I saw this many years ago but was too young or slow to know if it meant anything or was worth re-watching sometime; the answer a few decades later imho is No on both counts. It's classically pointless, coldly stylised and as arch as the lie that the flatlining plot depends on. I admit it was certainly good to look at and dreamily contemplate upon over the top of a glass! But, this is a motion picture not a tone poem, right?
After a stylish opening credit sequence it all begins with a rather corny "It all began a month ago" to flashback back to the beginning at the end. Unseen old grandmother dies, (some) of her relatives 2 men 2 women gather at a fantastic looking château in the Pyrenees for the reading of the Will and then indulge themselves languorously in humourless routine sexual horseplay in her memory. Although they then thought it was 1960 and frank and free there were only a few arty nude scenes; thankfully a full-frontal four-way was then out of the question for all of the libertines associated in the production of this - other masterpieces from the era such as L'Avventura, La Dolce Vita and Bout Le Soufflé were similarly hidebound by such convention too. The splendid château and the atmospheric black and white photography of it are the only things I can recommend the unwary to watch this particular film for. The naughty shenanigans and sly frisson continually going on are utterly childish and are pointless diversions - from a purely artistic study of all the eye-watering architecture and all those paintings and statues of naked women! Milena says goodbye twice to Robert but then they get it on; Miguel has it bad for Milena but services Fifine who has it bad for Robert; dear Prudence has it away with Cesar, a man she thought a pig a few hours previously; yawwwwn. And as for the Lie itself: what was the point in it, in revealing it, in ignoring it? It was extremely well-made and got the languid ambiance over perfectly but apart from that the only point I could see in it was that I was watching six sex-mad human animals in a precise arty romp for precisely no reason at all.
After a stylish opening credit sequence it all begins with a rather corny "It all began a month ago" to flashback back to the beginning at the end. Unseen old grandmother dies, (some) of her relatives 2 men 2 women gather at a fantastic looking château in the Pyrenees for the reading of the Will and then indulge themselves languorously in humourless routine sexual horseplay in her memory. Although they then thought it was 1960 and frank and free there were only a few arty nude scenes; thankfully a full-frontal four-way was then out of the question for all of the libertines associated in the production of this - other masterpieces from the era such as L'Avventura, La Dolce Vita and Bout Le Soufflé were similarly hidebound by such convention too. The splendid château and the atmospheric black and white photography of it are the only things I can recommend the unwary to watch this particular film for. The naughty shenanigans and sly frisson continually going on are utterly childish and are pointless diversions - from a purely artistic study of all the eye-watering architecture and all those paintings and statues of naked women! Milena says goodbye twice to Robert but then they get it on; Miguel has it bad for Milena but services Fifine who has it bad for Robert; dear Prudence has it away with Cesar, a man she thought a pig a few hours previously; yawwwwn. And as for the Lie itself: what was the point in it, in revealing it, in ignoring it? It was extremely well-made and got the languid ambiance over perfectly but apart from that the only point I could see in it was that I was watching six sex-mad human animals in a precise arty romp for precisely no reason at all.