Fridae

Fridae has 8 pairs of tickets to 8 Women to be given out. Please see details at the end of the article for more info.

What audacity. The nerve! Cocooning eight of France's legendary leading ladies on a movie set for weeks on end to make a murder mystery? Nobody thought Francois Ozon, could pull it off. As it turns out, we are now presented with the incriminating evidence on screen in glorious Technicolor: he does, and with a flourish, too.

Glorious is the key word here. Witness Dior-inspired vintage costumes; a painting-like studio set to stand in for a snow-bound mansion in rural '50s France; celluloid goddess Catherine Deneuve; flamboyant in-jokes inspired by the Hollywood's Golden Age and the cult of camp (the housekeeper is named Chanel). No wonder the Gallic divas gave their consent. (Certainly, the script's catfights, verbal bitchfest, and even the clandestine Sapphic desires uncovered, could well mean that the actresses saw this as the opportunity of a lifetime.)

The story is deceptively simple: The patriarch of a household is found dead in his bed�backstabbed, literally. Eight women, all possible suspects, are trapped at the scene of the crime by a howling snowstorm. Catherine Deneuve is Gaby, wife of the victim and mother to two daughters played by Virginie Ledoyen (Suzon) and Ludivine Sagnier (Catherine). Isabelle Huppert plays Augustine, Gaby's spinster sister, while luscious Emmanuelle Beart is the house help in a to-die-for French maid's uniform, Louise. Fanny Ardant struts in style as the dead man's seductive sister, Pierrette, while Ozon casts '40s screen doyenne Dannielle Darrieux as Gaby and Augustine's mother. Finally, Mrs Chanel, the housekeeper, is played by stage veteran Firmine Richard.

The all-female cast makes a grand entrance, each with shoes to match her personality. The characters take turns to point fingers at one another, and hog the limelight with a musical number--you heard right. When a glam icon like Deneuve is game enough to croon and boogie at her age, we'd better relish the moment. Besides, Ozon's choice of '60s and '70s popular French ditties for the ladies is so spot-on you begin to realize what a mess Moulin Rouge was.

Quickly, scandalous family histories are recounted, personal vendettas aired, repressed desires and closet skeletons threaten (and eventually manage) to break loose. Beart's Louise confesses her longings for her perfectly-coiffed madam and a thousand pulses quicken. Suffice it to say, too, that when Deneuve and Ardant's eyes meet across the room, a new chapter in French cinematic history is about to be rewritten.

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Like Gosford Park, the Agatha Christie-whodunit genre is borrowed heavily, but the audience may similarly be too busy savouring the characters' bickering (and steamy embrace) to care too much for the perpetrator's identity, even though there are enough plot twists on hand to keep mystery fans happy. In fact, Ozon had picked Robert Thomas' play as source material only after he discovered that remake rights to George Cukor's The Women had been snapped up by Meg Ryan. Ozon's longstanding ambition: to fashion an entire movie out of actresses, of course.

To this end, 8 Women succeeds in a dizzying variety of ways. As fun-filled as a well-orchestrated drag party, the film nonetheless hints at the darker recesses of repressed female sexuality and underscores the issues of gender, power and class. Visually, the spectacle ranges from Pascaline Chavanne's meticulously-researched costumes to Arnaud de Moleron's lavish set design which evokes a classic Yuletide greeting card: fake snow and stuffed doves are everywhere, while deer hover around the manor.

Best of all, the actress ensemble makes it a virtual crime to take one's eyes off the screen. Ardant is unforgettable as the sexual agent provocateur; the always-regal Deneuve lends a certain dignity to the mayhem that ensues. Beart and Huppert get to let their hair down and then some: in separate scenes, each of them unlocks her follicular bun to devastating cinematic effect. (Nell from Ally McBeal, with all that primal energy unleashed, doesn't come close.)

In particular, Huppert's transformation from a hypochondriac ugly duckling to Gilda-like swan has to be seen to be believed. Having come right off playing a disturbed woman with a S&M fetish in the grim The Piano Teacher, Huppert seems more than ready to cut loose and indulge in some good old comedy. Even more importantly, in her capable hands, what would have been plain stereotypes are imbued with a wide spectrum of emotional and psychological hues.

And with Huppert's character Augustine, one finally gets the idea that, beneath the veneer of rich Technicolor and hi-camp humour of 8 Women, what Ozon really cares about is the proverbial bleeding of the human heart.

8 Women sneak previews at Golden Village Grand, Plaza and Marina Sept 28, and opens on Oct 3. Tickets are available at the Golden Village website.

(This review has been contributed by Festive Films.)

Fridae has 8 pairs of tickets to be given away. Please send us an email with your name, contact no. and email address to marketing@fridae.com by 6pm, 10 Oct. We will notify the winners by email and/or phone about screening dates and ticket collection.