Reviews & Ratings for
Max mon amour More at IMDbPro »

11 out of 15 people found the following review useful:
A different Type of discrete Charme, 28 September 2006

Author: Thorsten_B (thb8@hotmail.com) from Frankfurt, Germany

Mainly, this film is about Charlotte Ramplings love for a monkey (a chimpanzee, to be precise), and how her family, especially her husband, deals with it. In fact, upon finding out about his wives affair, Anthony Higgins' character remains surprisingly calm; he even proposes to have the monkey live with them in their house. Maybe he wants to prevent Rampling from leaving him; or he does so since he has an affair himself; or it is his attempt to be "open minded" even in front of an utmost unusual matter. But problems soon up: Not only does the maid (young Victoria Abril!) respond negative to the new guest; the couples friends slowly find up about the hidden secret and try to "help" by drawing in psychologist, zoologists, and so forth. Then, suddenly, Max, the monkey is gone... Sounds weird? It is. All over the film, one is reminded of some of Luis Bunuels work. In one particular scene, Higgins – eager to find if Rampling and Max do indeed share sexual experiences – pays a prostitute to "visit" Max, about which she has no problems (other than Max!). One could read it as a commentary about, once again, the lifestyle of the Bourgeoisie and the boredom that drives them, but in fact all of the characters are likable and there's not hint of criticism on social inequalities. It's filmed in a "children film style" way, yet in its contents designed exclusively for adults. It makes for an enjoyable reception, but once you've seen it, it's not something you want to watch it all too soon, since "Max mon Amour" is basically attractive for the unpredictable unfolding of the story.

12 out of 18 people found the following review useful:
Love and tolorance, 13 April 2001
Author: luke from Salt Lake City, Utah

I watched this film as a part of a film class that I take. For the first time I really liked a Oshima film as I watched it and not only after we talked about it. The story crosses all kinds of lines of what love is and how it can be felt by anybody or anything. All and all a good film to see. Note that for 1986 Rick Bakers effects are the most life-like I have seen of a monkey. Sometimes you even think it is a the real thing

4 out of 4 people found the following review useful:
good squirmy fun, 25 January 2009

Author: jonathan-577 from Canada

Interesting - an international co-production that results in a real creative fusion, not the usual mush. This movie pits deadpan surrealist aesthete Jean-Claude Carriere's script against tantrum-prone transgressor Oshima in the service of a narrative where Charlotte Rampling falls in love with a chimpanzee. In spite of the rampant in-your-face perversity, though, Carriere holds the balance of power - Oshima wouldn't have thrown in that climactic victory parade, and I doubt he could have pulled off such an informed spoof of the French bedroom comedy on his own. The bemused passivity of the husband can get a little cloying, but it's pretty remarkable how viscerally sensual the movie gets in the Rampling-chimp lovey sequences. And that goes double once you realize that it ain't no chimp - it's another Rick Baker masterpiece for ya, so that makes three auteurs.

7 out of 10 people found the following review useful:
One of the most unusual love triangles, 13 November 2006

Author: netwallah from The New Intangible College

*** This review may contain spoilers ***

A peculiar love triangle. English ambassador Peter Jones (Anthony Higgins) sends a detective to find where his wife Margaret (Charlotte Rampling) goes nearly every day. She has taken a small flat, and he goes there, only to discover that her lover is Max—a chimpanzee. Max comes to live with them, and jealousy complicates matters. It's hard for Peter to accept that Margaret loves both of them. The story is resolved with understanding. As a fable about sex, it remains puzzling, though probably the moral of the story is that people like different things, and if nobody gets hurt, what's the big deal? The plot itself, of course, is absurd, and some of the fringe characters play it for comedy, especially the experts the Jones' friends try to introduce, and the maid Maria (Victoria Abril), who seems to be allergic to Max. But the center of the film is tense, even severe at times. Still, Peter is mostly elegant and bothered in much the same way he'd be bothered by jealousy accompanying the usual sort of affair, and Margaret is smiling and self-possessed and calm. Rampling and Higgins play perfectly in the mode of comedy that has its characters act around a crazy premise as if it were ordinary, and so the film is improbably charming.

4 out of 5 people found the following review useful:
Love your monkey, 14 June 2008

Author: Woodyanders (Woodyanders@aol.com) from The Last New Jersey Drive-In on the Left

*** This review may contain spoilers ***

The always lovely and captivating Charlotte Rampling gives one of her warmest and most appealing performances to date as the elegant, bored stiff wife of bland stuffed shirt diplomat Anthony Higgins. Rampling has an extramarital affair with Max (Ailsa Berk in an amazingly convincing Rick Baker simian outfit), a moody, ill-tempered, but very adorable, affectionate and even amorous chimpanzee. Higgins discovers Rampling's infidelity and decides to allow Max to move into his posh Paris apartment with the frail hope that his wife will quickly become tired of the cuddly little bugger. Japanese director Nagisa Oshima, who co-wrote the wickedly clever and incisive script with frequent Luis Bunuel collaborator Jean-Claude Carriere, shows an engagingly light touch with this droll, frothy and mildly mocking comedy about staid'n'starchy steadfast bourgeois mores and attitudes which trenchantly satirizes the drabness, emptiness and superficiality of upper-class life, the absurdity of the rich's insistence on maintaining a respectable, well-mannered veneer in the most ridiculous of situations, male fear of impotence, and the hilariously desperate measures people will resort to in order to alleviate tedium and obtain some kind of emotional fulfillment with genuinely funny (the radiant Victoria Abril is a stitch as the timid maid whose face breaks out due to a severe monkey fur allergy), charming, and ultimately quite touching results. The fact that this film doesn't coyly gloss over the touchy subject of bestiality clinches its status as a deliciously eccentric and subversive treat.

4 out of 7 people found the following review useful:
Best in a theater, still fine on DVD, 11 August 2009

Author: poikkeus from San Francisco

Seen with an audience in a theater, Max Mon Amour can be a surprising and satisfying parable. When a womanizing diplomat (Anthony Higgins) realizes that his wife (Charlotte Rampling) may be having an affair, he's shocked, then disgusted that this lover is in fact a full-grown chimpanzee. At first, it appears that Rampling may be using the simian to exact emotional revenge on his wife; then, it seems that a special kind of love might be in play - which inflames his jealousy to the point of violence.

Nagisa Oshima frames the film as an offbeat comedy, but it's hard to ignore ignore its themes, which include the blindness of love, questioning to what degree we're human or animal. To the very last scenes, it's difficult to predict that will happen to the chimp or the strange romance. It's presented almost entirely without music, and filmed in French and English - as if to say the language spoken here is beyond words, speaking the language of the heart.

Of particular note is the rendering of the chimp, which is presented so realistically that you almost believe it's real. Charlotte Rampling is enigmatic and sensual as Max's "lover."

Add another review

Related Links