Plot Details: This opinion reveals major details about the movie's plot.

Before making a splash internationally with such films as Under the Sand, 8 Women, and 2003's international hit Swimming Pool, France's Francois Ozon is a filmmaker whose provocative ideals and storylines have intrigued many filmgoers in France and the world. Beginning with his work in short films in the mid-1990s, Ozon was becoming one of the most promising filmmakers as his 1997 short See the Sea drew rave reviews internationally. In 1998, Ozon made his first feature-length film Sitcom to some mixed reviews with the bad boy of French cinema trying to make a name for himself. In 1999, Ozon released his sophomore release that truly made a mark for him as a filmmaker who knew no boundaries in any film genre with his perverse film Les Amants Criminels (Criminal Lovers).

Les Amants Criminels is really described at best; Oliver Stone's Natural Born Killers meets Hansel & Gretal without Stone's media satire and intellectual politics. The film can also bring references to Arthur Penn's Bonnie & Clyde and Terence Malick's Badlands since the film revolves around two teenagers killing a fellow student in which, they hide his body in the woods. Then the film takes a strange turn when they encounter a woodsman who locks them in his basement with that dead body as he begins to seduce one of the killers.

Directed by Ozon with a screenplay written by him, Annabelle Perrichon, Marcia Romano, and additional text from Arthur Rimbaud and longtime Ozon collaborator Marina de Van, the film is a take on the serial killer genre with ambiguous storylines filled with mind games, sexual identity, and violence. Starring Natacha Regnier, Jeremie Renier, Miki Manojlovic, and Salim Kechiouche, Criminal Lovers is a weird movie from one of France's newest visionaries.

For the sexually teenage girl Alice (Natacha Regnier) and her naïve, high school boyfriend Luc (Jeremie Renier), they have a strange but loving relationship when Alice asks Luc is he is ready to do something for her. Luc is ready where the two go to a gym where Alice encounters a schoolmate and class jerk, Said (Salim Kechiouche) where he's taking a shower. She seduces him while Luc is waiting outside until he enters where Alice gives him the signal as the two kill Said. Drenched in blood, the two showers, clean all the floor and clothes full of blood where Luc leaves for a bit to get his mother’s car and other things. He returns with a towel and new clothes where they wrap Said's body and carry him to the trunk of Luc's mother's car.

The next day after driving off into the French countryside, the two stop only to rob a jewelry store and then stop at a mall to get a shovel and steal some food where they go and try to find the forest to bury Said's body. On their way, they kill a rabbit in which, Luc was forced to bury while upon their arrival to the forest on the following day and they carry Said's body in the middle of the forest. After the burial, Alice and Luc try to return to their car only to find their footprints gone from the trail. They're lost until they find a boat where they sleep for the night in a river and the next day, Alice says Said's name, which upsets Luc as he goes out to find shelter. Luc finds a house where he takes Alice only to meet up with a woodsman (Miki Manojlovic) who owns the home. He locks them up into his basement full of rats and Said's body with a leg missing.

The woodman looks through Alice's purse where he found her diary, which was a viable alibi to Said's murder. The woodsman reads to find that Alice planned the whole thing where she wanted to punish Said for a rape that might not have happened where she manipulates Luc into going along with the idea. The following day, the woodsman opens his basement door only to Luc where he is forced to bathe the man and vice versa. The woodsman takes him to hunt for food and feeds him where the woodsman shows compassion for Luc but not for Alice, whom he felt orchestrated the whole murder plot. While the woodsman slept, Luc gives Alice food for her to eat where she thinks back to Luc's first encounter with Said and her plan to have him killed in which, Luc isn’t sure what it's all for.

After an attempt to try to get Alice out, the woodsman puts Luc back in the basement where Alice wants Luc to seduce the woodsman into getting the key. Luc finds himself losing his own identity where he looks back on the night of the murder where Alice said he did the right thing for love with Luc becoming increasingly confused with guilt. Luc does the deed to seduce the woodsman into having sex with him in which, worked where he and Alice escape. While they briefly celebrate their escape, a group of cops come into the woods for a tragic ending.

While the film does have elements of Badlands, Natural Born Killers, and Bonnie & Clyde, notably the ending, it doesn't mean the film is entirely unoriginal. Ozon manages to make a genre with some strange ambiguities and subplots. While the film's screenplay isn't very linear choosing to go back and forth at times, it doesn't come off as inconsistent only to play off to the film's drama and character studies. Ozon's directing approach to the film is very exquisite in the way he gives the characters a chance to study their own behaviors along with exploring the woods and emphasis to survive.

Ozon deserves credit for even bringing something like Hansel & Gretal to give the film a deranged innocence. Though, Matthew Bright did a similar format for Little Red Riding Hood in his 1996 film Freeway, Ozon managed to be a bit cleverer although Freeway was a more superior film.

Helping Ozon bring his reputation as a modern visionary is cinematographer Pierre Stoeber who truly captures the world of modern France, particularly outside of Paris. Stoeber in some of the night sequences uses the colors of yellow and red for its stoplights as well as the way the camera shoots the forest scenes in its Gothic colors and dreamy look in the film's final act. Even in scenes of the gym and mall, it has a very modern look of France that shows that in comparison to American gyms and malls, it looks a bit similar though France chooses to present themselves with class. Another amazing element to the film is its music with an array of diverse use of music from dreamy classical sequences from the compositions of Vivaldi and Wagner to a modern electronic score from Phillippe Rombi and Dave Henson that plays up to modern France.

Then you have your film's small but amazing cast that truly revolves around in its main characters along with the film's approach to character study. In the role of Said, Salim Kechiouche is excellent as this sniveling, vain jerk that is like all jerks of high school with Kechiouche bringing a mystique to the character. Did he really rape Alice or was he just an innocent pawn in Alice's sick game? The role of the woodsman played by Miki Manojlovic is probably one of most complex performances ever given. Manojlovic brings a compassionate performance when he's around Jeremie Renier's Luc where he isn't just trying to give harm to anyone but show the couple right from wrong. When he's mean, he is very engaging but you know he is just bringing a morality that is often overlooked in crime dramas.

Jeremie Renier brings in a compelling, profound performance as the anguished Luc. Clearly, he aside from the woodsman is the most innocent character of the film. We see how easily he could be manipulated and thus, make his character sympathetic. Renier is excellent in his complex performance while he brings in a level of chemistry with Natacha Regnier and Manojlovic. Natacha Regnier is also amazing in her performance as Alice. Unlike past crime films involving serial-killing couples, she clearly is the drive of the character studies where she plays this spoiled, bored school girl who thinks she can get everything she wants through seduction. Her character also has some mystique as you wonder if she really likes Said just for sex and is using him and Luc in her sick game. When she's trapped in the basement, we see her lose control while she brings in an enigmatic performance as a girl you wouldn't want to be with but maybe you would if you're into danger.

While Les Amants Criminels isn't up to par with previous serial killer films or the latter-masterworks of Ozon's films like Under the Sand, 8 Womenand Swimming Pool. It is one of Ozon's most compelling works since it plays up to a genre in a complex, ambiguous format. With a spellbinding cast and idiosyncratic presentation, the film does stand out along with earlier works like See the Sea and 2000's Water Drops on Burning Rocks. Fans of serial killer films might like the approach as well as the level of violence, which is pretty graphic, but not in the level of Stone's Natural Born Killers. Ozon fans will find the film increasingly compelling though it doesn't carry the greatness of the work that he would come out in the years to come. Overall, Les Amants Criminels is a very good film of murder, character studies, and sex.

Related Reviews:

Natural Born Killers (Director’s Cut) (1994):

http://www.epinions.com/content_40380042884

Freeway (1996):

http://www.epinions.com/content_40001441412

Francois Ozon Films:

A Summer Dress (1996):

(Coming Soon)

See the Sea (1997):

http://www.epinions.com/content_140494409348

Sitcom (1998):

(Coming Soon):

Water Drops on Burning Rocks (2000):

http://www.epinions.com/content_137746419332

Under the Sand (2000):

http://www.epinions.com/content_140736499332

8 Women (2002):

http://www.epinions.com/content_129237159556

Swimming Pool (2003):

http://www.epinions.com/content_135739575940

5x2 (2004):

http://www.epinions.com/content_234372238980

Time to Leave (2005):

http://www.epinions.com/content_287590551172


Recommended: Yes

Viewing Format: DVD
Video Occasion: Good for Groups
Suitability For Children: Suitable for Children Age 13 and Older