Respond to these rapid questions in our La Piscine quiz and we will tell you which La Piscine character you are. Play it now.
A seemingly content couple is living in a rented villa near St. Tropez, smoking cigarettes, having sexual encounters, and lazily paddling around the deep topaz-blue swimming pool that serves as the film’s title. It’s a perfect day in the sun until another man arrives, claiming to be an old friend of theirs, and brings his beautiful 18-year-old daughter along with him. Old resentments begin to resurface slowly, almost imperceptibly at first, and then gain momentum. Cracks are beginning to appear in the couple’s relationship. Grudges eventually turn into hostility, which then explodes into violence.
In terms of suspense film plot, it’s a straightforward and, at times, cliched one. However, the couple, Marianne and Jean-Paul, in Jacques Deray’s 1969 film “La Piscine” (which will be shown at the Film Forum in New York starting on May 14th in a new 4K restoration and released on Blu-ray and DVD by Criterion in July) is played by the impossibly beautiful Romy Schneider and Alain Delon. When Marianne’s old friend Harry (Maurice Ronet) and his daughter Penelope (Jane Birkin) arrive, the sex appeal quotient soars to new heights, and that’s before you factor in Harry’s new Maserati (“the monster,” as Marianne affectionately refers to it) and his new girlfriend. To pass the first hour, it’s more than enough to simply look at the cast from different perspectives: water beading over tanned skin, eyes reflecting various stages of torpor and lust, perfectly limbed bodies arching through the water, walking around the pool’s edge, or sprawling out on a lounge chair.
It’s possible that the audience will be so entranced by the visuals that the cryptic cleverness of Jean-Claude Carriere’s script will go unnoticed initially. The plot progresses slowly as information about this four-sided relationship is revealed through non sequiturs, passive-aggressive observations, and backhanded compliments, all of which serve to advance the plot. When Jean-Paul is informed that Harry has telephoned, he growls, “Any time we hide somewhere, he’s the first one to call.” Marianne extends an invitation to Harry and Pen to stay for a few days—and flashes a feline half-smile at a visibly displeased Jean-Paul. As Harry and Jean-Paul eat an uncomfortable breakfast together, Harry casually inquires, “Are you sure you’re not keeping her from working?” As a result, we learn that Marianne is a writer; we also learn that Harry is aware that Jean-Paul is also a writer, but that he hasn’t been writing recently because he can’t make a living doing so. Following an impromptu midnight party in which everyone finds themselves flirting dangerously with the wrong partner, Marianne presses Jean-Paul to express his feelings about Harry’s daughter, which he reluctantly does. “She’s strange,” he says in response. And Marianne treats him as if he were a book, saying, “If I get you, I should pack my belongings and leave immediately.”
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In addition to the swirling entanglements on screen, real-life histories and off-screen ironies continue to enrich “La Piscine” even after all these years. Schneider and Delon were once considered the “It Couple” of the European film industry, having gotten engaged a year after meeting on the set of 1958’s “Christine,” but they never got married despite being engaged for a year. Delon had called it quits with Nathalie in 1964, leaving a note that became legendary: “Gone to Mexico with Nathalie,” it read. In the meantime, he’d married Nathalie, and Schneider had moved on to a new man.
La Piscine Quiz
Although Jacques Deray recommended Monica Vitti, Delon insisted on Schneider instead of Vitti. Fortunately, the movie demonstrates that their on-screen chemistry had grown exponentially over the course of the years between them. Schneider’s performance in the film was also a career-defining role. It was a world away from the “Sissi” films of the 1950s, where a very young Schneider had made her name as the innocent young Empress Elisabeth of Austria. The character of Marianne was enigmatic, stunningly beautiful, and thoroughly adult.
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Pen was played by Jane Birkin, who was actually 22 at the time of filming, but her half-awkward, half-cool demeanor was perfect for her. Earlier that day, she and her lover, the 41-year-old French singer-composer Serge Gainsbourg, had recorded the infamous “Je t’aime (moi non plus)” song together. Gainsbourg was well-known for pursuing young women and writing lurid songs about even younger women. Pen tells Jean-Paul that if people think she’s Harry’s girlfriend, “he likes it best,” though he protests, “No, no, she’s my daughter!” hoping they won’t believe him, Birkin’s off-screen life adds a twist of wry amusement to a moment when, in a burst of honesty uncommon for these characters, Pen tells Jean-Paul that if people think she’s Harry’s girlfriend, “he likes it
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Alain Delon and Maurice Ronet had previously collaborated on a film that served as a stepping stone in both of their professional lives: the 1960 film “Plein Soleil” (also known as “Purple Noon”), director René Clément’s adaptation of Patricia Highsmith’s celebrated novel The Talented Mr. Ripley. Philippe Greenleaf had been played by Ronet. In the same way that Harry does, Philippe is wealthy and indulgent; in the same way that Harry does, Philippe underestimates the resentment he inspires in a supposed friend; that friend is Tom Ripley, who is played by Alain Delon, of course. Delon’s physical attractiveness was so extreme that he didn’t have to do much to make an audience believe he was untrustworthy. One might speculate that a perfectly symmetrical face could be concealing something.
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And it appeared that real life had corroborated that assumption. The body of Delon’s bodyguard, Stevan Markovic, had been discovered in a public dump just a year before, as the filming of “La Piscine” was coming to a close. Among those implicated in the ensuing scandal were a rumored cache of illicit nude photographs, a Mob-connected friend of Delon’s named Francois Marcantoni, and Georges Pompidou, then the prime minister of France and later the president of France. It has been over a decade since the murder was committed and no one has been charged.
The fact that the real trouble is going to come from the direction of Delon, rather than Harry, is obvious from the beginning of the film, even if you weren’t paying attention to the news in 1969. Ronet’s flashy lifestyle, see-through shirts, and Italian car all scream mid-life crisis. The film’s climax is shocking not because of the violence, but rather because of how long it lasts and how cold-bloodedly it is carried out. In contrast to the first ninety minutes, the final half-hour, with its matter of fact French police inspector and rapid triple-twist denouement, does not appear to fit with the first ninety minutes at all.
That disjointed fadeout may, however, be appropriate only for “La Piscine,” because, as Marianne explains, “I don’t like summer.” “Only during the transitional period between seasons.” Unless you conjure them up through a seance, the miniskirts (courtesy of designer André Courrèges), the jazz-pop score by Michel Legrand, and the legendary cast couldn’t be any more late-’60s. However, the libertine atmosphere of the film, the characters’ self-absorption, and the sense of ideals abandoned if they ever existed at all are all indicators that Deray and Carriere are looking directly ahead to the 1970s. In the world of “La Piscine,” the decade known as the Me Decade has begun.
For more personality quizzes check this: Supernova Quiz.
