A mind-boggling array of French actresses populates 8 Women (8 femmes), a stylized combination of murder mystery, pop musical, and drawing room comedy adapted from a play by thriller writer Robert Thomas (Trap for a Lonely Man). Continuing his apparent pursuit to explore every film genre imaginable, director François Ozon perfectly captures the look of a '50s Technicolor opus from Hollywood while instilling the film with a cockeyed sense of class and humor that's unmistakably continental.

One snowy morning, young Suzon (La cérémonie's Virginie Ledoyen) returns to her isolated family estate for Christmas to join her mother Gaby (Catherine Deneueve), her aunt Augustine (Isabelle Huppert), little sister Catherine (Water Drops on Burning Rocks' Ludivine Sagnier, almost unrecognizable), and her father, who is inconveniently discovered murdered in his bed. With the phone lines cut and the car unable to start, the women find themselves trapped in the house and playing detective. Others in attendance include the wheelchair-bound grandmother (Danielle Darrieux), two secretive maids (Emmanuelle Béart and Firmine Richard), and arriving suspiciously late on the scene, the deceased's black sheep sister, the free-spirited and sultry Pierrette (Fanny Ardant). While not busy puzzling over the crime, each woman pauses for her own musical reverie to express herself, but that's not enough to prevent a string of catfights, lesbian clinches, and dramatic revelations which culminate in a final, tragic twist ending.

8 Women will be of great amusement to fans of French cinema who rarely get the opportunity to see these legends assembled in the same room, doing what they do best. Huppert has the juiciest role as the repressed, tweed-clothed spinster, who naturally undergoes a crowd-pleasing transformation in the third act. Fortunately each performer gets the spotlight at least once, with the always beguiling Béart performing a saucy rendition of the '80s pop standard, "Pile ou face (Heads or Tails)." In fact, each song originated as a famililar ballad or pop song from the '60s or '70s, which makes this something of a stylistic cousin to Moulin Rouge (and in visual terms, Far from Heaven).

Exploding with color from the (literally) flowery opening credits, this is a rich visual experience which surprisingly loses little in the transition to DVD. In fact, the anamorphic transfer looks even more vivid than the theatrical prints (saddled in the U.S. with an inexplicable R rating) and stands up to the best of Warner's MGM musical restorations. Every shot in the film is designed with immaculate care (think The Umbrellas of Cherbourg married to All that Heaven Allows), and the aesthetic scheme often threatens to completely obliterate the plot chugging along in the background. The 5.1 audio isn't as showy, mostly channeling the music to the front speakers with mild bleed-through to the rears. While the American disc from Universal looks top notch and affords the only opportunity to watch the film on DVD with English subtitles, it's depressingly devoid of extras aside from a servicable American trailer. It's a pedestrian package considering the high retail price, and even worse, the large yellow subtitles are burned in; if you want to watch the musical numbers without subs or have a 4:3 set and wish the subtitles were in the lower letterbox band, well, you're out of luck.

In France the film exists in no less than two DVD editions, a double-disc set and a four-disc set. Disc one includes the movie itself (in DTS or 5.1), along with an audio commentary (in French only) with Ozon, Ardant, Sagnier, script supervisor Agathe Grau, and producer Dominique Besnehard. On the second disc, the centerpiece is a one hour documentary which begins with the elaborate set construction and goes through the filming process. Even for those who can't speak a syllable of French, the docu offers some nice moments of levity including Ozon's deer wrangling during the opening shot, Deneuve and Ardant passively puffing on ciggies while watching the stunt doubles for their big catfight, and other sundry behind the scenes bonbons. Also included are eight video interviews with the actresses, screen tests (which play more like fashion demos), a deleted opening scene with the two maids discussing the members of the household, footage from the film's premiere, a press conference with the cast and director at the Berlin International Film Festival, a lengthy promo reel designed for international saleas, an elegant teaser (scored with John Zorn music!), a delicious gallery of poster art, and two music videos, Deneuve's "Toi Jamais" and Sagnier's "Papa, t'es plus dans le coup." Perhaps best of all is a riotous outtake reel, which finds the actresses repeatedly flubbing their musical numbers. It's strange and somehow reassuring to see such class acts as Deneuve and Huppert tripping over their lines while remaining thoroughly poised.

So, that's it for the two-disc set. In the quadruple platter edition (housed in a fuzzy pink and red slipcase, of course), the third disc kicks off with a 130-minute version of the original play recorded onstage and broadcast on French television in 1972. The program's vintage results in a bland and often smeary appearance, but it's interesting to compare the original (non-musical) work to the Ozonified film, which added all of the kittenish (bi)sexuality and camp elements. For French pop nuts there's a terrific selection of six of the song's earlier versions, mostly lifted from French TV programs. For the record, the songs are Françoise Hardy's "Message Personnel," an amazingly kitschy disco version of "A quoi sert de vivre libre" by Nicoletta, Dalida's "Pour ne pas vivre seul," Jane Mason's "Toi Jamais" (excerpted from a film), Georges Brassens' "Il n'y a pas d'amour heureux" (which incidentally was later covered by Hardy, twice!), and the most memorable of the batch, a rousing version of "Pile ou face" by Corinne Charby. The disc is rounded off with a French TV interview with Deneueve, Ardant, and Ozon for a local news program. The fourth disc is the soundtrack CD, which contains all of the songs along with Krishna Lévy's appropriately lush music score.

Color, 1994-98, 61 mins. / Directed by François Ozon / Starring Bruno Slagmulder, Sebastien Charles, Margot Abascal, François Delaive, Jacques Martial, Camille Japy

Format: DVD - Kim Stim (MSRP $24.95)/ Letterboxed (1.66:1)

One of the most consistently inventive and interesting directors of the "new" French cinema, François Ozon first made a name for himself with a series of shocking, unpredictable short films before embarking on a feature film career with 1998's Sitcom, a devilish mixture of grotesque horror, social satire, and John Waters style shock humor. Working at a furious pace, he has since churned out Criminal Lovers (a macabre, sexualized updating of Hansel and Gretel), Water Drops on Burning Rocks (an adaptation of a Fassbinder play), Under the Sand (Charlotte Rampling's 2001 comeback vehicle), and the upcoming 8 Women. For those curious to see where it all started, this collection of four short films offers a good introduction to his work, though the easily offended should approach with caution.

The earliest film, 1994's "Action Vérité (Truth or Dare)," is a funny, jolting five minute piece in which four teenagers (two boys, two girls) sit on the floor and play the title game, culminating in an unforgettable punchline. "La Petite Morte (The Little Death)" (1995), the strongest narrative piece, concerns a young man named Paul (François Delaive) who resents his father and passes the time with his lover (Jaques Martial) by collecting pictures of people at the height of orgasm. His sister Camille (Camille Japy) arrives to tell Paul to tell him that their father has died; how he responds and his subsequent discoveries form the crux of the plot, with more than a few twists along the way.

Exactly what its name implies, "Scènes de Lit (Bed Scenes)" (1997) presents seven couples of various configurations engaging in a variety of pillow talk, ranging from the erotic to the blatantly absurd, with each separated by a new title and cast list. Finally, the enigmatic "X2000" (1998) follows a hungover man (Bruno Slagmulder) awakening on New Year's Day, 2000, observing a pair of couples both during and following coitus, and pondering the existence of ants which swarm beneath his trash can and onto his foot. Though crammed with nudity, the eight minute short is fairly anti-erotic in nature, feeling more like a hazy late morning daydream than a real film.

Despite the short running times, these films offer a decent approximation of Ozon's skewed sense of humor and his ability to approach potentially repulsive subject matter with an odd impartiality. Though his visuals are rarely deliberately flashy, he exhibits a keen photographic eye and an ability to use editing and cinematic rhythm to create his own distinct voice as a director. Love him or hate him, there's thankfully no one else around quite like him. Another good collection of his films, See the Sea (containing the title film and "My Summer Dress"), is available from New Yorker, who should really get around to releasing it on DVD along with Sitcom one of these days.

The video quality on Kim Stim's DVD varies wildly depending on the source material. "X2000," the most recent of the bunch, looks quite fine and sharply transferred, but otherwise this is a mostly mixed bag in which the dullness of 16mm black definition results in some noticeable compression problems. Considering the brief running time of the entire program, the bit rate could have been much higher. However, if you can find it at a discount lower than the somewhat steep pricetag, this is a worth picking up (or at least renting) for a truly unique viewing experience from a talent well worth watching.