8 Women (2002)
Starring Danielle Darrioux, Catherine Deneuve, Isabelle Huppert, Emmanuelle Beart, Fanny Ardant, Virginie Ledoyen, Ludivine Sagnier, Firmine Richard.
Directed by Francois Ozon.
Rated R.
Grade: A
"Combs never sleep."
8 Women is a sensational movie, one so rich, so imaginative, so uninhibited, so full of irony that watching it is a joy of a magnitude rarely experienced at the movies. It's a mystery, a musical, a parody and a soap opera rolled into one; what is most remarkable is that it doesn't jarringly hop from one genre to another but incorporates all of them into every frame. When I walked out of the theater, I had experienced what I think is every emotion that cinema is capable of evoking, every reaction one could be expected to have. It is a rare find.
The man responsible is prolific French filmmaker Francois Ozon (Water Drops on Burning Rocks, Under the Sand), who is clearly disinterested in adhering to plot convention. His approach here is bizarre and effective: he takes ordinary drawing-room murder mystery material and pushes it over the top into the realm of the ludicrous, then continues in that direction until he reaches the breaking point at which the story, in its very grandiosity, becomes startlingly powerful. It's ridiculous, yes, and often very funny, but like Dancer in the Dark, which also took a glum plot to absurdist extremes, it draws us in and packs a wallop.
As the title suggests, the movie is indeed about 8 women, a family that gathers at Christmastime at the home of a fledgling, but still wealthy businessman named Marcel. His wife Gaby (Catherine Deneuve) is a rather contemptuous woman with a mean streak and an obsession with people "judging" her. Gaby's daughter Suzon (Virginie Ledoyen) is about to be married, while her other daughter Catherine (Ludivine Sagnier) is tired of everyone treating her like a child. Gaby's sister Augustine (Isabelle Huppart) is a frigid middle-aged woman who resents everything and everyone. Their mother Mamy (Danielle Darrieux) suddenly jumps up out of her wheelchair and runs up the stairs. Marcel's sister Pierrette (Fanny Ardant) has been badgering him for money. And his servants, Louise (Emmanuelle Bˇart) and Chanel (Firmine Richard), have secrets of their own.
Of course, it isn't long after the movie opens (with shots of elegant flowers followed by some beguiling fairy-tale imagery) that the women discover that Marcel has been murdered, the phone lines cut, the gate locked, and any escape prevented by the rapidly accumulating snow. As they are forced to spend unreasonable amounts time with one another, asking and answering questions about their whereabouts at the time of the murder, shocking secrets begin to emerge out of the complex woodwork of their relationships.
Oh yeah: each character in 8 Women, with the exception of the sole member of the XY contingent, has her own show-stopping musical number, complete with non-diagetic musical accompaniment and appropriate lighting. This wouldn't be remarkable but for the fact that these are always deliberately underrehearsed, as if the troupe from Waiting for Guffman had somehow snuck onto the set of a major film production. I'm not sure what it was that so struck me about these scenes, except for the fact that they embrace their absurdity and run with it, which I always admire. Their self-absorbed looniness is entirely consistent with Ozon's vision for the rest of the film.
The musical is far from the only genre that Ozon seeks to subvert (I don't use the word "parody" because his dismantling of convention is too smart and subtle for it, and he doesn't always directly go for laughs). 8 Women, in its 110 minutes, has enough twists, turns and shocking revelations to compete with the entire run of The Young and the Restless. These are contrived and incessant, coming at regular intervals whenever the script is ready for the next one. This is deliberate; Ozon is brilliantly toying with the soap opera potboiler, and the result is more involving than any genuine entry into the genre has ever been. There is the feeling that this is a multi-generational saga being played out in front of our eyes, and the emotions are at such an exaggerated scale, that we are drawn in.
Some may insist that the film is misogynist, as it is essentially about a group of women who ruin a man's life. But Ozon is no more interested in such a message than he is in making a serious musical. 8 Women isn't about anything, really, except for pure filmmaking at its most vivacious. I am especially grateful for that final shot, which threatened to stop my heart, but I won't soon forget any part of this brilliant genre-bender.