morrison-dylan-fan Taking a look at a DVD sellers page,I spotted a strange-sounding title starring Anna Karina.Since I've only read about the work she did during the French New Wave era,I decided that it was the perfect time to give Karina the ring.The plot:Leaving the countryside for Paris, veterinarian Hugues starts to think about finding a woman to get married to,who will helpfully own a big enough house for him to run his own private practice (aww..how romantic!) Meeting via dating agency,Hugues soon gets married to Jeanne and moves into her house.Finding Hugues to spend more time with the animals than with her,Jeanne starts to play games on her husband,which leads to Hugues sinking deeper into his small world,and being suspicious that Jeanne will soon fly away with the birds. View on the film:Playing a major part behind the scenes by co-writing the screenplay and writing the novel it is based on, Jean-Claude Carrière gives a creepy performance as vet Hugues. Looking stuffy in his woollen jumper and mangled beard, Carrière chips away at Hugues work with animals to reveal an obsession with no room for compromise that is verging on madness. Radiating beauty, Anna Karina shows a great care in vividly displaying each of Jeanne,whose initial delight in "pushing" Hugues Karina hits with a real relish that gradually crumbles into an eerie sense of doubt which Karina tangles Jeanne in,as Hugues starts to react to Jeanne's games in a dangerously unpredictable manner.Bringing Carrière's own novel to the vets,the screenplay by co- writer/director Christian de Chalonge and star Carrière entwines a peculiar,unique atmosphere. Bringing a touch of mystery to the film with a fragmented exposure of the disease seeping to the core of Hughes and Jeanne "difficult" relationship,the writers give the title a strikingly odd Sci-Fi mood,as Hugues mumbled cassette recordings and his nihilistic-slanted outlook on the future of the human race being the pure dreams of a mad scientist.Burning the midnight oil at Hugues vet surgery,director Christian de Chalonge & cinematographer Alain Derobe brilliantly make the skin crawl with grime covered walls and a thick musk tapping into the eerie Sci-Fi atmosphere of everything being slightly off-centre. Scrubbing dirt on the screen,Chalonge takes a wonderfully sudden turn into poetically haunting Sci-Fi,as the wedding bells ring out for all time.

simonasidorin Definitely an interesting fantastic movie , worth watching,but nobody says anything about the end , which is kind of at your own appreciation.I don't wanna say more. Just watch it ! Anna Karina is great ,but also Jean-Claude Carriere is doing a good job .I don't know but it's the first time I heard of a novelist playing in an adaptation of his own book . Interesting ,no ? What I like also about the movie is also that is original , can't be compared to any other movie . It's not only about a devoted veterinarian and scientist but also about his marriage with a mysterious woman . Basically they are 2 characters : HIM and HER , they met by an agency , they wed , so far nothing special but there's suspense , and mystery in the air especially her trips where she ...buys nothing.On the other side him is turning the huge bourgeois apartment into a zoo , interested in extrasensory perceptions of the various animals he's collecting.What do you think , somebody (lover ?) resided in that apartment before ? Before him.

Bob Taylor Christian de Chalonge works mainly in TV now, but his few films showed a great imagination. Who can forget Docteur Petiot, the mad doctor of Vichy France who killed Jews trying to escape the trains bound for death camps? Just the musical score--that saw--was enough to make me doubt my sanity. L'Alliance is a beautiful fantasy film that should really be reissued on DVD.Anna Karina is a newly-wed wealthy woman who finds her husband is spying on her, following her around on shopping trips. That he is a veterinarian who is slowly building a zoo in her lovely house is also ample cause for concern. Her curiosity--and mounting suspicion of his motives--one day lead her to open a box, allowing a snake to escape. The parallel with Adam and Eve is gracefully worked out. This film is full of lovely details: the women who bring their weird pets to the vet look pretty strange themselves; the vet has a melancholic expression that never changes, it's as though he has taken on the personality of one of the animals. I was more impressed with this one than with effects-ridden films like Jurassic Park or The Island of Dr Moreau.

dbdumonteil This is a fantasy film that should not be missed.Rarely shown on the screens,it's almost forgotten ,even by French fantasy buffs.Christian de Challonges creates an unsettling scary atmosphere without using one single special effect.The animals,omnipresent ,seem to watch the human,and to understand what eludes them.Sometimes it evokes Roman Polanski's early style,but without the Pole director's favorite camera tricks .This is a movie so rich it can be interpreted in different ways.I will suggest mine:this might be a Garden of Eden parable,and the two heroes would be modern Adam and Eve.A lot of clues are in full agreement with that:"Are the insects watching us?Karina says.I feel someone mighty watch us as if we were insects";the man ,who seems afraid of the woman,the marriage is consummated only at the end of the movie,after the woman has released..the snake;the ending which is completely unexpected and becomes a metaphor of the fall after the original sin.Challonges describes a world apparently normal,but he introduces unusual elements little by little.The man's clients (he's a vet) are offbeat ,their pets are more and more weird .Besides,Anna Karina's strange beauty enhances the mystery .An impending menace is hanging over the fragile human race.A visitor says:" it wouldn't take much to eliminate the human being on this planet".This must be a hard-to-find movie,but if you can find it and you like the fantasy genre,this is an unqualified must.We're closer to "twelve monkeys" than "un peu de soleil dans l'eau froide" (I would not recommend the latter).