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For all the hype it got I was expecting a lot more!

Although I seem to have had higher expectations than I thought, the movie is super entertaining.

It’s not bad or unwatchable but despite the amplitude of the spectacle, the end result is underwhelming.

This is one of the best movies I’ve seen in a very long time. You have to go and see this on the big screen.

Fascinating film, loosely derived from the Grimm tale Hansel and Gretel, in which two white teens (virgin boy and intense, poetry-loving girl) conspire to kill a gorgeous Arab boy at their school. After the crime, they enter a forest to dispose of the body, which puts them into the power of a mysterious woodsman who kidnaps and keeps them prisoner, using the boy as his sex slave and shoving the girl in the cellar with their murder victim's dead body. Bizarre sex games, inter-generational buggery and even cannibalism come and go before the kids escape, enjoy a brief moment of sexual consummation before falling into the hands of a faceless Law.The film could be interpreted by Freudian or other symbolic means, but it is best seen as a series of provocative affects, in which the viewer is goaded, poked, prodded, aroused, repulsed and emotionally involved with what s/he sees in order that they be taken on a journey to the furthest and wildest reaches of their desire. Do we want the Arab boy's lithe body, alive or dead? do we desire the punishment of the murderers? do we blame the girl for leading her boyfriend astray? are we turned on by the woodsman buggering the boy? are we wanting them to be prevented from ending the film as a happy heterosexual couple? do we desire the girl's death? are we touched by the glances of romantic collusion between the woodsman and the boy? All of these questions are provocative and suggest what an extreme ride into transgressive thought Les Amants Criminals really is.Ozon directs beautifully, each moment given its proper weight, with lighting, sound and camera angles perfect at every point, conspiring to give the viewer a wonderfully disorientating experience.

i had just seen the movie on the sundance film channel, mind you its already 1 a.m., and i thought that it was a fantastic movie. the two main characters, luc and alice, are in love for some crazy reason because alice is a tramp which is why i liked the ending so much. luc is a sweet virgin who will do anything for alice even after she lies to him and flirts with said (say-eed). theres also this creepy hermit forest dweller who abducts these two and locks them into his "dungeon" with dead Said. oh yea, the whole movie is in French which is another reason i liked it so much because i have some background in it. mainly if you like to watch twisted movies that no one has ever heard of before than this is it! i give it a 7.5 outta 10, only because i missed like the first half hour of it, but because the whole thing is written in alice's diary it gave me a clue to what was going on, eventho i dont like her. :)

If you haven't yet discovered France's new infant terrible, François Ozon, this would be a most excellent place to start: Les Amants Criminels is perhaps his best feature-length film thus far, a supremely accomplished work of incredible daring and depth. The story isn't linear - it jumps back and forth from past to present, revealing details slowly, very Scorpionic - and by the end of it, your feelings towards the two main characters have changed tremendously. And as in all Ozon films, the casting is impeccable, particularly the two leads: Jérémie Rénier as Luc, and Natacha Régnier as Alice. You can get the DVD online - make sure you get the Strand Releasing version, with the subtitles.

A wonderful modern Hänsel and Gretel version by Francois Ozon, one of today's most interesting French filmmakers. Natacha Regnier (La vie rêvée des anges) is most impressive as the scheming and unscrupulous, yet at the same time strangely innocent and childlike schoolgirl Alice who brings her impotent boyfriend Luc (not-so impressive, though ok Jérémie Renier) to killing their handsome Arab schoolmate Said she is lusting for. As for her motivations, the Rimbaud quote ("Un crime!...") in one of the flashback scenes seems to tell the most about it. Maybe she also hates Said because he is sexually aggressive and at the same time very desirable to her - so he doesn't give her that complete control she has with Luc who is none-menacing to her in any way whatsoever.As for Luc, whose internal development we follow the closest in the story, I don't know exactly why he is able to perform sexually in the end (in a scene that seemed to me a kind of parody to 70s softcore porn movies) when first he couldn't. It is true, Alice was menacing and even false to him (in the beginning, she tells the blindfolded Luc that she has taken off her bra when in fact she hasn't, then she photographs him half naked and tells him playfully she would send the pictures to his parents) - but then, the Man of the Woods (Serbian actor Miki Manojlovic - it makes sense that this strange character is played by a foreigner) seems also to be dangerous, doesn't he? Or is it that the Man (contrary to Alice) doesn't expect anything of him, only to stay calm and let go - that's why this in neither way attractive person is the first Luc is able to enjoy sex with?As for Luc and Said, someone here has mentioned that Luc may desire Said for himself. Though this never gets clear, but there is a tell-tale scene when Luc goes to Said's boxing class and watches him for an important period of time, while we hear strange, hymnical music on the background score. This may indicate that Luc is indeed attracted to his sexy schoolmate, though he also 'knows' that Said and his friends did terrible things to Alice (things the girl made up in order to convince Luc to take part in the killing).I also found the motif of the rabbits very interesting: rabbits here are exchangeable for people, as the same things happen to human beings as to these animals. A rabbit gets killed and so does a human; a rabbit gets caught in a trap and so does a human; a rabbit is eaten...All in all a very interesting Ozon movie. And as always in his films, there is more behind it than one may notice at first sight...