Textiles (2004)

Am i the only one who thinks........Average?

A film with more than the usual spoiler issues. Talking about it in any detail feels akin to handing you a gift-wrapped present and saying, "I hope you like it -- It's a thriller about a diabolical secret experiment."

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

Strong acting helps the film overcome an uncertain premise and create characters that hold our attention absolutely.

While the movie is very well made, it is misleading about the essence of naturism/nudism. In the beginning, it does appear as though this family has purchased a summer place in a naturist resort. Sophie's soul-searching when she discovers the communal nudity of the resort is very well done. Her children's reaction and their discussions are excellent. But by the end, it is obvious that the resort is a place for swingers and sexuality reigns. Certainly, there are swingers who are also naturists. But the two have little in common. For more then a century, naturists have sought to separate mere nudity from sex. By pandering to the exploitive side of nudity, this movie does nothing but reinforce the myth of rampant sexuality in naturism. It's too bad because it was a good story about body shame until they introduced that prurient element. Perhaps the producer felt that adding a salacious aspect would make it more commercially successful.

I have seen the movie a few years ago and I liked it. The context is naturalism and nudism but the film is not about this and I am surprised the few commentators haven't got it. It is a social movie about conformity and liberation, love and tension, desire and choices, gender, generations, social differentiation etc. Actually, I reflected more on these themes through this movie rather than through other more "serious" movies.A last note, Muhart Magali, is a very beautiful and sexy lady that as a drama face stands apart. She has the potential for more character movies, unfortunately her career did not pick up so far in Paris or London. I just hope she keeps on even in B-movies for a while till she gets her break. She has the potential...Overall, I rate the movie as a 7...far better than many 7s of IMDb....but of course I am not a US prude who thinks that the movie is about nudism "oh my god"... so this may be an implicit explanation of the low rankings so far...

One negative comment for this little comedy of manners, it's a little unfair. I would tend to be more generous towards Franck Landron's effort which has the merit to bring to the light of day a social phenomenon rarely explored in cinema: naturist communities.I agree with the precedent viewer who deemed the end of the film underwhelming because unexplained. Alacrity seemed to be prevailing in the director's mind when he shot these ambiguous ending sequences. What do Olivier (Alexandre Brasseur) and Sophie (Barbara Schulz) really think about? Are they ready to settle down in the camp or do they want to abscond and go back to their humdrum daily life in Paris? While I'm on the drawbacks, it will also certainly be easy to fault on certain derivative points of the story. We learn that Olivier purchased this house because he didn't want to spend his holidays at Sophie's mother's. Could there be a stormy relationship between him and her? Then, the values of this close-knit naturist community make the film a little outdated and falsely modern because it harks back to the hippie culture which used to laud a return to nature and the basic pleasures of life, notably free sex.But Landron's effort shouldn't be dismissed all the same. The title of the film designates the people who wear clothes in a nudist camp and so Sophie and her children are them. Her wary demeanor makes sense: in a society so much concerned with fashions in clothing and sense of decency, how many people would be ready to take their clothes off and to follow the rules and manners of a nudist community? It is highly likely that many people including me and you would react like her. "Les Textiles" is a call for tolerance, integration about the right to live naked in an isolated community.There's nothing crass in Franck Landron's treatment of nudism and he films without complacency and a certain neutrality, Sophie's stay on the island among its naked inhabitants. Comical sequences are efficiently subdued. "Get your clothes off!" says some inhabitants to Sophie. It is also to his credit to have reduced the danger of some traps which seemed inevitable like a latent voyeurism and he plays on evocative colors between bright ones during the day and dark ones in the evening. A special cinematography gives the film an almost documentary style.Don't be fooled by the low rating and give this social comedy a go.

One of the worst films I've seen this year. It's neither amusing nor dramatic. There is a terrible story, lack of pathos, and holes of script too: why did Sophie want to go away from the isle and then didn't do?And the ending? It's very anomalous that Olivier has adapted himself so quickly to new situation. And what happen underwater in the final scene? There are many confuses passages. Or perhaps I did not pay attention. In recent years I've seen many interesting French films (comedies, action movies), but this fails. There is only a good thing: Barbara Schulz. She's very pretty!