Product Description

Claire Denis’ visually stunning and sensual film explores a chance encounter between two strangers who meet in the middle of a transit strike and wind up changing their lives forever.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #67023 in DVD
• Released on: 2003-11-11
• Rating: NR (Not Rated)
• Aspect ratio: 1.85:1
• Formats: Anamorphic, Color, Dolby, DVD, Subtitled, Widescreen, NTSC
• Original language: French
• Subtitled in: English
• Number of discs: 1
• Running time: 90 minutes

Amazon.com
Like the other films of French director Claire Denis, Friday Night exists in a realm of glances, skin, and dreams. Working with basic elements, Denis (whose previous films were the hypnotic Beau Travail and the scary Trouble Every Day) fashions an often-wordless liaison between a woman caught in a huge Paris traffic jam (there's a transportation strike going on) and the stranger she picks up in her car. Their brief encounter is the simplest of situations, but Denis grounds it in the exactly realized locations of their courtship: car interior, hotel room, late-night restaurant. And, of course, in the expressive faces of the two actors: Valerie Lemercier, best known for her comic roles, and Vincent Lindon (late of Chaos). The dreamlike rhythms of the piece will undoubtedly defeat some viewers, but if you give yourself over to the movie's spell, it will come alive. --Robert Horton

From The New Yorker
A woman (Valérie Lemercier) in Paris preparing to move in with her boyfriend the next morning gets stuck in a traffic jam, allows a strange man (Vincent Lindon) into her car, and goes to bed with him in a hotel without exchanging more than a few words. The movie is about a momentary connection made in the night, but the director Claire Denis's technique, which depends on non-continuous cutting, produces disconnection. In the end, not much happens between these two. The movie is dark-toned and rather furtive, its emotional transactions attenuated to the point of nullity. A perfect one-night stand is no doubt a familiar fantasy, but this movie has been made without fantasy. In French. -David Denby
Copyright © 2006 The New Yorker

Customer Reviews

A brilliant film from a brilliant artist!
I had to sign up as a reviewer just to counter the customer reviews of this film that are missing the point. This is great film! An historic film! Claire Denis is a courageous filmmaker precisely because she does not pander to the audience's expecations; she does not conform to the conventions of Hollywood-influenced filmmaking. Instead she pursues the kind of quiet drama that unfolds in realism with remarkable insight into character, with remarkable compassion for humanity. As a result, her films might sometimes seem slow, or seem as though little is happening. But what you get is far more amazing than a sinking "Titanic": You get a real picture of the sort of real drama that occurs between real people in their real lives. Imagine a love story between people who are not more beautiful, not more amazing, not more different than you and I -- imagine a love story between people like us -- and then imagine a filmmaker who can capture all of its minute nuance. That is greatness. That is Claire Denis and "Friday Night."

The open space before commitment.
Laure (Valerie Lemercier) is moving out of her apartment to move in with her boyfriend. Almost all of her possessions are packed and labeled, with the exception of a few she needs to decide on. Her home, the area that belongs to her completely is in her car. In the midst of Paris' transit strike, she gives a lift to Jean (Vincent Lindon).

That is a brief description of the beginning of Madame Denis' wonderful Vendredi Soir. Very few films are paced so exquisitely showing us the first stages of attraction and desire as this one did. The shots of Laure watching Jean's hands, Jean removing Laure's glove to caress her hand and their decisive brush against each other on the staircase are some of the loveliest and most romantic images I've seen on film.

Desire is sometimes fleeting, but almost always memorizable. Yes, their affair is brief but during it, you can almost see them both noting, analyzing and remembering. The final shot of Laure, dressed and ready to go, as she gently touches Jean was both her and our exit out of the gorgeous, romantic fantasy that was this movie.

Strangers in the Night
Sometimes physical attraction is so strong and the consequences for following through with said attraction are so weak that we cannot help but do the dirty deed...right there and right now.
Claire Denis's "Friday Night" tells the story of such an encounter and it tells it from the woman's (Valerie Lemerciere) point of view.
Often such stories are told in the style of a fairy tale with the girl as a fairy princess and the man a knight with shining armor. But Denis is too realistic and thoughtful a director for this. Instead we get a 2003 take on the situation with all the pitfalls and emotional weight intact. The meeting, the courtship, the physical relationship and the breakup is all done in one night.
Denis has shown us in "The Venus Beauty Institute" that relationships often take turns and twists that we cannot predict and that love can come from the unlikeliest places. In "Friday Night" we see a relationship telescoped into one evening and it is thrilling, bizarre but ultimately quite wonderful and resonant with the truth and humanity of something real.