SEVENTH HEAVEN (1997)

French writer-director Benoit Jacquot follows his arrestingly perceptive 1995 film, A Single Girl, with an equally intense, artful study of the seesawing sexual dynamics between psychologically troubled Mathilde (Sandrine Kiberlain, who specializes in projecting there-but-not-there) and her casually patronizing surgeon/husband, Nico (Vincent Lindon, her real-life spouse). As long as Mathilde remains in a fog, troubled by fainting spells, kleptomania, and an inability to enjoy sex, Nico feels potent and satisfied. But once a mysterious doctor (Francois Berleand) frees her -- through dubious psychology and unnerving personal magnetism -- to enjoy the ''seventh heaven'' of full, erotic selfhood, her husband reacts with fear, jealousy, and anger, switching roles with his blossoming wife. Jacquot's exceptional psychological understanding (particularly of women) is matched by an adventurous (if sometimes distractingly disembodied) filmmaking style: He assembles short scenes that feel still, clean, and inevitable, while his characters move through moments of profound, violent emotional upheaval that neither they -- nor the audience -- can take in at once.

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