Kiss Me (Embrasse-moi) 35 years old

Kiss Me

The first film shot by legendary cinematographer Darius Khondji and anchored by a heartbreaking performance by Sophie Rochut, EMBRASSE-MOI is a slice-of-life drama about Louise, an 12-year-old girl left to her own devices over the summer following her parents’ divorce. Her mother is a renowned concert pianist, anxious to begin a second life free of entanglements. Her father is a workaholic industrialist, distracted to the point of denial about the collapse of his marriage. Rosier’s command of her cast is impossible to deny, as is the brave unsentimentality of EMBRASSE-MOI’s approach: Louise clocks her mother’s newer, younger lover in one brazen panning shot across his naked body. While Rosier denied any autobiographical interpretations of EMBRASSE-MOI, it’s hard not to read at least a kinship between Louie’s solitude and the filmmaker’s own relationship with her famous mother Hélène Gordon-Lazareff (founder of Elle) and stepfather Pierre Lazareff, who adopted Michèle as his own.

Credits

Kiss Me Cast

Name Character
Yann Collette He was 32, now 67 years old as Le voyageur
Patrick Chesnais He was 41, now 77 years old as Pierre - le père
Isabelle Sadoyan She was 60, 89 years old when she died as Mamy Gaby
Dominique Valadié She was 37, now 72 years old as Nora - la mère
Philippe Clévenot He was 46, 59 years old when he died as L'accordeur

Kiss Me Crew

Name Department
Darius Khondji as Cinematography. He was 33 (now 68) years old Crew
Aldo Romano as Original Music Composer. He was 48 (now 83) years old Sound
Kiss Me poster
Kiss Me (35 years)

  • Release day: Wednesday, March 15, 1989
  • Runtime: 93 minutes