The film represents all of cinema’s possibilities in 106 minutes.
It’s precisely the questions and challenges of visibility that Cocteau’s film so masterfully explores.
It’s been part of the film canon for so long that it’s valuable to remind audiences how gloriously alive and just plain fun it is.
You officially no longer have an excuse not to own one of the greatest of all films.
A near-perfect cinematic integration of beguiling fantasy, hard-won technical achievement, and sophisticated self-reflection.
The film illustrates not merely Ophüls’s unparalleled sense of flow and texture, but also his proto-feminism.
Le Plaisir illustrates not merely Max Ophüls’s unparalleled sense of flow and texture, but also his proto-feminism.