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Film Info

France 2002 | 111 min. Director: François Ozon
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8 Women

Synopsis

An isolated mansion in the snowy countryside of 1950s France. A family is gathered for the holiday season ... But there will be no celebration - their beloved patriarch has been murdered!
The killer can only be one of the eight women closest to the man of the house.The investigation turns into a day of hysterics, rivalries and family secrets revealed.
Eight women. Each has a motive. Each has a secret. One of them is guilty. Which one is it?

Cast & Crew

Director's comment

For a long time, the idea of making a film with only actresses had been on my mind. After having seen again Cukor's The Women, 1 had checked into the rights to the theater play on which the film was based. I soon learned the remake rights had already been taken for several years in Hollywood by Julia Roberts and Meg Ryan. So 1 abandoned my project of doing a French version of The Women. But thanks to the help of Dominique Besnehard, 1 discovered 8 Femmes, a 1960s crime play. 8 Femmes was written by Robert Thomas, a writer somewhat forgotten but who had his moment of glory in 1970s main-stream French theater and who made his fortune when one of his plays was bought by Hitchcock. (Unfortunately, the adaptation never happened due to Hitchcock's death.)
8 Femmes instantly seemed ideal for my feminine film project. Front the play, I mainly kept the setting and a simplified version of the story. live tried to strengthen the humor, deepen the characters and add complexity and modernity to the rivalries and family problems between the eight women. I wanted to make a comedy combining a classic crime thriller with Agatha Christie-like intrigues and a closed environment where the murderer is among the group. But underneath this surface, I wanted to paint a light and amusing reflection an femininity, actresses, class struggle and family secrets.
Like Water Drops on Burning Rocks, 8 Femmes is an anti-naturalist film which focuses on stylization and the artificial to heighten feminine beauty and glamour. All the actresses had to be of the kind of beauty that makes the audience dream so that the cruelty and horror become even more colorful, meaningful and strange.
Placing the action in the 1950s helped give credibility to the extravagant situation of these eight "caged" women, as well as to the story's wild twists and turns, and as much to the films artificial effects. But the French 50s, often in black and white (like in the somber films of Julien Duvivier, Jean Delannoy or Claude Autant-Lara), are less of a reference than the technicolor of Vincent Minelli musical comedies and the flamhoyant Douglas Sirk melodramas.
The songs of 8 Femmes, performed by the actresses but arranged in 50s style, help to distinguish the time period. The songs also allow each character to unveil her inner life, as a sort of monologue both moving and comic.

Biography

2001 8 FEMMES
2000 UNDER TUE SAND (SOUS LE SABLE)
1999 WATER DROPS ON BURNING ROCKS (GOUTTES D'EAU SUR PIERRES BRULANTES)
1998 CRIMINAL LOVERS (LES AMANTS CRIMINELS)
1997 SITCOM

Cast & Crew

François Ozon
 Olivier Delbosc, Marc Missonnier
 François Ozon
 Jeanne Lapoirie
 Isabelle Huppert (Augustine), Emmanuelle Béart (Louise), Fanny Ardant (Pierette), Virginie Ledoyen (Suzon), Danielle Darrieux (Mamy), Ludivine Sagnier (Catherine), Firmine Richard (Madame Chanel), Catherine Deneuve (Gaby)
 Laurence Bawedin
 Pierre Gamet
Krishna Levy
 Pascaline Chavanne
 Gill Robillard , Thi Thanh Tu Nguyen, Cedric Gerard, Hervé Soulié
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