Under the Sand

If any strain persists through François Ozon's Criminal Lovers and Water Drops on Burning Rocks, it's an unapologetic fascination with the twisted. That continues here, though with a tragic, romantic undertone.

Marie (Charlotte Rampling) and Jean (Bruno Cremer) have gone to the beach on vacation; had they seen Ozon's short "See the Sea," they would have known this is a bad idea. One fine day Jean goes in for a dip and never returns; the rest of the movie is what another filmmaker would turn into a textbook case of denial. Marie does not acknowledge that Jean is gone, referring to him in the present tense, conversing with his phantasm and even discussing with it her choice of a new lover.

Reminiscent at times of an unwhimsical Truly, Madly, Deeply, at others of a humorless Harvey, Under the Sand benefits from Rampling's exquisite beauty and eloquent grief but suffers from Cremer's stolid, stocky Jean, who even before he's presumed dead is a bit of a stiff. The beauty of the film is that Ozon doesn't try to explain anything or offer judgment or suggest a cure. At the Avon.
-- Peter Keough