Film Forum

Through Thursday, May 20
2:15   4:55   7:40

Starting Friday, May 21
12:15   2:15   3:00   4:55   7:35   7:50

(1969, Jacques Deray) Lazy St. Tropez vacation beside the Hockneyesque swimming pool (la piscine) for lovers Alain Delon and Romy Schneider — until her ex Maurice Ronet suddenly drops in with his daughter Jane Birkin — and, as a former ménage à trois becomes a ménage à quatre, mortal consequences loom. Long a cult film in France, where it's celebrated as a masterpiece of Gallic Noir — but with much of the action taking place around the colorful, sun-splashed swimming pool of the title. Music by Michel Legrand. Screenplay by Jean-Claude Carrière and director Deray. DCP. Approx. 123 min. In French with English subtitles.

Restored in 4K from the original 35mm negative. Restoration supervised by Filmo, commissioned by SND, with the support of the CNC.

Presented with support from The George Fasel Memorial Fund For Classic French Cinema.

A RIALTO PICTURES RELEASE.

Reviews

“STRIKING... A PRISTINE RESTORATION... Pretty people behaving poorly in beautiful settings is something we don’t see as much of in cinema. This is a MASTER CLASS in the subgenre, and one of UNUSUAL DEPTH.”
– Glenn Kenny, The New York Times
Read the full review.

“SEX, SUN… AND SUSPICION. A STAR-POWERED PSYCHOLOGICAL THRILLER.”
– Time Out

“ICILY EROTIC! Seething passion and emotional chaos lie beneath the symbolically placid surface of the villa’s swimming pool, which becomes the site for both seduction and violent revenge.”
– Dave Kehr, The New York Times

“Erotic languor turns gradually into fear and then horror in this gripping and superbly controlled thriller... The pool is a primordial swamp of desire, a space in which there is nothing to do but laze around, furtively looking at semi-naked bodies.”
– Peter Bradshaw, The Guardian

“Romy Schneider’s crowning cinematic moment, where she delivered her most enchanting onscreen performance.”
– Manon Garrigues, Vogue Paris

“Very occasionally we see a film so awkwardly yet compulsively enjoyable that it forces the highbrow viewer to own up: one that takes his or her notion of a Guilty Pleasure and elevates it to the status of High Art. Few films pull off this trick as consummately as La Piscine. Set in a to-die-for villa in the verdant hills overlooking Saint-Tropez, this icily elegant pas de quatre involves four of the most outrageously photogenic actors to ever appear on screen... Nothing that happens from here on is a surprise, exactly. We sit and revel in the glamour of it all, waiting for those hormonal and homicidal impulses to boil over – as, of course, they do.”
– David Melville, Senses of Cinema

Poster by Laurent Durieux

Trailer