An engaging, well-cast, sophisticated psychological drama, which kind of takes off on the Hegelian master-slave dialectic. Its biggest flaw is that it is a bit overboiled and over-long.

#411

Wonderful black and white cinematography, that brings memories of ze German expressionism to mind, ensures that the lovely mansion looks anything but cozy. Bogarde especially delivers a great performance and the plot is interesting. Especially the last third shows some interesting development in the balance of power between the two leeds. But I'll be damned if I gave a shit about any of it.

i'm with JooJoo here. i liked some of the more dynamic scenes but i dunno, my go-to servant-fucking-shit-up movie is still The Handmaid

All I can say is striking!

I think I liked certain moments and scenes here better than the whole deal - the scene in where the two protagonists/antagonists throw a tennis ball at each other is just awesome, captured from far above in a exciting shot loaded with something stormily unfixed; the scene in which the water crane creates tension is also brilliant, just to take another example. It's when the images and editing talks and the characters shut up this is good, good, good shit.

359

Absolutely brilliant, right up to the end where I felt just a little let down. It's never quite clear throughout the film why things are happening in a specific sense, but the general reasons couldn't be more clear and the mix of scathing social commentary with flashes of absurdity works well. The plot is continually intriguing, the acting quite good, especially Bogarde, and the photography magnificent. I loved the use of shadows and mirrors. The ending's not clear cut but fits thematically.

Bogarde is excellent and naturalistic, as is the other fellow's girlfriend from the beginning of the movie. With everyone else the acting seemed stilted to me, if not weak. It's still a fantastic movie, though, and it would fit right in alongside the many Hand-That-Rocks-the-Cradle-style thrillers that were made in the 1990's. This film gets *really* interesting, though, when it finishes up that plot and then surprisingly keeps going. As a side note, the main character needs more records.

Superbly unpleasant and quitely decadent. There's no one to root for and the films all the better for it. Actually, it might be the best film of human parasitic behavior and pure hatred, class difference or nay. The emotional equivelant of 50 italian gore films put into a blender.

# 349

Losey's dark, crowded compositions provide the perfect setting for the class war's Pyrrhic victory.

390

Interesting idea for a film, and intriguing gay subtext, but I was pretty nonplussed. Maybe I'm just too American to fully appreciate this

The proletariat uprising against the bourgeoisie, on a small scale. There's a very Bunuellian flavor to the class warfare, sly subversive wit, slightly surreal narrative, and sensuality. It always managed to surprise me. This is all augmented by some fine cinematography, a hep jazzy score, and a very good performance from Bogarde. Complaints: enough with the mirrors. I'm bored with mirrors. There was one, maybe two, good uses of them here, the rest was just showing off.

I do enjoy Dirk Bogarde [James Fox leaves no positive impression] but the importance of this is completely lost on me. It's not that I don't see the themes played with, it's that they're too plainly in view.