18 reviews
In a small town in France, Nicole Kunstler (Miou-Miou) and her husband Jean-Marie Kunstler is a traditional French middle-class couple, bored with their years of marriage and running a small business of cleaning and ironing clothes with some financial difficulties. When they meet the bisexual Loic (Stanislas Merhar) working as drag in a night-club with his sister Marylin (Mathilde Seigner), the sexually dissatisfied Nicole feels a great sexual attraction for him. The couple brings the young man to live and work with them, in a weird relationship, and Nicole has an affair with Loic and becomes a happy person. This intriguing triangle of love has a tragic end. "Nettoyage à Sec" is almost an excellent romance. The screenplay begins very daring, but the solution for the love situation is very moralist and resolved in a tragic, but easy way. The cast has a great performance and the direction is very good, but the story deserved a better conclusion. My vote is seven.
Title (Brazil): "Lavagem a Seco" ("Dry Cleaning")
Title (Brazil): "Lavagem a Seco" ("Dry Cleaning")
- claudio_carvalho
- Apr 1, 2005
- Permalink
The mellow, mesmerising tune of the theme music by Edouard Dubois made me watch this movie twice while on a transcontinental flight. The music was only one reason among others that made me watch the film twice in four hours. I am a French film enthusiast and the contents of the film (latent homosexuality, guilt, cross dressing, etc.)were not out of the ordinary. What was striking in the film was the deliberate, structured screenplay that made me recall early works of Marcel Carne. I was not surprised to learn that the screenplay won an award at the prestigious Venice Film Festival and nominated for a Cesar in France.
The film's beginning and end revolve around affirmation of marital bonds, while the bulk of the film (to me only the sub-plot) ventures into transgression of those bonds followed by redemption. There is sadness at the end but it also accompanied by a silent studied reaffirmation of faith between man and wife. The final walk of the duo is an ordinary event yet captured powerfully in this film. I recommend this film to those who have not seen it not as a film that is extraordinary, but one which encourages viewers to introspect and look at ordinary lives, not of superheroes but of less than perfect men and women. The film succeeds because of low-keyed acting (Merhar and Miou-Miou), the sombre yet mesmerising music and good mise-en-scene. The film discusses "drycleaning" of two individuals' marital life, but the script and the director elevate the wife as strong personality with a level-headed strength developed quite unobtrusively as the film progresses. Anne Fontaine, the director, is someone to watch out for in the future as is Edouard Dubois. In more ways than one (direction, cinematography, the script) the film gives a woman's perspective of the story, though a wee bit sombre.
The film's beginning and end revolve around affirmation of marital bonds, while the bulk of the film (to me only the sub-plot) ventures into transgression of those bonds followed by redemption. There is sadness at the end but it also accompanied by a silent studied reaffirmation of faith between man and wife. The final walk of the duo is an ordinary event yet captured powerfully in this film. I recommend this film to those who have not seen it not as a film that is extraordinary, but one which encourages viewers to introspect and look at ordinary lives, not of superheroes but of less than perfect men and women. The film succeeds because of low-keyed acting (Merhar and Miou-Miou), the sombre yet mesmerising music and good mise-en-scene. The film discusses "drycleaning" of two individuals' marital life, but the script and the director elevate the wife as strong personality with a level-headed strength developed quite unobtrusively as the film progresses. Anne Fontaine, the director, is someone to watch out for in the future as is Edouard Dubois. In more ways than one (direction, cinematography, the script) the film gives a woman's perspective of the story, though a wee bit sombre.
- JuguAbraham
- Mar 16, 2000
- Permalink
- dbdumonteil
- Apr 6, 2006
- Permalink
An interesting and somewhat mysterious tale of a middle aged couple who grow disillusioned with their dry cleaning business and find outlet with a cross dressing brother-sister-lover couple of performers. Their mutual obsession naturally leads to the demise of their relationships, businesses and ultimately their lives.
The script is a bit dry, and lacks the punch that the subject matter is capable of delivering. Near the final act it tries to catch up as the homosexual attraction between the young man and the older husband comes zooming out of nowhere. A good editor would've suggested they drop some kind of hint earlier on.
The abrupt and troubling ending leaves you satisfied.
The script is a bit dry, and lacks the punch that the subject matter is capable of delivering. Near the final act it tries to catch up as the homosexual attraction between the young man and the older husband comes zooming out of nowhere. A good editor would've suggested they drop some kind of hint earlier on.
The abrupt and troubling ending leaves you satisfied.
Recently i watched some or many french movies about husband n wife relationship. i really dont understand or what i understand that what the hek is going on with french people? . or maybe its just movies. as movies represent its people too.
A movie about married couple with 2 kids and BOTH very busy with their dry cleaning business. seems normal till they enjoyed much in EXOTIC club. and then another young stud character came in their lives + home. which turns everything upside.
----------------------spoilers----------------------
the thing i dont understand is , a normal French married couple SUDDENLY invite a GIGLO to their business + home + lives after soo many years of marriage. even that young giglo has its own intentions to that couple after being dumped by his own gf. even a husband knows from a start that he WANTS and is getting into his wife pants but still OK with it ? . and that french wife? . she didnt think about her own children n family and suddenly want to leave everything for that guy. that is kinda too much.
never ever invite a horny young guy into home where a bored housewife is already on heat.
A movie about married couple with 2 kids and BOTH very busy with their dry cleaning business. seems normal till they enjoyed much in EXOTIC club. and then another young stud character came in their lives + home. which turns everything upside.
----------------------spoilers----------------------
the thing i dont understand is , a normal French married couple SUDDENLY invite a GIGLO to their business + home + lives after soo many years of marriage. even that young giglo has its own intentions to that couple after being dumped by his own gf. even a husband knows from a start that he WANTS and is getting into his wife pants but still OK with it ? . and that french wife? . she didnt think about her own children n family and suddenly want to leave everything for that guy. that is kinda too much.
never ever invite a horny young guy into home where a bored housewife is already on heat.
- afterdarkpak
- Mar 26, 2020
- Permalink
It's a cinematic tradition: the handsome young man who insinuates himself into a household of boring bourgeois types and stirs things up. Terence Stamp did it in Teorema, Robert Forster in Reflections in a Golden Eye, Peter McEnery in Entertaining Mr. Sloane, Will Smith in Six Degrees of Separation. Here, the young man is a bisexual who quickly wins the heart of a frustrated Miou-Miou and disturbs the dull, penny-pinching boss of a dry cleaners, Berling. The script and direction by Anne Fontaine are assured, but the ending may leave some viewers perplexed (it did me), as it seems to come out of nowhere.
Stanislas Merhar deserved the Most Promising Actor Cesar that he won as the pretty boy; you can readily see why the wife can't get enough of his caresses. Charles Berling often plays men who suffer in silence; he has a wonderful way of tightening his mouth that speaks volumes, and here he's very good as the husband.
Stanislas Merhar deserved the Most Promising Actor Cesar that he won as the pretty boy; you can readily see why the wife can't get enough of his caresses. Charles Berling often plays men who suffer in silence; he has a wonderful way of tightening his mouth that speaks volumes, and here he's very good as the husband.
This story of a French couple, middle class business people leading a life that they only find boring when they encounter a young, free spirited and unisexual man, takes some weird turns but does it with excellent performances and direction. Though the ending was a bit abrupt, as well as shocking, getting there was the fun - well, pleasure, maybe. The young man has an affair with the woman, and is clearly drawn toward the man as while. The husband's reaction is the key to the drama, and the actor's subtle signs of being tempted, against his nature and resisting all the way , are truly fine acting. The whole cast is excellent, and the sensual , open tone of the movie, mixing the fairly straight-laced couple, their young child, middle class friends and family, and the worldly young man and depicting them, ultimately, as not really all that different, is almost comforting...until that ending, which came rather fast and furious after a more slow moving development, shattering the mood. Still, this is a really fine job of direction, and development of characters who all seem far more common than we would think if merely being told about them.
From all the French movies I've seen, this one is quite different. When I say different, I mean that this movie has faster pace compared to other French movie that are usually slow-moving.
The events folded seamlessly and the acting of the three main actors were great, with one flaw. Stanislas Merhar was supposed to look normal, not effeminate, according to the script, and according to Miou-Miou's character. However, he still looked very effeminate. I don't know if that was the real him or that was what the director wanted him to be.
On the contrary, the ending was not that good. I think it was because the writer wanted to end the story, but didn't know how to end it logically. Anyway, this movie is worth seeing.
The events folded seamlessly and the acting of the three main actors were great, with one flaw. Stanislas Merhar was supposed to look normal, not effeminate, according to the script, and according to Miou-Miou's character. However, he still looked very effeminate. I don't know if that was the real him or that was what the director wanted him to be.
On the contrary, the ending was not that good. I think it was because the writer wanted to end the story, but didn't know how to end it logically. Anyway, this movie is worth seeing.
French Cinema has for many reasons (sociological in the main) made a lot of very bad Gay/Queer films. Even the best, and in recent years there have been a quite a few, have been tainted with murder, self-hatred and negative endings. I have given positive reviews to them, and I feel a certain sense of shame in doing so. This wretched film made me put things into perspective. It has all the above themes in abundance, and despite the talented actors and a director I have admired (to a certain extent) it is a film to be utterly ashamed of. The story has been told by reviewers here, so I am not going over that again. I just want to highlight a handful of elements that condemn it for me; a drag act that looks like a parody of lesbianism made strictly for jaded heterosexuals; a male prostitute who is maybe bisexual, or maybe fakes it; a revolting scene of male rape that makes homosexual acts look physically disgusting, and I could go on with this list. All these tropes have been used in far 'better' Gay/Queer cinema from Patrice Chereau's 'The Wounded Man' to the very recent film 'Sauvage'. I have justified both films on their artistic merit, but sadly this tawdry 'Dry Cleaning' somehow sums up the (perhaps) intrinsic distaste towards homosexuality in French film for far too long. Admittedly it was made in 1997, but that is recent in comparison to the history of cinema. Directors, actors and yes the public have colluded in this and it is profoundly something to be ashamed of. I have mentioned Rohmer as my favourite director in French cinema. He never went near the subject, and I have judged him by avoiding it, but despite that, no French Gay/Queer film has shown the glory of love and its beauty as he did in 'L'Ami de Mon Amie' (My Girlfriend's Boyfriend). Why ? I can answer that with one image. Homosexuality is a third class passenger riding on a first class train for heterosexuals.
- jromanbaker
- Mar 23, 2021
- Permalink
- writers_reign
- Sep 29, 2006
- Permalink
(1997) Dry Cleaning/ Nettoyage à sec
(In French with English subtitles)
DRAMA/ PSYCHOLOGICAL/ SOCIAL COMMENTARY
There's hardly a plot but can be interpreted as social commentary film reflecting on the French awakening of peoples impulses. The movie is not boring except that at the end, I didn't care. A middle age couple own a dry cleaning store, which they happen to spend one of their off days drinking at a drag queens club. One of the club's employees happens to stop by there, to remove a spot from a dress and invites them back to the club. At this point, the guys wife as well as himself become very acquainted with him, and his so-called girlfriend, who also work alongside with him as drag queen performers calling their duo 'Queen Of The Night'. More things happen starting with the couples trip to Sweden. And to say anymore would ruin the experience, except to say that I haven't learned anything more than when I last saw this.
There's hardly a plot but can be interpreted as social commentary film reflecting on the French awakening of peoples impulses. The movie is not boring except that at the end, I didn't care. A middle age couple own a dry cleaning store, which they happen to spend one of their off days drinking at a drag queens club. One of the club's employees happens to stop by there, to remove a spot from a dress and invites them back to the club. At this point, the guys wife as well as himself become very acquainted with him, and his so-called girlfriend, who also work alongside with him as drag queen performers calling their duo 'Queen Of The Night'. More things happen starting with the couples trip to Sweden. And to say anymore would ruin the experience, except to say that I haven't learned anything more than when I last saw this.
- jordondave-28085
- May 10, 2023
- Permalink
Sad, melancholic, nostalgic and soft.
A film about illusions and impossibility of escape. Description of failure and ambiguous expectation. French flavor and marks from Pasolini, empty universes and slices of love, game without innocence and failure of dreams.
A world, a small world where the work is only real refuge. Where the memories or the projects are shadows of a lost time and a bovaric certitude.
Delicate and tender, subtle and innocent, this film is a pledge for discover the sense of existence. The image of war with the other or with yourself, the fear like basic answer to the movement of time, the questions like skin of interior fog, the presence of temptation in the person of an androgynous teenager, the looks, deceptions or infidelity are elements of ordinary life. For everyone, "The Queens of Night" are key to a second chance, to a form of happiness. But always, the happiness is puzzle of illusions and the old rules are more strong that any form of seduction. In final, the corpse of a gorgeous dream like only "souvenir" of a perverse form of normality.
A film about illusions and impossibility of escape. Description of failure and ambiguous expectation. French flavor and marks from Pasolini, empty universes and slices of love, game without innocence and failure of dreams.
A world, a small world where the work is only real refuge. Where the memories or the projects are shadows of a lost time and a bovaric certitude.
Delicate and tender, subtle and innocent, this film is a pledge for discover the sense of existence. The image of war with the other or with yourself, the fear like basic answer to the movement of time, the questions like skin of interior fog, the presence of temptation in the person of an androgynous teenager, the looks, deceptions or infidelity are elements of ordinary life. For everyone, "The Queens of Night" are key to a second chance, to a form of happiness. But always, the happiness is puzzle of illusions and the old rules are more strong that any form of seduction. In final, the corpse of a gorgeous dream like only "souvenir" of a perverse form of normality.
To me, a romantically inclined gay man, this was a fascinating but ultimately unfulfilling tale of a `normal' French couple, Nicole and Jean-Marie Kunstler, who have grown unsatisfied with their settled, routine lives. The couple runs a dry cleaning business in an unexciting small French town. Their lives change when they go to a bar with some business associates and encounter Loïc and Marylin, a cross dressing brother/sister act. From the first, the couple is fascinated with the pair but particularly with Loïc, the sexually ambiguous brother, (played to perfection by Stanislas Merhar).
The couple is so enchanted with the pair that they take a weekend to the city where the performers are appearing next. When the sister decides to end the act and run away with her lover, the brother insinuates himself into the couples lives. The young man claims to be, and is by all indications, straight and soon takes the wife as a lover. The husband is also aroused by the boy but denies his attraction. Soon the boy is living in the couple's home and working in the Dry Cleaning shop and is showing a talent for that type of work. He even befriends the couple's child and helps him with homework and takes him skating.
Whether his good work arises from Loïc's desire to repay Jean-Marie or from some innate talent for dry cleaning is unclear. I think that Loïc feels guilty about cuckolding this man who has shown him nothing but kindness, genuinely likes the guy, and is aware of the man's attraction to him. He wants to make amends in any way that he can. Ultimately Loïc offers himself to Jean-Marie physically but is rebuffed.
Whether it's the husband's `homosexual panic' or his actually seeing his wife with Loïc during one of their trysts, Jean-Marie decides that Loïc must go. This leads to the final and I think dissatisfying concluding scenes.
The couple is so enchanted with the pair that they take a weekend to the city where the performers are appearing next. When the sister decides to end the act and run away with her lover, the brother insinuates himself into the couples lives. The young man claims to be, and is by all indications, straight and soon takes the wife as a lover. The husband is also aroused by the boy but denies his attraction. Soon the boy is living in the couple's home and working in the Dry Cleaning shop and is showing a talent for that type of work. He even befriends the couple's child and helps him with homework and takes him skating.
Whether his good work arises from Loïc's desire to repay Jean-Marie or from some innate talent for dry cleaning is unclear. I think that Loïc feels guilty about cuckolding this man who has shown him nothing but kindness, genuinely likes the guy, and is aware of the man's attraction to him. He wants to make amends in any way that he can. Ultimately Loïc offers himself to Jean-Marie physically but is rebuffed.
Whether it's the husband's `homosexual panic' or his actually seeing his wife with Loïc during one of their trysts, Jean-Marie decides that Loïc must go. This leads to the final and I think dissatisfying concluding scenes.
- Havan_IronOak
- Jul 17, 2001
- Permalink
Saw a humongously uninspired French movie, Dry Cleaning (Nettoyage a Sec), that the advertisers swear won Cesar awards all over the place, but is just a hodgepodge of every foreign movie cliche that might strike an upscale audience as profound: a sexually ambiguous stranger insinuates himself into the lives of a married couple, engaging them in sexual games that bring them to the brink of self-destruction. She's desolate without the young man; the husband wrestles with his denial that he's also turned on by the stranger. Of course this is "art theatre," so we are to suppose that every straight man is really a gay man who hasn't found out yet. On the other hand the homosexual aspect of the story becomes the vehicle that carries the husband into his own corner of hell, an idea that seemed arty thirty-odd years ago (The Sergeant; The Children's Hour) but now is just insulting to gays. And of course the story is dotted with major and minor sexual interludes and taunts, but relationships are left to angry, dissatisfying silences between not-particularly-interesting characters. Story elements are offered that suggest the plot could go somewhere else but instead lead nowhere (the young man's sister leaves and conceivably might return looking for him; the young man has genuine talent as a dry-cleaner and might make a life for himself beyond his "drifter" existence; the married couple thinks about moving to Canada). I think the filmmaker has a long way to go in justifying why he wanted to make this movie -- what he thought would make this film extraordinary compared to some other story about dissolving marriage or sexual curiosity. Imagine La Strada if Anthony Quinn just sat around and brooded. If Thomas Mann had written Dry Cleaning it would be called Death in Suburbia: except that, speaking strictly for myself, I think it's the audience that dies.
the idea is far to be now. the performances - decent. in fact, correct use of stereotype who was imposed by Teorema. the young seductive man. the wife remembering Madame Bovary. the husband on the top of solitude. provocative scenes and dialogues. not real surprising end. the only memory after few years after I saw it - the atmosphere. the ambiguous sexuality, the crisis of marriage and the last decision. and nothing more because the film is just occasion to intrigue, seduce and propose an idea who represents part of many couples fear.
- Kirpianuscus
- Apr 7, 2017
- Permalink
I don't know why but I thought of the Bertrand Blier's flms atmosphere when I saw this movie. For instance TENUE DE SOIREE, and the presence of Miou Miou enhances this feeling. Plus, Charles Berling's voice is nearly the same as Gérard Depardieu's one. I watched this film only because of the Anne Fontaine's directing and the Miou Miou's presence. The plot itself is not my cup of tea at all, the sex element doesn't shock me but only doesn't interest me either. However this story offers a pretty good characters analysis, an ordinary couple's daily life and problems description. A couple which seems to look like so many other ones.
- searchanddestroy-1
- Oct 18, 2024
- Permalink