Swimming Pool (2003)
A blocked-up British crime writer finds her muse in Provence: young, naked, troublesome and quite possibly dangerous.
Sarah Morton is successful, sour-tempered and thoroughly sick of writing the same detective novels. Her publisher, John, lends her his villa in the Luberon, where she settles into a prim little routine of laptop work, yoghurt, wine and chilly exchanges with the locals. The peace lasts until John’s French daughter Julie arrives without warning. She is everything Sarah is not: young, voluptuous, careless, emotionally messy and cheerfully uninhibited about swimming naked or bringing men home at night. At first Sarah treats her like an irritating sexual exhibitionist, complaining about the noise while secretly listening through the walls. Yet annoyance gives way to voyeuristic curiosity. She begins watching Julie, probing her family history and feeding pieces of the girl’s behaviour into her unfinished manuscript. Their domestic cold war becomes especially tense when...
Julie turns her attention to Franck, a handsome waiter Sarah had quietly fancied herself. What follows shifts the film from sun-dazed character study into psychological mystery: an ugly night leaves unanswered questions, suspicious traces and a problem neither woman can ignore. Sarah, who began as a disapproving outsider, finds herself drawn into Julie’s secrets and increasingly willing to bend reality—and perhaps morality—to protect the story taking shape around them.
François Ozon directs it as a teasing game between repression and appetite, observation and invention. Almost nothing is rushed; he lets glances linger, doors remain half-open and the blue water acquire a faintly sinister pull. The mystery works, but the richer pleasure is watching Sarah come alive as Julie disturbs her carefully controlled world. Rampling’s smallest reactions suggest jealousy, desire, maternal concern and professional greed, sometimes all at once. By the time the women move from hostility towards a wary intimacy, it is no longer clear whether Sarah is solving a crime, exploiting a vulnerable girl or writing herself into a more exciting existence. The final stretch deliberately unsettles what we think we have watched, without reducing the film to a cheap trick. It leaves a sly aftertaste: creativity can be theft, fantasy can feel more truthful than fact, and the quiet woman in the corner may be the most dangerous person in the room.
Made at the start of the 2000s, the film moves from grey, buttoned-up London to the hot countryside of Provence. Its principal villa was filmed around Ménerbes in the Vaucluse, with the Luberon’s stone houses, vineyards and hard summer light doing half the seducing. The vibe is languid French holiday erotica with a Hitchcockian itch underneath: cicadas, bare skin, cold wine and the suspicion that something unpleasant is lying just below the surface.
Charlotte Rampling is superbly severe as Sarah, all sharp cheekbones, sensible clothes and bottled-up hunger, then quietly sexy as the armour begins to loosen. Ludivine Sagnier supplies the film’s more obvious heat: blonde, curvy, petulant and frequently naked, she plays Julie as a provocative mixture of spoiled daughter, wounded young woman and shameless temptress. There is generous topless and full-body nudity, poolside display, voyeurism and simulated sex, though nothing hardcore. Sagnier may be the eye candy, but Rampling owns the film; one flaunts desire while the other studies it, steals it and turns it into art.
Sign in to comment
The same account you use to watch films.