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While the Paint Dries

While the Paint Dries

La Piscine, 1968

Henry Giardina
Oct 02, 2023
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Less Art
Less Art
While the Paint Dries
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About halfway through La Piscine, I found myself marveling at how boring it was. This is what people call a thriller1? The pacing felt placid, the dialogue pointless. Was this, I wondered, about to end up the way so many 60s movies do, a boring celebration of hot bodies?

And then it happened: the point when La Piscine flips from boring to fascinating, from being a brain-numbing parade of beautiful bodies in bathing suits to a study in cowardice. I should have known: if you name your movie “The Pool,” it’s only a matter of time before someone ends up getting drowned.

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