Review of Aimée & Jaguar (1999) by Ryan T — 19 Nov 2008

Isobel's German lesbian friend lent us this film about a couple of German lesbians. Hopefully not a missionary act.

Disappointing in the sense of if I told you to go and write a story about a couple of German lesbians during the war, then this is pretty much what you'd come up with. As predictable as Titanic and even had a 'paint me like one of your french girls' scene as the lesbian gang pose for a front line calendar, or something.

But a predictable story doesn't make it a bad film and I quite liked the sense of knowing enough about what was going on without it being spelt out, presumably much like it was for them. Quite surprised that Lilly's Juden-radar wasn't strong enough to pick up on her lover's roots until a slightly anti-climatic scene ("duh!"), but hey ho.

I seem to be saying this an awful lot, but the music was great - proper arthouse skill. Oh, a bit of a negative, and possibly due to the DVD transfer, but it was shot awfully dark, in the word of Joy Division, it was rather shadowplay. Watching it with the lights out, the white subtitles were positively blinding compared to the on-screen action.