Elles (1997)

Five women, all near the wrong side of forty, face life's ups and downs together with laughter, tears, and sometimes irony. Their only imperative: live, love and live some more.

Director:

Luís Galvão Teles

Writers:

Don Bohlinger, Luís Galvão Teles

Stars:

Miou-Miou, Carmen Maura, Marthe Keller

5 wins & 3 nominations.

Cast

Cast overview, first billed only:
Miou-Miou	...	Eva
Carmen Maura	...	Linda
Marthe Keller	...	Barbara
Marisa Berenson	...	Chloé
Guesch Patti	...	Branca
Joaquim de Almeida	...	Gigi
Didier Flamand	...	Edgar
Morgan Perez	...	Luis
Florence Loiret Caille	...	Rita (as Florence Loiret)
Mapi Galán	...	Raquel
Bobette Jouret	...	Bela Luna
Amparo Muñoz	...	Maria
Maurice Chevit	...	Alberto
Marie Guillard	...	Inès
Nicolas Djermag	...	Tiago

Storyline

In Lisbon, the middle-aged TV journalist Linda Lapa is preparing a special program named 'Three Wishes' for her show "Maquillages" (make-up) and interviews her best-friends Eva, Barbara, Chloé and Branca. Linda has a love affair with the younger director Gigi but she does not allow him to spend the night with her. When the young actress Raquel flirts with Gigi, Linda feels that she must change her behavior to keep her relationship with her lover. Eva is a widow literature professor with a son. Eva feels desire for Luis but lives a moral dilemma between her lust and their age difference. Barbara is hypochondriac and misses her husband Edgar (Didier Flamand), but they have a good relationship and Barbara, her daughter Inês (Marie Guillard) and Luis frequently meets Edgar. When Barbara faints in a store, she discovers that she has an incurable disease. Chloé is a lesbian make-up professional that was addicted to heroin and secretly loves Branca, who is a successful actress and the ...

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Plot Keywords:

actress | friendship | lesbian | one word title | lesbianism | 

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Taglines:

Uma comédia romântica sobre o sexo feminino

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Genres:

Drama | Romance | Comedy

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Did You Know?

Trivia

Official submission of Luxembourgfor the 'Best Foreign Language Film' category of the 70th Academy Awards in 1998.

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Quotes

[first lines]
[Linda watches a recording on her portable video camera. On screen there is Eva. Behind the camera, Linda directs a interview]
Linda: You may start now. The genie is here, before you. You may ask him three wishes.

User Reviews

performance and rhythm.

I don't know how much in this film was self-aware and how much was going on on the back of the director. Of other experiences i've had with this filmmaker's work, i never saw anything that might make me believe i'd see anything as clever as what we have in this film. However, this film is a good experience, a piece which was cleverly allowed to breath to the rhythm of the female performances.

The casting of the 5 leading female characters is the first great thing about this. All of them are more or less attached to a certain cultural (european) background, and in the world of film, each one became linked to a certain type of character. That is used in the writing of this film, and i would say each role was written bearing in mind specifically each of the ladies we see here. For each role there might be 1 or 2 other acceptable actress options, but no more.

The second good thing is how acting types are allowed to play freely. Each woman dominates her scene, and bends the other (male) characters to her own breath, to her own acting rhythm and style, as much as Maura's character bends Joaquim d'Almeida to her lifestyle. The story plays accordingly, since all these women are, or fight for being, masters of their own life. So there's a folding of women trying to live free lives into women's different acting styles, allowed to run wild. This i think was not intentional, but it certainly works.

Another great thing, that proves my last paragraph, are the scenes in which several of these women interact and, remarkably, the one in which the 5 of them, and only them, act together in Maura's home, and actually make a film together! I appreciated the self-reference of the thing. These scenes, specially this at Maura's house, are great because it's in the Lumet or Altman tradition of capturing the breath of each actress's performance. They are allowed to breath and each performance is thrown at each other, so the richness of the scene is in how we compare them.

I'd say the general mood intended for the film was fully based on Almodóvar's film world, thus the Carmen Maura connection. This would be, i think, intentional, and the director looked for it. But he messed that up, and it's good he did, because if he'd insisted to hard on that, he might have wiped out the other great eventually non intentional stuff. But the writing is great, self-aware and fully supportive to the actresses. That's why we have two writing devices that enfold the acting nature of this film:-one of the characters is herself a performer, so she is acting an actor. Her performances are vital points for two dramatic developments in the film (her daughter watching her have sex on stage, and her jealousy towards her friend). -Carmen Maura films her friends, making confessions to the camera. So they are ostensibly framed, and placed speaking to the camera, and thus to us. Great devices.

Lisbon is just a postcard here.

My opinion: 4/5, you should watch this

Details

Country:

Belgium France Luxembourg Portugal Spain Switzerland

Language:

French Portuguese

Release Date:

17 October 1997 (Luxembourg)

Also Known As:

Elas

Filming Locations:

Lisbon, Portugal

Box Office

Budget:

PTE700,000,000 (estimated)

Company Credits

Production Co:

Artémis Productions, Canal+, Esicma S.R.L

Technical Specs

Runtime:

115 min

Sound Mix:

Dolby Digital

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.85 : 1