MON AMOUR MAX Movie Review

Max, My Love

Peter (Anthony Higgins), a refined British diplomat living in Paris, has become suspicious of the occasional disappearances of his wife, Margaret (Charlotte Rampling). He follows her, and discovers that she's in love with a chimpanzee named Max. Ever the British gentleman, Peter suggests that everything would be neater if Max simply moved in with them, and soon their double bed has a freshly prepared cage nearby. Max, Mon Amour was written by longtime Buñuel collaborator Jean-Claude Carrière, and one can see how Buñuel might have been amused enough by the concept to perhaps include it as a short dream sequence in a film like The Phantom of Liberty. But it makes for an awfully thin feature, particularly in the leaden hands of Nagisa Oshima, who directs without a feel for surrealism, comedy or irony. What you see is what you get, and what you get is Charlotte Rampling in love with a chimp. Next!

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1986 97m/C FR Anthony Higgins, Charlotte Rampling, Victoria Abril, Christopher Hovik, Anne-Marie Besse, Pierre Etaix; D: Nagisa Oshima; W: Jean-Claude Carriere, Nagisa Oshima; C: Raoul Coutard; M: Michel Portal. VHS CVC, ING