A filthy Hobbits repeatedly rapes a woman until she likes it. Then they go on an adventure. Other things probably happened too but I stopped watching after 30 minutes. The only saving grace here is Isild Le Besco, who Isild De Based herself for this film. Honestly though, if you just wanted to see her naked -and I don't blame you- there are plenty of better films that you can watch.

It's like a Millet painting; you know, The Angelus or something, a bunch of decrepit peasants tilling the field, misery written on their faces. The French highlands provide a stunning backdrop for all this misery. The sex that takes place between the two leads shouldn't distract us from the almost medieval poverty and desperation these people experience.Isild le Besco has now made five films with Benoit Jacquot; she's established a solid working relationship with him. I enjoyed the Sade film, and the crime story that crosses several countries (A tout de suite}. I wish they would make a more traditional story next time.

This story, while the scenario may seem weird and unreal, is a real fact story which happened in the Var department of France in 1865. The are very official and serious judiciary documents reporting those facts found by the police investigation then. On can find a good transcript of that in the Charles Lancelin'book named "La sorcellerie des campagnes" pages 86 to 91. Once one is aware of this, the message to be found in this film has nothing to do with displaying sex relationships or investigating boy and girl relationships in the XIXth century in France or anything "normal" like that. The message is about the strength of hypnotism and magnetism can exert on weak minds or nervous minds. The whole enquiry shown at the end of the film tends to stress that but the writer and the director of the film had obviously some difficulty getting that point out obviously enough to get it through the public. Nevertheless, this film is a very acceptable effort to tell us an account of this magnetism relationship which can occur when both magnetizer is quite strong and magnetized one is easily overwhelmed. One must not see this as an ambiguous situation where the magnetized one could have escaped easily, whatever the physical distance, as it is essentially a mind rapture, beyond physical dimensions.

Saw this one at the British Film Festival last night (22nd October). It seemed to me to be a film without redeeming features. The plot-line was exiguous and (such as it was) moved forward at a snail-like pace. There were no attractive characters (either physically or morally) other than perhaps the father. No explanation was proffered either for why the girl fell under the spell of the feral boy or (if she did fall under his spell), why she spent so much time screaming?That being said, if you like films where a not-very-attractive woman with a wobbly bottom and an inadequate personality gets raped by a crafty peasant with slimy grey teeth and a moustache that looks like a furry centipede, then this is the film for you.We just about stomached the rape, but when the crafty peasant started slurpy cunnilingus as if he was eating soup without a spoon, we walked out. I suspect the leading lady wished she could have walked out too . . .Bad film. Avoid.