Vashirdfel Simply A Masterpiece

AutCuddly Great movie! If you want to be entertained and have a few good laughs, see this movie. The music is also very good,

Hadrina The movie's neither hopeful in contrived ways, nor hopeless in different contrived ways. Somehow it manages to be wonderful

Billy Ollie Through painfully honest and emotional moments, the movie becomes irresistibly relatable

peter-longworth I now fully understand why Roman Polanski has visa issues with certain countries !

xynth90 Bitter Moon... What a fitting name for this film. It contains a gritty reality some people live in every day, usually to a lesser extent. Coyote as the detestable Oscar gives the film's best performance. Seigner is good as codependent Mimi and Grant is put in a strange position as nervous Nigel manipulated into listening Oscar's crazed story. It's a story of an abuser turning into victim and victim turning into abuser. Both loving and hating each other equally as much. Love-hate at its most extreme. This rollercoaster tale of a passionate relationship gone sour or beyond is hard to stomach. It can be relatable for those who are or have been toxic relationships. There's S&M, sometimes just plain sadism, loss of self-worth and esteem, change in human nature, destructive relationship between different personality types, codependency. It's all here.

Thaneevuth Jankrajang Almost everyone would talk about politics of sex, twisted passions, and state of fantasy, which this film is partially about. I think the final scene, when the little Indian girl came to wish those husband and wife a happy new year for her father, who stood at a distance, tells it all. Western way has become too greedy, overflowing, and dangerous to oneself. Oscar and Mimi had it all their way, perhaps all the tasteful and tasteless sex known to man, and they ended up losing everything over them. We don't know if the Indian gentleman's presence is to offer an oriental civilization as a cure to western capitalistic decay, but Polanski seems to offer that scene as an alternative of life. This is a man who mocks oriental civilization all his life, Polanski that is. Any Chinese personality in his films is portrayed as mysterious, mischievous, and a mockery. Maybe at this point in life, Polanski starts to see things through. This film is a phenomenon. It is made by someone who perhaps tasted all the tastes and smelled all the smells. Tragedies in real life of Polanski may have even added to his firm grasp of what human beings are really like. As a true artist, he is so masterful in exhibiting what he knows, and we all benefit from him. Please watch this film without asking too many questions at first. Live along and you'll be rewarded.

Tim Kidner For all those who think that this dark psychological drama from Roman Polanski is just kinky sex and full of S&M, it isn't - and simply isn't a film for you, or at least for what you want.There are a few reviews around where such people wanted those elements and when they didn't like the baggage and the 130 minutes running time, they gave it one star. This is an intelligent, 'thinking person' relationship drama that follows themes often visited by Polanski, not least his debut, the Polish language Knife In the Water. One couldn't help thinking there's a bit of Bertolucci's Last Tango In Paris and Kubrick's Eyes Wide Open in there too.However, despite all that is written, apart from the first few minutes, settling us into the characters and scenario, for the first hour or so, is actually a very lovely and often seductive and tender adult love story, set against the romance and beauty of Paris. With Peter Coyote's American writer, following and referring to other 'Americans in Paris' F Scott Fitzgerald and such, becoming the film's narrator and lead character, it really is the rose-tinted view of Parisian life and women that's fuelled popular culture and literature for decades.In this case, it's Polanski's actual wife (Emmanuelle Seigner) who plays the young and nubile dancer, Mimi, that takes on the older Oscar (Coyote). The seduction and (non-graphic) sex scenes are actually very sensual and erotic, enticing us into a world of bliss, allowing Polanski to share with us his own fantasies (perhaps) as well as putting this relationship on a high plateau, from which it ultimately disintegrates - this being the thrust of the movie.To give credence and body to all this, a now wheelchair-bound Oscar confides in reserved posh Brit Hugh Grant, in a sort of bitter wife-swap scenario, that's both warped and distasteful. They're all on a cruise to India, via Turkey and the in built confinement and boredom this provides is the prefect trap. Nigel Dobson (Grant) though, cannot keep away from these reminisces and his relationship with his own wife Fiona (Kristen Scott Thomas) is put under the microscope and the four slip into an unhealthy psychological mêlée.Throughout, Polanski is playful, devious, malicious and often in love with the idea of his wife playing the young temptress in all this. In my view - and circumstances - would say that this really needs the life experiences of those over forty in its audience for them to halfway appreciate human nature and all its dark sides, as well as its joys. Some say it is excellent, I think it far from being his best work but a whole lot better than many he's made.I bought my DVD from Cash Converters for 66.6p, recurring.