This is a mature, thoughtful study of the games we play with ourselves to make it through the day; a walk through loss and denial. The acting is simple and superb throughout.Rampling gets deserved praise for this role, but Bruno Cremer as her husband has perhaps the most difficult role to tread, it's a fine line done marvelously.Ozon is one of my favorite Directors. His work is always thought provoking, risky, and willing to explore the dark corners to bring fullness to the life of his characters. Some of Ozon's work is bright and campy. His other mode is quiet and serious. This is one of his most serious, and one of the best.

"Under The Sand (Sous le sable)" is a cross between Bergman/Ullman's "Faithless (Trolösa)," for its humorless look at a middle-aged, comfortable marriage, and "Truly, Madly, Deeply" for how not to deal with an unplanned break-up.Charlotte Rampling's face and body language are wonderfully expressive, as she alternates between facing reality and basking in fantasy, and in French and English.While it's always interesting to be a movie tourist inside middle-class Parisian apartments, we don't really get much insight into individuals or relationships.It's just sad.(originally written 5/20/2001)

Simple story: Husband goes missing after a swim on holiday and his wife is in denial about the situation. The idea here is to tell the story by showing only the outward reactions of all involved. Ozon hereby creates a mystery (is he really dead?, was it a suicide?) but the over-explanatory character spoils all the fun. The walk in the woods, his face before the swim already tell everything, but if that's not enough Virgina Woolf is thrown in (if you dislike reading check out The Hours).So the rest of the movie we rely on the acting, which is average but not that interesting. We have the almost obligatory love scenes, redundant fantasies and much talk about nothing. Everything is mildly interesting. But one scene stands out: that between Suzanne (Andrée Tainsy, who just passed away) and Marie (Rampling). Andrée Tainsy mixes so many facial emotions in that scene it makes the whole movie worth watching.Ozon is a very traditional filmmaker who seems to strike a chord with his French audience. But he could have lived thirty years ago and made the same movie. It's almost as if he is in denial of the great French film history. Luckily we still have Jeunet, Besson and a lot of new talent to save the day for the French.

"Sous le sable" tells the story of Marie Drillon, excellently performed by Charlotte Rampling, whose husband disappears when they are on holiday after he went for a swim in the sea. What follows is the struggle of Marie who can't accept the fact that her husband is dead and that he will never return. In several scenes is shown that Marie still talks to her husband in the present tense, like he's only gone for a couple of days but will return very quickly. In one of the last scenes we know for sure her husband is dead because they found his body. In that scene, we see again that she just can't accept it because the body that is found has all the characteristics of her missing husband, but she still denies that it is her husband.Charlotte Rampling gives a remarkable performance. The movie is partly based on something Francois Ozon experienced in real life. Years ago, when he was at the beach, he saw a woman who's husband was went for a swim in the sea and didn't seem to return. He always wondered what happened to the woman and her missing husband. Excellent movie, Francois Ozon is a brilliant director. I've seen "8 Femmes" as well and this is also a very good movie, although it's something completely different.8/10