8 Women (8 Femmes), Franois Ozons tag-team bitch fest, is so clearly a tribute to 1950s-era Technicolor, that there are times

when you wonder why he bothered to cast it with human beings at all. But Ozon is not so much fascinated by Technicolor as by Technicolor musicals, so he needs performers, their movements, and their voices, to go with his color schemes. This is a complication that frequently lands him in trouble. In one sequence, for example a study in black and scarlet for example he overestimates his ability to turn Fanny Ardant into Cyd Charisse. This laboratory approach to humanity sometimes leads one to speculate that Ozon is a visitor from another planet, more comfortable with our colors and structures than with us. Nor would this be the first film from this chilly, detached filmmaker to trigger such thoughts (see Under the Sand). But it is unfair to suspect Ozon of inhumanity. For all the ruthless behavior of the eight title characters, this movie isnt misogynist or cruel. On the contrary, in a bizarre way, it is empathetic. Underneath a surface that is both clinically controlled and totally camp, Ozon identifies with his characters somehow anyway. The problem with the movie is that he cant quite crack the carapace of his own creation and connect the patina with the pathos. It didnt have to be this way. One of the movies loveliest adornments could also have been brought its emotional treasures to light, no matter how deeply they were buried. Catherine Deneuve may not have the greatest range of any actress in the world, but she has mastered the art of film acting and the equally profound art of choosing the right role. Here she plays Gaby, a chic middle-aged woman with two teenaged children. Suzon (Virginie Ledoyen), the elder, is just coming home for Christmas vacation from boarding school in London as the movie begins, while silly Catherine (Ludivine Sagnier) is still at home. Danielle Darrieux, whose hands were made unforgettable by Max Ophlss The Earrings of Madame de, plays Gabys querulous, miserly mother, or Mamy. The character actress Firmine Richard, plays the maternal housekeeper Madame Chanel, whose name is a tip of the hat to the movies general sense of chic (and even to the domestics nicely fitted uniforms).

That Deneuve would dominate this group is no surprise. That she continues to hold the center against the remaining cast is a bit more surprising. Isabelle Huppert, simultaneously her generations greatest and most eccentric raw talent, plays Gabys "old maid sister" (the movies designation). Huppert acts as if she were the deranged offspring of Agnes Morehead and Jerry Lewis, devouring the neon-bright Technicolor scenery until it shines out of her eyes like death-ray high beams. Emmanuelle Bart plays the maid, Louise, obviously planted in the house by Gabys husband for more than cleaning and dusting. Bart is very, very good, as well as being her usual sexy self, and, unlike Huppert, she resists the call of the movies 50s-style dcor and Chanelstyle clothes to overact well, almost. But there is an essential silliness to the character. And, of course, there is Ardant, playing Gabys sister-inlaw, who is used by Ozon as some massively distracting decorative feature. Deneuve brings centeredness to the film simply by refusing to indulge in caricature. She is the wife, the mother, roles that in other situations would be stereotypical but which arent here, a hint that Ozon might be up to something serious. The plot, however, will undoubtedly convince English and American audiences that the filmmaker is just being ridiculous. With everyone housebound by a snowstorm, it is discovered that the man of the house, Gabys husband Marcel, is dead, a knife plunged into his back. The phone line having been cut, rational Suzon takes it on herself to discover who the killer is. In the middle, of course, of several musical numbers and a great deal of backbiting and bitchery. This sounds just like more high camp, plot material well suited to the excessive dcor, costumery, and arch insults exchanged by the women. But the French have a tradition of poetic fascination with English country house murder mystery. Lautramont, a 19th-century poet who died in 1870 at the age of 24, wrote a strange, hallucinatory work called "Les Chants de Maldoror", told from the point of view of a sort of monster. Amid its violent, and erotic, and obscure passages, the poem has an interlude set aside for country house murder parody.

It is probably no accident that 8 Women, with its monstrous women, suggests "Maldoror". Ozon is a compulsive alluder. His cast is a series of allusions, in a way. The films opening shots of flowers are allusions to Technicolor tests. The whole movie is an allusion to Technicolor musicals. The behavior of the women is an allusion to George Cukors The Women. "Maldoror" would just be another log on the fire. Unfortunately, 8 Women rewards analysis more than it does watching, something that could be said of Under the Sand, too. The more you look through Ozons camera, the more its gaze resembles a microscopes, the intricacy of life broken down into pretty cellular, but ever more abstract, patterns. If Ozon had just pulled away from his amoebic sworls, as lovely as they might be, he might have seen Deneuve in her fullness. Not as a movie icon, not as a blond Technicolor item, not as a Chanel clothes horse, but as a quietly self-possessed, very human presence, quite ready to deliver musically or farcically one womans worth of emotion. And one womans worth would have been enough to carry us through. 8 women (8 Femmes) is a difficult movie to describe because it is so full of contradictions: it is a drama that is frequently funny (sometimes even intentionally) involving a cast of eight eight supposedly heterosexual women-- half of whom are not--who burst into song at random moments in the film while trying to solve a murder mystery. Attempting even one of these contradictions has derailed more than one film, but oddly, this actually works for 8 Women by making it both unpredictable and memorable. Its uniqueness, along with an interesting story and a well-known cast (in France), explains why this odd little film--which has just been released on DVD--has won so much critical acclaim. In French with subtitles, the story is about an extended family stuck in a house together during a bad snowstorm trying to figure out who killed the male head of the household, Marcel (Dominique Lamure). Think Gosford Park meets Clue, with an all-female cast and corny song-anddance routines. The eight women referenced in the title include the victim's icy and bitter wife Gaby (played by Catherine Deneuve), and the victim's sexy estranged sister Pierrette (Fanny Ardent). Then there is Gaby's annoying spinster sister, Augustine (Isabelle Huppert), the victim's two teenage daughters Catherine (Ludivine Sagnier) and Suzon (Virginie Ledoyen), Gaby's mother (Danielle Darrieux), the matronly black housekeeper

Chanel (Firmine Richard), and the beautiful young maid Louise (Emmanuelle Bart). As always in murder mysteries, everyone's got a secret they don't want revealed, all of which spill out over the course of the movie as the women attempt to determine who killed Marcel. The undercurrents of tension rooted in class issues, homophobia, sexism, and just plain greed are unspoken drivers in many of the characters' interactions as they alternately insult, comfort, and seduce one another. Some of the transitions from moments of tense drama to cheesy songand-dance routines seem rather abrupt and even strange, but perhaps this assessment is more a reflection of the fact that this type of film doesn't fit easily into existing American film genres (since this kind of musical dramedy is not standard fare here anymore, outside of art house theaters). The use of subtitles on top of this unusual combination of slightly-offbeat drama, comedy, and folksy music only exacerbates a feeling of distance between the film and the viewer, especially in the beginning. But once you get used the pacing and transitions, that distance fades away and the film becomes very enjoyable, even if it never quite loses its surreal feel. Issues of sexuality, and sexual tension between the women, are always at or just below the surface of the film: whether it's Gaby's oldest sister complaining about being seen as a spinster, the older maid trying to hide her love for Pierrette, Gaby's oldest daughter dealing with the consequences of a college love affair gone awry, Pierrette flirting with Gaby, or Gaby accusing Louise, the young maid, of sleeping with her husband, 8 Women deals with more sex than your standard American teen comedy--and all without a single nude scene. Although there are plenty of indirect references to lesbianism, it is addressed directly only twice in the film: first, when the relationship between Chanel and Pierrette is discovered and Gaby reacts with homophobic statements like "You need treatment" and the accusation "I let you raise my girls!" But Chanel defends herself, saying "I've done nothing wrong," and sings about how hard it is to be alone. Richard renders Chanel simultaneously tough and tender, motherly (to the girls) and sexual, in a way that keeps you from viewing her as just a housekeeper (although it is frustrating that the only black woman in the film is a maid). The second time lesbianism is directly addressed is towards the end of the film, when Pierrette is trying to seduce Gaby and tells her "love between women is anything but shocking. It's a form of pleasure you should try, to cleanse you of men." The fluidity with which the women's sexuality is portrayed in the film is unusual, as is the casual way it is integrated into the story. Although

Chanel is a lesbian, the other three women are more accurately described as bisexual--although they are not labeled as such in the film. Perhaps the fact that filmmakers did not feel the need to "define" the characters' sexuality is a result of it being a French film, not an American one (since few countries are quite as preoccupied with labels as we are). Besides Pierrette and Gaby, the young maid Louise is also not straight: although she was having an affair with Gaby's husband Marcel, she tells Gaby "I became your employee not out of need, or for [Marcel]...but for you, Madame" as she gazes boldly into her eyes. Beart plays Louise with a mix of pride and smoldering sexuality that makes her a complex and compelling character, when she could easily have been just another stereotypical maid-who-sleeps with-the-boss. Those who have followed Catherine Deneuve's career since her sapphic turn in The Hunger will most likely be surprised to see her singing and dancing in 8 Women, since she usually plays very serious roles. Deneuve is excellent here as usual, however, transitioning back and forth between being a hard, bitter wife and mother to a woman fighting attraction to her sister-in-law Pierrette, whom she publicly scorns. Pierrette is a free-spirited "exotic dancer" who easily attracts the attention of men and women--such as the housekeeper Chanel (Firmine Richard), who has confused her sexual relationship with Pierrette for love. Fanny Ardent is very convincing as Pierrette, and she makes Pierrette appealing by exuding a warmth and vitality that contrasts sharply with the more somber countenance of the other women. Overall, 8 Women is a fun, memorable film with many layers that provides a campy but still realistic portrait of a group of women whose sexuality and ethics are not easily defined. So fascinating do these characters and their love/hate relationships with one another become that, by the end of the film, the odd little dances don't even seem that odd anymore.