The Lover | Jane March, Tony Leung Ka Fai | Soft yet erotic, this tale won't disappoint

The Lover | Jane March, Tony Leung Ka Fai | The Lover

DVDs:

The Lover

	The Lover Jane March, Tony Leung Ka Fai MGM (Video & DVD), 2001 average customer review:based on 131 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

From the novel of the same namewhich has sold over one million copies in 43 languagesthis "sophisticated adaptation of Marguerite Duras' best-selling memoirs" (Variety) smolders on the screen. "Masterfully acted and beautifully photographed" (Critics' Choice), The Lover brilliantly captures the essence of sexual awakening and forbidden desire like no other film has donebeforeor since. Jane March is mesmerizing in the role of a poor French teenager who engages in an illicit affair with a wealthy Chinese heir (Tony Leung) in 1920s Saigon. For the first time in her young life she has control, and she wields it deftly over her besotted lover throughout a series of clandestine meetings and torrid encounters. But though the lovers are able to transcend their differences in age, race and class'theirs is a future that French colonial Vietnamese society will never allow.

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Soft yet erotic, this tale won't disappoint

This movie is great for those slowed down nights when you want to sit back with a lover and enjoy a sensuous movie. It is titilating without getting awkward and pleasant to watch again and again.

The Lover

Excelent! You can feel and live the romance, the desire, the passion on the scenes. It's a mix of feelings, real life situations and the reality of many people about love, culture and what they want to do and what they have to do.

A Beautiful and Sensual Experience in Forbidden Love.

Set in 1929 colonial Vietnam, and based on the memoir by French novelist Marguerite Duras (The Lover), which chronicles a romance between Duras and her Chinese lover, Jean-Jacques Annaud's 1992 film examines the clandestine relationship between a 15-year-old daughter (Jane March) of a bankrupt French family and her 27-year-old wealthy lover (Tony Leung Ka-Fai). She becomes his lover until an arranged marriage forces him to a choose between family tradition and his love for the girl. Much like the far superior Hiroshima Mon Amour (based on a Duras novel as well) , The Lover is a beautiful and sensual experience in forbidden love. While it lacks the poetic imagination of Resnais's 1959 masterpiece, it nevertheless aspires to be viewed as a serious work, and it occasionally succeeds.

G. Merritt

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Love Until Death

Please note: I will be giving some of the plot away.

For anyone who views this film and thinks "underage sex" and/or "porn", there are some subtleties that need to be explored.

There is no reason to believe that the Chinaman sought out underage girls. If anything, his station in Chinese royalty probably provided him with female companionship until (and perhaps after) his arranged marriage.

Through no effort on his part the schoolgirl appeared in his orbit and he found himself unable to look away. This is a rare thing to experience and it is awfully hard to resist.

If we generally only see Leung and March having sex, we need to factor in that her jailbait status and the inter-racial nature of their relationship would not have allowed them to carry on a normal courtship. The sex was just about all that was left to them (and the director).

It was tragic not to see these two end up together, but there was a redeeming event at the end of this movie that made it worth my while.

In his old age Leung wrote to March that he would "love her until death". Society dictates that when two people part ways they must let each other go and move on. Rarely do we give or receive the assurance of on-going love in a situation like this. If both are in agreement that the relationship should not continue, this is a rare, beautiful, and appropriate gem to store away in one's heart.

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