Rapture (1965)

Believe it or not,Patricia Gozzi is virtually forgotten in her native France.Not only "Cybèle Ou Les Dimanches De Ville D'Avray" is NOT available on DVD ,but it's also NEVER screened on French TV!But at least ,it's included in the French Dictionnaire Des Films whereas "Rapture" aka "La Fleur De L'Age" is nowhere to be seen.It was broadcast today on satellite TV.I knew Patricia Gozzi was outstanding,but in "Rapture " she is even better an actress than in "Cybèle".Her decision to call it quits after her marriage was a major loss for French cinema.(Gozzi had made her real debut in Melville's "Leon Morin Pretre" but she only had a supporting part.It's hard to admit that the director who made "Tower Inferno" or "Death on the Nile" made this art house work.But it is so."Rapture" is an exceptionally original movie,with complex characters (one user wrote ,and he was right ,that the relationship father/daughter remained extremely mysterious ,running the whole gamut,from desperate love to hatred and resentment),a gloomy cinematography which takes advantage of the splendor of the landscapes of Bretagne.Some scenes are absolutely phenomenal: the rag doll on the rocks (and the final scene which is its exact equivalent),the fight in the shed,the insane asylum where Agnes is irresistibly attracted ,the chemistry between her and James Deanesque Dean Stockwell .There are similarities between Gozzi's parts in "Cybèle" and "Rapture" :in both works,we find a little girl or a teenager in love with someone much older than her.The endings are very similar too.Both are heartbreakingly beautiful .To write that Georges Delerue's scores are simply magnificent is to state the obvious.He too was never replaced.

i first saw this film about 7 years ago and i still pop it in every now and then. i seem to be the only person that finds the story to be well formed and moving. a young stockwell plays a charismatic fugitive that becomes involved with a tattered young girl and her estranged father. There is some very simplistic yet beautiful foreshadowing techniques that tie the movie together neatly. overall, i think this a great little flick about the trials of human nature and the way our hearts sometimes take us on journeys we are not prepared to undergo.

This is a great film. For some reason this movie really struck a cord with me when I first caught in on tv back when I was a teenager. The lighting, the French location, the novelty [to me] of the film style...I must have watched it a hundred times. Even though I haven't seen it in a few years, I still remember how Agnes is so overwhelmed by everything in her life and seems to like to hide her in childlike world. And Dean Stockwell is actually pretty cute; I was surprised to find out this the same Dean Stockwell that was later on Quantum Leap. My mother told me that he was quite the heartthrob in the Sixties, and one can see why in this film. I also read the book by Phyllis Hasting, and it is a whole lot darker in tone than the film. I think it also explores the father-daughter relationship in more detail than the film. This and some of her other books seem very anti-male.

This film is a bit slow and lingering....making me think the director has seen one too many Bergman films. However - it was made in 1965, it's French, and it's shot in beautiful black & white. The world was different back then. The close-ups of the actor's faces are as expressive as the background shots of the rough Brittany coastline. The young girl, Patricia Gozzi, is fascinating. The relationship between her and her father is so complex that, well...I still haven't figured it out. And for pure cinematic beauty....no, it's not the girl....it's Dean Stockwell. The camera caresses his face in every scene. And, in the long shots, he looks like James Dean...as he stuffs his hands in his pockets and leans forward as he walks, with the young girl following him close behind. The father/daughter relationship I don't understand....but the young girl's infatuation with Stockwell makes perfect sense to me.