.Ru

Translated by Vera Solovieva

Read the original in Russian: http://www.pravda.ru/culture/2002/06/22/43063.html

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