Dive back into your favorites as we round up all the best series returning to TV and streaming in 2021.
Charlize Theron returns as the villain Cipher in F9. IMDb takes a look at her celebrated career in film and television.
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Title: The Lover (1992)
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| Cast overview, first billed only: | |||
| Jane March | ... | The Young Girl | |
| Tony Ka Fai Leung | ... | The Chinaman | |
| Frédérique Meininger | ... | The Mother | |
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Arnaud Giovaninetti | ... | The Elder Brother |
| Melvil Poupaud | ... | The Younger Brother | |
| Lisa Faulkner | ... | Helene Lagonelle | |
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Xiem Mang | ... | The Chinaman's Father |
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Philippe Le Dem | ... | The French Teacher |
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Ann Schaufuss | ... | Anne-Marie Stretter |
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Quach Van An | ... | The Driver |
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Tania Torrens | ... | The Principal |
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Raymonde Heudeline | ... | The Writer (end) |
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Yvonne Wingerter | ... | The Writer (beginning) |
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Do Minh Vien | ... | The Young Boy |
| Hélène Patarot | ... | The Assistant Mistress | |
It is French Colonial Vietnam in 1929. A young French girl from a family that is having some monetary difficulties is returning to boarding school. She is alone on public transportation when she catches the eye of a wealthy Chinese businessman. He offers her a ride into town in the back of his chauffeured sedan, and sparks fly. Can the torrid affair that ensues between them overcome the class restrictions and social mores of that time? Based on the semi-autobiographical novel by Marguerite Duras. Written by Cal Lott <cal.lott@gsb.uchicago.edu>
I continue to be amazed at what works in this huge experiment in the social imagination we call film.
One thing that really impresses me is how one image will stick in your mind. One image around which it seems the whole rest of the project revolves and supports. I usually write IMDb comments very soon after seeing or reseeing a film.
In this case, I was so struck by that one image I resolved to wait three months before commenting. It stuck.
That image is the one which is used in the promotion and presumably is what the filmmaker considers its essence: the 15 year old girl in defiantly non-school clothes with an incongruous man's hat on the ferry. She is observing and consciously observed. It is we who observe her and enjoy her sensuality then and later just as the Chinese observer does. He is our surrogate, defining the strange situation of a being in the wrong place: Chinese being then more of a 'minority' in Vietnam than Europeans.
Exotic ordinariness. Emerging awarenesses as justification for being. No, more: revelling in existence. Transition as destination.
It is odd how charged this one image is, and how competently it justifies the whole project. Just as the lover is left puzzling why, so are we. So are we, and the fact that no easy answer appears is why this sticks so.
Ted's Evaluation -- 3 of 3: Worth watching.