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19 out of 22 people found the following comment useful :-
Not flawless but still a classic, 30 May 2002
Author: trakl from Hamburg, Germany

This film about surface and inner passion (derangement, fear, etc...obviously symbolized by the pool) is a pleasure, mostly through the performances of Alain Delon and Romy Schneider. Most of the plot lies under the surface and there are many scenes where one must read between the lines to understand where everything will lead to. Okay, the film could have been a bit shorter, but the actors in my opinion really make up for it. We've seen everything now in the movies - but still, the opening sequence is one of the hottest scenes ever filmed. I cannot explain, see it yourself.

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16 out of 18 people found the following comment useful :-
France has never looked more beautiful, 26 July 2007
Author: lazarillo

An incredibly attractive bourgeois couple (Romy Schneider and Alain Delon) are luxuriating in an idyllic French villa when they receive a visit from an old friend of the husband and old flame of the wife (Maurice Ronet) who had actually first introduced them to each other. Their visitor is accompanied by his temptingly nubile 18-year-old illegitimate daughter (Jane Birkin). Infidelity, jealousy, and eventually murder ensue.

This film in some ways resembles the emerging Italian gialli thrillers(especially the early ones with Carrol Baker and/or Jean Sorel), but it is much more staid and psychological and less over-the-top than the Italian films. And of course, it also fit squarely in the tradition of French thrillers somewhere between "Diabolique" and Claude Chabrol. The three leads are very good, but Jane Birkin is pretty miscast--she was too old for this role and seemed to be trying to overcompensate by running and skipping around, acting more like a 12-year-old girl than an 18-year-old one (and the result, needless to say, is pretty bizarre). Birkin also tragically keeps her clothes on (although she does spend most of the movie modelling various bikinis), but the equally gorgeous Schneider more than makes up for it. Ironically however, the major flaw in this movie is that the four principals are all SO glamorous and beautiful that it's hard for us normal folk to relate or sympathize with them.Schneider and Birkin would appear together again with better results in "Love at the Top" (where the latter more than makes up for her regrettable lack of skin here).

I suspect this movie not only partially inspired the likes of Claude Chabrol, but also the very recent sexy French thriller with same name ("Swimming Pool" in the English-speaking world) in which Charlotte Rampling and Ludivine Sagnier seemed to be respectively channeling the erotic spirits of Schneider and Birkin. One thing's for sure, France has never looked more beautiful than it does here.

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12 out of 17 people found the following comment useful :-
Delon and Schneider back together..., 19 January 2005
6/10
Author: dbdumonteil

After ten years .Their last and only movie together(Schneider had only a cameo in "plein soleil")was "Christine".That movie helped Delon become a star when his partner was famous (the "Sissi saga").But Schneider's career ran into difficulties when she tried to get rid of her image of a very nice Austrian empress.And in the late sixties ,when her success was waning,Delon returned the favor,in a gentlemanly manner.He was right:Schneider soon gained critical acclaim again and became one of the biggest actresses of the seventies in France till her tragic death.We still miss her now.And Maurice Ronet too.

"La piscine" is a psychological detective story.There are only four characters well portrayed by the four leads.Almost all the action takes place around a pool (hence the title) in the middle of a desirable villa(I wish I could spend my vacation here).Tempers rise as it appears that Jean-Paul (Delon) is a wash-out professionally and that his guest (Ronet)is a show-off ,and Jean-Paul's lover's (Schneider) 'ex -partner.It's a cat and mouse play,not always original ,but where the actors can display their skills.The murder can remind people of "plein soleil" ,mainly because it's the same actors.

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4 out of 6 people found the following comment useful :-
Captures a certain atmosphere, but quite a bit flawed, 29 March 2008
6/10
Author: vostf from Paris, Fr

La Piscine stands out the atmosphere of a quiet summer vacation in Saint-Tropez, that is away from all the tourists and partying. A dull vacation? Not for the happy ones who can be content with "love and fresh water" (as we say in French). That's the starting point. The opening shots establishing this are probably the best part of the movie. Yes, once in a while the first reel contact is not on a part with the rest.

The first time I saw it, La Piscine left me with a good impression. The atmosphere was sufficient for my pleasure, the whole plot consistent and above all you felt on holiday with the characters. Now on second viewing you can't but feel sorry for Delon as Romy Schneider and Maurice Ronet clearly are in charge there. Even with the sometimes (very) weak lines they shine. On second viewing you also notice that the furniture in the house are ugly, that the director does a poor job (ah those awful zoom shots and unnecessarily moving camera...).

On the whole it could have been quite a bit better. Still worth watching for the opening scene, Romy, Maurice Ronet, and Romy again.

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2 out of 3 people found the following comment useful :-
A shallow pool?, 14 June 2008
5/10
Author: pljewkes from Boston, MA

*** This comment may contain spoilers ***

Jacques Deray's psychological drama stops short of being a real thriller by keeping the pace maddeningly slow. Alain Delon and Romy Schneider are well paired as an upper class couple enjoying an idyllic vacation on in the south of France. Their holiday in the sun is interrupted by old friend Maurice Ronet and his young, very odd daughter. Ronet and Delon are old pals and Ronet and Schneider MAY be old lovers...Delon goes slowly mad trying to find out. Complicating things is Jane Birkin as Ronet's bored daughter. What seems like a straightforward triangle blooms into something hellish. LA PISCINE (The Pool) is strikingly photographed, and the principles are all at their peak, however the overall viewing experience is not exactly enjoyable...Deray (a very good director) really mis-steps. The buildup is just too long for the finale to be very satisfying. Still, he gets terrific performances out of the swinging cast and the movie includes one of Michel Legrand's more bearable music scores.

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9 out of 18 people found the following comment useful :-
Superficial and slow-moving, but provides a certain nostalgia, 6 August 1999
6/10
Author: allyjack from toronto

The movie is languid and superficial and slow-moving but that's generally fine, if you feel like revisiting one of those archetypal, now almost forgotten, mildly (extremely mildly) titillating flicks which used to show up (dubbed) in the Adults Only slot on Friday late-night British TV in the late seventies. The earlier sequences glisten with tanned flesh, against which the slowly building tensions (Ronet and Schneider's past affair; Delon's attraction toward the daughter; Delon's relative failure as a writer and his realization that Ronet doesn't really like him) sometimes seem almost resonant. The movie becomes merely formulaic once it has to tie up the strands of the murder though - the only question being whether Schneider will stay with Delon or not, and it's clear at the end that this amounts to little more than the flip of a coin. Neither the writing nor the acting in the later stretches is sufficient to make very much out of this game of psychological cat and mouse.

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3 out of 7 people found the following comment useful :-
La piscine, 9 July 2006
6/10
Author: austrianmoviebuff from Vienna, Austria

*** This comment may contain spoilers ***

After a string of commercial flops and the birth of her son, Jacques Deray's "La piscine" marked the turning point of Romy Schneider's ill-fated career and made her a major star in French cinema. A massive box-office hit by its release in 1968, the movie achieved rave reviews and turned producer Gérard Beytout into a multi-millionaire.

Though extraordinarily photographed and nicely acted, "La piscine" is not very good. The story holes are too big, the film itself about thirty minutes too long. Like most French films, it's a love-triangle. This time, it turns into some kind of thriller. Set in a beautiful Saint Tropez villa, "La piscine" takes a lot of time to visualize the sexy relationship between Jean-Paul (Alain Delon) and Marianne (Schneider) which experiences an unpleasant twist when Marianne's ex-lover (Maurice Ronet) shows up and joins them with his 18-year-old daughter (Jane Birkin). Jealousy leads to murder and distrust, and by the end, the relationship between our good-looking protagonists are not the same.

Michel Legrand's jazzy music and several shots of Miss Schneider wearing a black bikini make this slow-moving, talkative piece of film bearable. It might have been an erotic sensation back in the 1960s, but it's now outrun by sexier and more entertaining movies.

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8 out of 19 people found the following comment useful :-
Sluggish, atmospheric French thriller., 12 January 2005
6/10
Author: gridoon

"Sluggish" is the key word here. In the movie's sluggish first hour, director Jacques Deray does little except perfectly capturing the atmosphere of summer heat - the blazing sun, the rippling water of a pool, the sensuousness of the almost-naked bodies....while the characters say things like "I'm going to shave", compete in swimming and go shopping. Because this is also supposed to be a thriller, a murder must eventually come - and it comes after 80 minutes, in an atmospheric and memorable, but also poorly motivated scene. The aftermath of the murder is as sluggish as its preparation. It's really a well-made film, but maybe TOO suggestive - the audience has to fill in too many blanks. Another problem, already pointed out by a previous reviewer, is that Birkin (the young girl that catches Delon's eye) is a lot less attractive than Schneider (the woman he already has by his side) (**)

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3 out of 10 people found the following comment useful :-
Everybody knows a person like Harry., 28 March 2003
Author: chugalot (chugalot@safe-mail.net) from USA

Not a bad film. I watched it dubbed from French. Harry, played by Maurice Ronet shows up at Alain Delon and Romy Schneiders place with his teenage daughter and invites himself to stay for awhile. Tensions mount as Harry slowing makes an annoyance of himself by complaining about Romy Schneiders rice dish as he piles it in his mouth ect. Eventually it becomes clear that his intent is to leave his daughter there so that he can cut out in his Porsche alone. Delons character, (quiet and reserved) makes the film worth while in the final scenes. Great Michel Legrand score!

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1 out of 7 people found the following comment useful :-
We found this film in French Canada on NTSC VHS, 5 July 2007
10/10
Author: BQA Films from United States

*** This comment may contain spoilers ***

We can only buy the NTSC VHS released in French Canada in 1970's.......Alain Delon plays a French writer having an affair with Romy Schneider, a successful journalist. At a swimming pool in St. Tropez......a record executive (Maurice Ronet) arrives with his nubile young daughter (Jane Birkin). Harry and Marianne were once lovers and he makes a pass at her. Meanwhile, Jean-Paul makes a pass at Harry's daughter. After some drinking, Harry and Jean-Paul fight, resulting in Harry being pushed into the pool and drowns......the young couple tries to get their stories straight in order to avoid being charged with murder in this sometimes masochistic feature from France.....French Language Jacket and the version we find in Quebec is French Language with No English Subtitles.....Running Time is 2 Hours 03 Minutes.....We no longer buy ex-rentals because most have been tampered with......

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