Ozon's Transgressive Triple — Ozon's Transgressive Triple( Blu Ray)

[Altered Innocence — 2024]★★★★★

Reviewed 25 October 2024by Roger Batty

Ozon's Transgressive Triple is a double Blu-ray set that brings together the first three feature films by queer French director François Ozon- which appeared in the late 90’s/ early 2000s. As the set title suggests all three films deal with transgressive themes/ content- moving from the middle-class satire of Sitcom, through to the crime drama meets skewed modern fairy tale of Criminal Lovers, onto the drama meets dark comedy/ farce of Water Drops on Burning Rocks. With set taking in new scans of the films, and a few extras.

Between 1988, and the present day François Ozon has an impressive forty-seven credits to his name taking in both feature-length & shorts. He’s seen as a decidedly genre-unpredictable director, with his recent output moving from Peter von Kant (2022) which was a remake of Rainer Werner Fassbinder's 1972 film The Bitter Tears of Petra von Kant. 1930’s set crime comedy The Crime Is Mine (2023), and character-driven/ very down-to-earth drama When Fall Is Coming (2024).

Opening up the set we have 1998’s Sitcom- this was Ozon’s debut feature. This focuses on an upper-middle-class family- who gets a new pet rat, which seemingly starts to affect and change the family. The film weaves together pitch-black comedy & bourgeois satire- with moments of both the absurd and ridiculous.

The one-hour and twenty-minute film largely takes place in a house set- just like any other sitcom, but this one of course is very twisted- playing wonderfully with both expectations & dream reality.

The family consists of La mère( Évelyne Dandry) a greying, though still trim woman in her late fifties. Her husband Le père( François Marthouret) who is often preoccupied with his paper. Their two teen/ early twenties children Nicolas (Adrien de Van) who is bespeckled, reserved, and geeky. And the slightly older Sophie(Marina de Van) who is often entangled with her boyfriend.

Added into the mix we have just started working with the family maid Maria(Lucia Sanchez), her black teacher boyfriend Abdu(Jules-Emmanuel Eyoum Deido), and La mère balding grey-haired therapist (Jean Douchet).

Early on in the film Le père brings a white rat into the family home- this starts provoking/ changing the family in some way. First off after stroking it ( and not washing his hands) Nicolas decides he’s gay. Next after lounging Sophie on the sofa after supper with the rat running all over her- she throws herself out of an upstairs window.

As things unfold more inappropriate/ often sexually focused behaviour occurs- though the film never fully steps into softcore. Throughout you really on edge and await to see what will happen to the family next- though Ozon often plays with expectations, one of the most effective of these is when Nicolas puts an advert for some form of meet-up in his bedroom- with all manner of different characters appearing.

All of the cast is good and well-chosen, and we get a wonderful observed & deranged resolve to the whole thing. So, Sitcom is a good start to set, laying out its lightly transgressive stabs at the upper middle class.

The second film on disc one is 1999’s Criminal Lovers (aka Les Amants Criminels)- which starts off as a more sexually fired bony & Clyde story, before shifting to a modern/ homo-erotic tinged re-take on Hansel and Grete. The film mixes strands of genres like thriller, sexual awakening drama, horror...with light touches of cannibalism

The film focuses on studded collar-wearing blond teen Alice (Natacha Régnier), who is in a relationship with rather timid teen Luc (Jérémie Renier)- who absolutely adores her, willing to seemingly anything for her. One day in between classes Alice asks Luc a big, big favour- she wants him to kill cocky show off Saïd (Salim Kechiouche).

Luc agrees and it’s set up that they’ll kill him late one night after his boxing training- the bloody stabbing deed is done, and the pair make their way off to get rid of the body…though seemingly they have been seen by someone in the school.

The pair get to a forest and, on the way knock down a rabbit which ironically Alice is devastated by the death, insisting they bury it before Saïd. They drive deeper into the woods, walk off the forest path, finding a place to bury Saïd’s body- but someone is watching, and that someone is the raggedly dressed & stubbily L’homme des bois( Predrag 'Miki' Manojlovic), who lives in a shack in the middle of the woods. I know the above may sound like a massive plot dump, but this is just the early part of the story.

As things unfold L’homme starts making orders and rather personal giving requests, and that’s as far as I’ll go on the plot. The film evenly blends thriller/ suspense, and gritty drama, with subtle touches of horror. It features a few neat enough twists along its length- as we get chunks of flashback memories looking to when the pair are painting & Alice's true motives.

All of the small cast is good enough- though the film is not as provocative/ edgy as Sitcom- there are a few risky-if-darting moments taking in sexual activity, light cannibalism hints, etc. I’d say Criminal Lovers is more of a thriller than anything, which kept me held/ engaged until its resolve nearing an hour and forty minutes later.

Finally, on disc two we have Water Drops on Burning Rocks- this is from the year 2000, been a blend of drama & dark comedy/ farce. It’s based on an unmade play by Rainer Werner Fassbinder- so as you’d expect it’s well conceived and at points rather cutting.

The film is set in 1970s Germany and takes place in one location- the apartment of 50-something insurance salesman Léopold (Bernard Giraudeau). The film is broken up into four acts- with the first act set on an evening when twenty-year-old fuzzy red-haired Franz(Malik Zidi) comes back to Léopold’s for a few drinks, and it’s clear from the off he wants to bed the young man- as he slowly, but surely gets around to put it plain and simple.

The film features just four characters and runs for an hour and twenty-three minutes. Yes, there is no doubt it originated as a play- but Ozon does add in cinematic elements, like shots into the apartment windows & some effective room-to-room shots. I can’t give too much more away about the plot, as it would rather ruin the whole unfold/ twists in the story. But it certainly is an engaging dark comedy-drama, with all the cast perfectly picked for their roles, oh and in a wonderful camp 70’s manner the film action stops for a cheesy line dance workout.

Moving on to talk about this region A locked, and we get Sitcom & Criminal Lovers on the first disc, with no extras. On the second disc we of course have Water Drops on Burning Rocks, and a few extras. With the set coming with a glossy fold-out, on one side we get a glitchy blood-splashed still of the couple from Criminal Lovers. And on the other side, we get an essay on the director's work by Juan Barquin and Trae DeLellis.

For the extras, we have 'Little Deaths: Loss and Coming of Age in François Ozon's First Chapter'(25.55) which is a visual essay from genre commentator/filmmaker/ author Kat Ellinger. This is as we’ve come to expect from Ms Ellinger a well-researched/ observed affair- she starts by giving us a brief bio of François Ozon, before discussing each film in sequence- talking about their influences & themes, as well as looking at what links three films links- with quotes from interviews with the director. Next, we get an interview with Actor Stéphane Rideau (13.14) who played the character of David in Sitcom.

Finally, in the new extras, we have a commentary track from film historians Cerise Howard and Rohan Spong. This is a fairly chatty/interesting enough track- though as it moves on, we do get quite a few gaps in their track. They begin by saying that the film is very Fassbinder-like, going on to give their thoughts on the film when they first saw it. They talk about the thoughtful/ but not overdone 70’s look of the interiors & characters' dress. We find out this was Fassbinder's second play, and they talk about how he died at the age of 37- producing a film for every year of his short life. They discuss the use of mirrors in the film, and double or triple images. And talk about the use of prowling/ circling shots, and the shift light use throughout the film. Later on, they discuss the portrayal of the Trans character in the film, and a few other things. It’s an ok track, though I’m not sure I gained too much. Lastly, we get a few trailers.

Ozon's Transgressive Triple is a great look at the early career of François Ozon. Sure, it’s a pity there weren’t a few more extras like commentary tracks for the other two films, and it might have been nice to have a few of the director's early shorts too- as he made sixteen shorts before Sitcom. But all in it’s great to have these three films together in one place, and I’ll most certainly be checking out more of the director's later work now.

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