6/10
Overlong Spanish/French/Italian co-production with great cast and nice production design
1 April 2023
An ordinary foundry worker called Horty : Olivier Martinez wins a strongman contest and his prize is a trip to Southampton to see the launch of the Titanic. In England, Marie : Aitana Sanchez Gijon , saying she is a chambermaid on the Titanic and cannot get a room, asks to share his room. They do, chastely; when he awakens, she is gone, but he sees her at the sailing and gets a photo of her. When ship sinks in 1912 and chambermaid probably dies, his story gains popularity. But lie always has its price. When he returns home, he suspects that his wife Zoe : Romane Bohringer, has been sleeping with Simeon, the foundry owner. Horty goes to the bar, where his friends get him drunk and he starts telling his past incidents and gradually beginning to believe his own lies about his passionate escapade. There was more than one love story on the Titanic !.

A romantic and slow-moving drama based upon the novel by Didier Decoin about the erotic fantasy of what happened our starring and Marie , as he becomes a story teller drawing a larger audience each night , while he fakes a love story between him and the chambermaid from RMS Titanic. The peculiar filmmaker Bigas Luna (Jamon Jamon, Yo Soy La Juani) directs this co-production starring Olvier Martinez (Unfaithful), Aitana Sánchez Gijón (La Carta Esferica) and Romane Bohringer (Vigo) . Passable interpretation from Olivier Martinez as Horty, a French foundry worker who wins a contest and is sent to see the sailing of the Titanic while meets a beautiful chambermaid called Maria, finely performed by Aitana Sánchez Gijón, with whom he shares the hotel room .

The motion picture was decently directed by Bigas Luna , following his particular style , though displays a number of flaws and gaps. He often uses in his films twisted events , erotic scenes and surrealist images. Luna was a Bon Vivant who along with his wife, produced wine, ham, and organic products ; they are well shown in his films . In 1990 producer Andrés Vicente Gómez persuaded him to return to cinema and entrusted to him the direction of Las Edades De Lulú (The Ages of Lulu), an erotic drama about a young woman exploring extreme sexual practices , this was a commercial success . Without abandoning his dedication to painting and photography, reflected in numerous exhibitions, he began the well-known "Iberian Trilogy" with Jamón Jamón ("Ham, Ham", 1992), Huevos de Oro ("Golden Balls", 1993) and La Teta y La Luna ("The Tit and the Moon", 1994). Jamón Jamón, which launched the careers of both Javier Bardem and the 16-year-old Penélope Cruz was a major international success and won the Silver Lion at Venice in 1992. Cruz returned in Volavérunt (1999), a film about the relationship between Francisco Goya and the Duchess of Alba . This film ¨La femme de chambre du Titanic (1997)¨ is stylishly photographed and smartly designed and here Bigas Luna delivers his ordinary and erotic goods in cool sense of style . Rating : 5.5/10 . Acceptable and passable but a bit boring.
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