by MATTHEW HAYS

Being a huge fan of François Ozon’s work, I was somewhat taken aback to meet him last year at the Toronto International Film Festival. There hocking his latest film, the sublimely crazy murder mystery 8 Femmes, Ozon was reluctant to answer a question I posed.

“Do you feel that being gay gives you a better ability to portray female characters?” I asked, thinking the question wasn’t a big deal. “Who says I’m homosexual?” he snapped back. “This is a very American thing, this labelling,” he said, apparently never having heard of Jean Genet or Michel Foucault. “I’m neither homosexual nor heterosexual. I’m sexual.”

So Ozon’s a bit of a pretentious snot bag. He is a great filmmaker, and that remains unquestioned with his latest film, Swimming Pool, notably his first foray into English-language filmmaking. A clever and taut movie about the strange evolution of the relationship between two very different women, the feature couldn’t be further away from the musical mystery antics found in 8 Femmes.

Charlotte Rampling is cast as a repressed British writer (she pens best-selling pulp mystery novels) whose agent suggests she overcome her latest bout of writer’s block by heading off to his gorgeous summer retreat in France. She does so, only to find that her agent’s French daughter (one Rampling didn’t know existed, played by Ludivine Sagnier) also has plans to hang out at the vacation spot. Frosty Brit Rampling is none too pleased at having to share the space with the sultry young Sagnier, and makes her distaste perfectly clear.

Initially, Ozon plays the two women’s relationship up for laughs. He employs stereotypes perfectly, with Rampling playing crusty and Sagnier playing a young, sexually rampant adventurer. Ultimately, their identities begin to almost merge, as Rampling finds herself unendingly fascinated with Sagnier, to the point of obsession. She’s found just the thing to light up her latest book, drawing on her young object of affection for inspiration.

What emerges feels almost like a Persona lite, an intriguing little film about identity and the complex relationship that grows between two women who couldn’t be more different. Beautifully acted, unusually written, with Swimming Pool, Ozon has scored again.

Swimming Pool opens Friday, July 11 at Ex-Centris

>> Movie Listings