See the Sea (1997)

If a filmmaker is determined to cast a mesmerizing and menacing spell upon his audience and he is maverick French director François Ozon, he can get the job done in under an hour. One of the most accomplished and acclaimed short films of the past century, See the Sea (1997) packs an epic quantity of suspense, sexual tension and creepy-crawly fascination into its 52 minutes. The story starts with a brooding and lonely single mother lolling with child in her beach resort cottage, awaiting the arrival of her husband from Pairs. Enter a brazen back-packer girl who sets up camp adjacent to the mother’s cottage. Is the attraction between the two mutual? Has seduction crossed over to invasion? How fragile is the barrier between the lust to possess and the desire to destroy? The questions raised by See the Sea are arousing, unsettling and lingering.